The Origins of Pop Music

These artists push the boundaries of what is considered “avian grade,” “cool”, and “hip” and constantly re-invent the medium. For this reason, pop music has helped make the music industry a multi-billion dollar a year business, one whose influence is reflected highly in all forms of today’s media including film, video games, TV, and the internet Pop music is also a cultural force that resonates throughout the world, touching people and societies in ways those governments or politics cannot.Pop music began with the publication of sheet music. In the mid- to late 19th century, many homes in America had as their “entertainment center” a piano. This instrument served as a social gathering spot for many families and often as the first instrument many children learned to play.

Sheet music, which transcribed note-for-note many orchestral or symphonic scores for easy reading, sold briskly all over the country. For those families who desired to have piano music in their homes but had no one to play it, player pianos were invented.

This device allowed the user to insert a cylindrical roll “punched” with the notes of a tune into a cavity of a specially equipped piano that would then strike levers within the instrument and “play” back the keys without anyone touching them. Publishers of sheet music set up companies to meet the demand of those siring their products, and would often scout out new composers and have their music made available in printed form for sale. This was the beginning of the music publishing industry as we know it today.When pianos gave way to the phonograph around the beginning of the 20th century, popular renditions of music followed with them. Now instead of relying on mere piano music to provide entertainment, families could now hear what was then considered an accurate reproduction of an entire performance.

Phonograph records allowed anyone–city dweller or farmer; rich man or poor ?to enjoy music cheaply and conveniently. This opened new markets for music that would appeal to popular tastes, and the music industry began to expand in leaps and bounds.By the mid sass, a new form of music began to infiltrate the American social fabric. Whereas before most “pop” music centered on classical music, church hymns, and Civil War era ballads, this new music called “jazz” began to bring a peculiar rhythmic beat to the scene that was Chocking and Oaring to behold. “Jazz” music was a uniquely African beat developed and nurtured by Black musicians in the south, east, and mid-west. Jazz music?and later another African-derived art form called “blues”–soon helped transform the music that was heard–and those who were hearing it. Pop music now had begun to reflect more of the true multi-cultural fabric and diversity of America, but despite this glaring fact, many in the music industry tried to segregate the music by labeling jazz and blues with the derogatory title of “race music”, or music that was created by or appealed primarily to Blacks, and everything else as “pop”, for music that appealed primarily to whites.

(Years later, the term “rhythm and blues” or ” R&B” was chosen as a sees-offensive way to describe music for and from the Black community. Yet despite the artificial barriers imposed upon it, music continued to grow, further blurring any lines of demarcation. Musicians whom many considered as “pop” musicians began to “borrow” heavily from the jazz and blues rhythms around them. By the early ass’s, this cultural and musical intermingling resulted in a new music called Clock and [email protected] Rock and roll helped make American music?and the American music industry-into today’s global phenomenon.Early rock pioneers like Eke Turner ND the Kings of Rhythm, Bob Diddled, Muddy Waters, Louis Jordan, and Little Richard set a pace that artists like Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Bill Haley, Elvis Presley and others imitated and emulated to an even greater degree of success, spurring on years later the ascension of such global acts as The Beetles, The Rolling Stones, The Yardarms, Cream, The Who, Manfred Mann, Led Zeppelin, and others. Pop music in the ass’s ass’s and ass’s morphed even further as Disco, Acid rock, Dance, and Techno all contributed their influence. But perhaps no greater influence on pop music has occurred than that of Rap.