Model Music Curriculum - Genres
Find out a little about the various genres of music in the Model Music Curriculum.
Some thumbnail sketches to provide background information and perhaps inspire further research or discussion.
Genres
Blues originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s and the abolition of slavery.
It incorporated spirituals, work songs, 'field hollers', shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture.
Blues can be found in the roots of jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock, characterised by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blues shuffles or walking bass lines reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as 'the groove'. Many elements, such as the call-and-response format, can be traced back to the music of Africa.
The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community, the spirituals.
Jazz is a musical genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime.
Jazz is characterised by 'swing' and 'blue notes', complex chords, call and response, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythms. In the 1940s, a more complicated style called 'Bebop' developed, moving jazz away from being danceable, popular music.
Many different styles have emerged since the 1950s, including 'hard Bop', 'modal' and 'free' jazz', 'jazz-rock', 'fusion' 'Afro-Cuban', 'smooth' jazz, and so on.
Rock & Roll originated in the southern United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, from a blend of various 'black' musical styles of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, and the 'white' country and western music.
The American radio DJ Alan Freed began playing R&B records on his show in 1951 - a time when there was still racial segregation in some of the Southern states, and the records were what was called "race music" - and is credited for first using the term 'rock & roll'.
Debate surrounds what may have been 'the first rock and roll record'. "The House of Blue Lights" by Ella Mae Morse and Freddie Slack (1946), Wynonie Harris's "Good Rocking Tonight" (1948), Jimmy Preston's "Rock the Joint"(1949) and "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (1951) are all nominees, but it can be argued that it was when the recordings made by white boys like Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, and Bill Haley & His Comets are what made rock & roll so popular.
Listen to some rock & roll here
Listen to some more rock & roll here
Pop is a very vague term to describe what could be literally any form of music that is popular.
More specifically though, it can be applied to the more commercial music that would be found in the form of a 'single' - a vinyl record that unlike an 'album', usually had only one song on either side - which would (hopefully) appear in the weekly pop charts. Despite occasional exceptions, the pop charts were filled with records that were short, catchy and aimed at the younger end of the record-buying public and frequently featured lightweight songs about teenage romance.
Since they first appeared in the 1950s, the pop charts have included many different genres of music, usually in a 'cleaned-up' form for wider appeal.
Pop music has often been considered inferior to other genres such as jazz, rock and classical; by the 1970s many 'serious' artists would try to distance themselves from 'pop', viewing it as commercial and having no artistic value... not that many would refuse the benefits of having a hit single.
Listen to some pop music here
Listen to some more pop music here
Funk originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music.
It introduced a focus on the rhythm section of prominent electric bass, the drums often played complex patterns, locking with the bass to create danceable 'grooves'. The name (from an 18th century word meaning 'musty' oor 'earthy') can be traced to the early 1900s when jazz musicians used it to refer to something 'deeeply felt' or 'an exquisite performance'.
James Brown can take credit for funk as a genre, coming up with a style that included not only elements of jazz as well as soul and R&B.
Towards the end of the 1960s, bands like Sly and The Family Stone, combined elements of pop, soul and rock with heavy funk, whilst Parliament and Funkadelic added a heavy dose of psychedelia to create 'P-funk'. Funk continued to develop throughout the 70s, with bands like Kool and The Gang, The Fatback Band and Graham Central Station all having their own styles.
Disco is a form of dance music.The name is short for "Discothèque", a place where people would go to dance - originally a type of nightclub that evolved in Paris during the Nazi occupation.
The disco sound is typified by 'four-on-the-floor' beats with emphatic 'hi-hat lifts', syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric piano, synthesizers, and electric rhythm guitars.
In many ways, disco was a reaction to and against the rock music of the late 60s and early 70's (and the culture around it) that was becoming much too serious (see 'Pop'!), and as a result, disco music features almost no guitar solos.
By the end of the 1970s, following the success of the film 'Saturday Night Fever' and it's soundtrack, disco was incredibly popular, producing a backlash from fans of rock and 'more serious' music.
80s Synth-Pop - also known as electro- or techno-pop - is a style of pop music that uses synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers in place of usual instruments.
It's roots are in the experimental electronic music of the late '60s and early '70s, particularly Silver Apples, Wendy Carlos and Kraftwerk, whose single 'Autobahn' from 1974, became a pop hit, and was very influential on British groups like Ultravox, The Human League and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark.
Another huge influence was the disco song 'I Feel Love' by Donna Summer, from 1977. The producer, Giorgio Moroder, recorded the song entirely using synthesizers and analogue sequencers.
Listen to some 80s Synth-Pop here
Listen to some more 80s Synth-Pop here
A singer/songwriter is a singer who writes and performs their own songs, usually playing an acoustic guitar or piano. The songs' lyrics are often confessional, inward-looking or making political statements or commenting on society.
Early 20th folk and blues performers often wrote their own songs, as did later country and western artists.
Bob Dylan emerged as the biggest star of the 'folk revival' of the 1960s. He has influenced many musicians with his songwriting style - his 'poetic' lyrics liberated songwriters from the burden of writing songs about teenage love!
By the 1970s, singer/songwriters were very popular, and a commercially successful product. Singer-songwriters never went away. The 1990s saw many female performers coming to the fore (although there have always been female singer-songwriters), using various musical forms such as rock, country and western, pop, etc., etc.
Listen to a 90s Singer/Songwriter here
Listen to another 90s Singer/Songwriter here
90s RnB - or 'Contemporary R&B' - is a dancefloor-friendly combination of rhythm and blues with elements of pop, soul, funk, hip hop, and electronic music.
The genre features a distinctive record production style and a smooth, lush style of vocal arrangement. Electronic influences and the use of hip hop or dance-inspired beats are typical. At one point it was known as 'hip hop soul' after recordings by Mary J. Blige and Sean Coombs.
R&B singers (famously Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston) often use a technique called 'melisma'.
Listen to some 90's RnB here
Listen to some more 90's RnB here
Art Pop is a term that has been applied to musicians who are creating music that is not necessarily aimed at the commerciality of the pop charts.Art pop is not a style of music, but a way of categorising artists who may not fit any particular genre, or have indeed produced many different styles of music.
The Beatles and The Beach Boys famously began using the recording studio to experiment with new ways of creating music that was no longer 'pop', but something much more serious: it was art! Many musicians rapidly followed suit.
In America, The Velvet Underground were closely involved with the artist Andy Warhol (a leading figure in the Pop! Art movement), creating music that was very uncommercial, but very original. At the time they were not a commercial success, but they have influenced many musicians since, including David Bowie, Brian Eno, Talking Heads and Wet, Wet, Wet.
Listen to some Art Pop here
Listen to some more Art Pop here
'Indie' comes from the 1980s, a collective term coined to describe music being issued on independent record labels. Many of these had appeared during the 1970s, particularly during - and because of - the 'punk era'.
'Indie' music comes in many forms, but because of it's origins in self-produced records by (usually) young and un-signed groups, it generally describes guitar-based music. As a result, indie can be punky, jangly, loud, gentle, 60's-influenced, avant-garde, retro, cutting-edge, danceable, UN-danceable, and so on.
In the 90s, British indie was very diverse, but from elements of the neo-psychedelic 'shoegaze' and the dancy 'Madchester' scenes, emerged 'Brit-pop'. American indie by this time was producing more rock-based but equally diverse music from the likes of Nirvana, Pavement, Olivia Tremor Control, Sebadoh etc.
Listen to some 90's Indie here
Listen to some more 90's Indie here
Musical Traditions
Samba is a broad term for many of the rhythms that compose the better known Brazilian music genres that originated in Afro-Brazilian communities in the late 19th century and early 20th century. It is considered one of the most important cultural phenomena in Brazil, and one of the country's symbols.
Having its roots in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé cult (as well as other Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous folk traditions) samba was criminalized by the Brazilian government. It was a distinctly Afro-Brazilian musical genre, that brought people together in community and celebration, but that,
and all that drumming, to the Brazilian elite was threatening. Samba therefore became an underground movement, defying the government. However, by the early 1900s, samba had emerged as an important part of what has become the Brazilian Carnival.
Listen to some samba music here
Listen to some more samba music here
Gamelan is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia.
It is mostly played on percussive instruments. There are hand-drums that keep a beat, and an array of 'metallophones' - instruments made of metal. Other instruments used nclude xylophones, bamboo flutes and stringed instruments, and also vocalists.
In Javanese mythology, the gamelan was created by Sang Hyang Guru, the god who ruled as king of all Java in AD 230, as they needed a signal to summon the other gods. However, images of a recognisable gamelan orchestra have been found in 9th century art, proving it's ancient origins. The gamelan orchestra is known to have existed in it's current form since medieval times.
Listen to some gamelan music here
Listen to some more gamelan music here
Indian classical music is based on 'ragas'. A raga can be most simply (?) described as a set of melodies which the musician will improvise around, following 'musical rules' that are specific to the specific raga being played.
Since the 15th century, Indian Classical music has had two forms: the North Indian 'Hindustani', which was very influenced by Persian and Arabic music, and South Indian 'Carnatic', which was not.
Carnatic music is mostly written to be sung, and even when played on instruments, they are played in a style to emulate singing. Hidustani music, whilst also having vocal performances, has always incorporated instrumentation, many of which (such as the sitar and sarod) evolved from Persian instruments.
Listen to some Indian classical music here
Listen to some more Indian classical music here
What we refer to as Bhangra, is a musical style originating in the UK, based on Sikh Punjabi folk music, but using more modern, Western song structures and instruments. Listen to some bhangra here
Calypso is a style of Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago during the early to the mid-19th century, especially after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1832. The music has influences from various African, Central American and Carribean traditional music. Listen to some calypso here
Nigerian drumming is based on the Yoruba drumming tradition, with a characteristic use of 'dundun' drums. Listen to some African drumming here
A tango is a dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the border between Argentina and Uruguay, and has influences from African and European culture. Listen to some tango music here
South African choral music came to international notice following the appearance of the group Ladysmith Black Mambazo on Paul Simon's album 'Graceland'. Listen to some South African choral music here
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival.
The 'Middle East' covers a lot of territory! However, despite this, much of the music of the lands that surround the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas has a lot in common; the region is home to ancient civilisations, who would trade, conquer and colonise, spreading their influence and absorbing others. Listen to some Middle Eastern folk music here
English folk music is very diverse. There are songs that are associated with sailors, industrial workers, agriculture, as well as history and legend. Listen to some English folk music here
Between 1772 and 1918, Poland was divided and occupied by the powers of Russia, Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Listen to some Polish folk music here
Describing music prior to the Renaissance, 'Early' generally refers to music of the medieval period - between the 6th and 16th centuries. Listen to some early music here
Renaissance music is traditionally understood to cover European music of the 15th and 16th centuries, from the rise of triadic harmony and the contenance angloise style from Britain to the adoption of basso continuo at the beginning of the Baroque period. Listen to some Renaissance music here
The baroque period lasted (roughly) between 1600 and 1750 and was mostly European in origin. Listen to some baroque music here
Classical music generally refers to the 'art' music of the Western world, as opposed to folk or popular music traditions. Listen to some baroque music here Romantic
Tchaikovsky was commissioned to write a piece to commemorate the completion of a cathedral in Moscow, the 25th Jubilee of Tsar Alexander II and the 70th Anniversary of the 1812 defeat of Napoleon's army at Moscow, to be performed at The All-Russia Arts and Industry Exhibition in Moscow in 1882. Romantic
Written by the Russian Modest Mussogsky in 1867, Night On A Bare Mountain is an example of a tone/symphonic poem - a piece of music - usually consisting of one movement - composed to try to create a certain mood and convey narrative for the listener to experience. as they would a book, pcture or poem 20th Century
Maurice Ravel wrote 'Bolero' in 1928 for the dancer Ida Rubinstein. It was written in C Major for a large orchestra 20th Century
Coleridge-Taylor was born in London in 1875, the son of an English mother and a black African father. At the age of 23 he premiered the First Movement of his musical interpretation of 'The Song of Hiawatha', by the American poet Longfellow. 20th Century
The deeply patriotic British Composer Ralph Vaughan Williams based this suite on the melodies of nine English folk songs. 20th Century
The British composer Gustav Holst began writing his 'The Planets' suite in 1914. 20th Century
Britten’s ‘Ceremony Of Carols’ was written in 1942, during a sea voyage from the USA to Britain. The carols use lyrics taken from ‘The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems’, edited by Gerald Bullett and are mostly in Middle English, with some in Latin or Early Modern English. 20th Century
In 1978, English composer John Rutter took the first four stanzas of ‘For The Beauty Of The Earth’ - an 1864 hymn by Folliott Sandford Pierpoint that reflected the poet’s joy at witnessing ‘the beauty of creation’ – and set them into two choral arrangements with accompaniments by keyboard or small orchestra. 21st Century
Written for the hit film Slumdog Millionaire, , ‘Jai Ho’ draws on very eclectic styles and influences. The song was composed using the Logic Pro sequencing program, and software-based electronic instruments and samples. 21st Century
Anna Meredith is a British composer and performer, born in 1978. She writes for instruments and orchestras and also creates and performs electronic music. Her style uses many types of musical influences. 21st Century
A piece using just body percussion and voice to create a complex rhythms, ‘Connect It’ was written in 2015 for a BBC project called ‘Ten Pieces’ for UK primary schools. 21st Century
British-born Anna Clyne wrote this 20-minute piece for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2012. Her compositional technique involved the creation of seven large paintings, using the paintings to help with writing the music, and letting the music influence her painting.
Bhangra traditionally is a Punjabi dance form and music based around the double-ended Dhol drum; modern bhangra can be identified by it's use of dhol, dholak, tumbi drums.
Listen to some more bhangra here
During the 1920s and 30s, calypso became a way of spreading information round Trinidad, and was considered to be one of the most reliable news sources, as well as a method of making political comments. Many popular calypso recordings were songs with lyrics that dealt with social or political issues, often in protest against the colonial government of the time.
Listen to some more calypso here
Ensembles using dundun drums play a type of music that is also called dundun. These ensembles consist of various sizes of dundun drums, along with kettledrums (gudugudu).
The leader of a dundun ensemble is the iyalu, who uses the drum to "talk" by imitating the tonality of the Yoruba language of Nigeria. Much Yoruba music is spiritual in nature.
Listen to some more African drumming here
Dances from the 'candombe' ceremonies of enslaved Africans, helped shape the modern day tango. The music derived from the fusion of various forms of music from Europe.
The words "tango" and "tambo" were initially used to refer to musical gatherings of slaves, as early as 1789.
The tango became popular around the world in the early 1900s, particularly in Paris - although the dance was considered a little saucy.
Listen to some more tango music here
This particular choral style originated in the 1920s, but is apparently based on a blend of the traditional music of the Zulu people, and American vaudeville shows that were very popular in South Africa around 1860.
Listen to some more South African choral music here
Nowadays, folk music from 'other parts of the world' is often called world music - a term popularised in the 1980s by record companies to more easily market music that does not follow "North American or British pop and folk traditions".
The music of the region often contains quarter-tone intervals (Western music only has semi-tones) which are achieved using the voice and fretless stringed instruments such as the oud and violin.
Listen to some more Middle Eastern folk music here
Different regions of England (including Scotland, as there is much crossover of songs and tunes) often have different styles of song.
English and Scottish folk music was carried to America by settlers in the 17th-19th centuries, and (along with influences from elsewhere - not least the Afro-American banjo) formed the basis for American folk muscic and ultimately bluegrass and country & western.
There was a revival in interest in English folk in the early 1900s, and again after The Second World War; it is thanks to enthusiasts going around the country recording songs (and dances) - either in audio or written form - that we have knowledge of so much English folk music.
In the mid-1960s, musicians began combining folk music with elements of pop and rock, a style which became known as 'folk-rock'.
Listen to some more English folk music here
Polish music dates back to hand written scripts for polyphonic chants from the 13th century.
Polish folk music developed from as accompaniments for dances such as the mazurek, chodzony and pieszy. The mazurka and Polonaise are the most well-known examples.
Two traditional Polish instruments are the suka and the plock fiddle, both types of spike fiddle.
Listen to some more Polish folk music hereThe Western Classical Tradition up to the 1940s
It encompassed religious and secular music from the monophony of plainsong to the fluid polyphony of the madrigal.
During this period music notation began to be developed, at first for religious songs, but secular instrumental composition also began to be written down.
Instruments began to evolve as technology allowed, giving us the hurdy-gurdy, cor anglais, various flutes, the sackbutt - which was an early form of trombone, and numerous ancestors of the guitar such as the lute and cittern.
Listen to some more early music here
Music increasingly used polyphony - melodies using two or more notes at the same time - and chord progressions. And so the basis of Western Classical harmony was born.
Listen to some more Renaissance music here
The name comes from 'Baroco', a form of philosphical thinking, which eventually began to be used for anything that was overly complicated, although describing the music of this period as 'baroque' originated in the 20th century.
Baroque music saw the beginning of ideas about harmony and tonality and the development of musical notation to convey the new ideas.
Baroque music would be performed with the accompaniment of the basso continuo, like a backing group of harpsichord or lute playing chords, with viol, cello and double bass providing the basslines.
Listen to some more baroque music here
The term 'classical' started to be used in 18th-century England, to describe the music that was being performed in the growing concert music scene in London. The term "classical"—or more often "ancient music"—emerged, which was still built on "the principles of formality and excellence." It coincided with the 'neo-Classical' movement in art and architecture.
The Oxford Dictionary defines classical music as "relating to formal European music of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, characterized by harmony, balance, and adherence to established compositional forms".
It was during this period that the now-familiar orchestra began to develop.
Listen to some more baroque music here
The piece, which Tchaikovsky wrote in six weeks in 1880, and first performed at the Exhibition. The Finale begins with with a theme on "La Marseillaise", the French national anthem, which reaches a crescendo, whereupon cannons are fired, the explosions timed with the music!
In fact, Tchaikovsky scored the piece for sixteen cannon, as well as a carillion of bells to represent the church bells of Moscow. These are rung in the build-up to the triumphant section when the remaining cannon are fired, signifying Russia's triumph over Napoleon.
Listen to the song here
In this case it is to convey the events of a witches sabbath as they attempt to summon demons.
The piece was never performed until the 20th century, after Mussorgsky received harsh criticism for his composition.
Listen to the song here
and uses a 3/4 time signature. The song was famously used by ice skaters Torvill and Dean to win a gold medal at the 1984 Winter Olympics and was heard again in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Amusingly, the instrumentation calls for a 'sopranino saxophone in F', an instrument which has never existed.
Listen to the song here
By 1904 he had become successful enough to take his music on tour in America , where he became interested in discovering his ancestry - his father's family had been slaves in America, freed and resettled in Sierra Leone.
'Symphonic Variations on an African Air', composed in 1906, is an orchestral work based on an African-American song, "I'm Troubled In Mind." The work is interestingly structured, with themes and variations and the music is rich typani, brass and lush strings.
Listen to the song here
The piece is split into three movements: March ('Seventeen Come Sunday'), Intermezzo ('My Bonny Boy') and another March ('Fo'lk Songs From Somerset')
The Suite was originally written for a military concert band and was first performed in 1923. Vaughan Williams produced an arrangement for full orchestra the following year.
There is also an arrangement for Brass Band.
Listen to the song here
Each of the planets is given a unique character. Mars was named after the Roman god of war, and the music attempts to describe the reality of war, rather than a celebration.
The music uses powerful rhythmic beats and instrumentation that is often dissonant, to impart a sense of, threat, menace, terror and violence. Ironically, 'Mars' was written before the outbreak of The First World War.
Listen to the song hereThe Western Classical Tradition and Film beyond the 1940s
The arrangements are choral, some with a harp accompaniment. Britten initially intended them to be sung by a children’s choir of soprano and alto voices, but in 1943 published an arrangement for a mixed choir (soprano, alto, tenor and bass).
The lyrics for ‘This Little Babe’ come from ‘Newe Heaven, Newe Warre’, written in 1595 by Robert Southwell, a Jesuit priest who was arrested for treason in 1592 and imprisoned in The Tower of London. The subject matter - a confrontation with the Devil - is therefore not surprising, and he was hanged in February 1595.
Listen to the song here
The arrangements were for a mixed choir of soprano, alto, tenor and bass voices, and another for just soprano and alto voices.
The composition is intended to convey the joy that the poet, Pierpoint, was experiencing and directs the piece to be sung ‘Happily’.
Apparently, the piece 'demonstrates Rutter's characteristics as "lingering around a nostalgic third or fifth of the scale, exercising a catchy phrase in sequences, introducing a little groovy syncopation".’
Listen to the song here
The meaning of the words "Jai ho" is "Let there be victory" making it a song of celebration and joy.
The song incorporates elements of many different World musical styles, fusing pulsing electronic beats with Arabic instruments, Japanese drums, steel guitars and vocals sung in several languages, and so forth.
Listen to the song here
She often uses the techniques of clapping, stamping, shouting and beatboxing instead of traditional instruments.
‘Hands Free’ was her first body-percussion piece, written with David Ogle in 2012. It was premiered by the National Youth Orchestra at the BBC Proms, the Southbank Centre, the Barbican Centre and with flashmob performances on the M6 Services.
It has since been performed by youth orchestras from around the World.
Listen to the song here
The piece uses a wide range of dynamics, which combined with the rhythms creates a great amount of complexity.
Click here for the mp3
The piece comes across as very ominous and spooky due to the choice of ke, and the low tones and erratic sounding melodies
Listen to the song here