musical forms and styles that are generally listened to and performable by persons with little or no musical training; that are commercially marketed; and that are disseminated by mass media. More loosely, popular music can also refer to any musical genre used for entertainment. In its narrower definition, popular music especially encompasses the most widespread forms and styles in Europe and North America; some non-Western cultures, however, possess different genres of popular music.
Music in all these styles circulates primarily by the printed page (sheet music), recordings (disks, tapes, films), and broadcasts (radio, television, public-address systems) and is thus reproducible upon demand. In contrast to popular music, folk music is usually disseminated noncommercially, by word of mouth; and classical music is usually performed by trained musicians and is often noncommercial.
European popular music emerged with 18th-century urbanization and industrialization; it developed distinctive characteristics to meet the tastes of all but the extreme upper or lower class.
Precursors.
In nearly all cultures, some music with popular elements has served for entertainment. In the Middle Ages, secular songs with frivolous or love texts, composed by troubadours and trouvères in France and by minnesingers in Germany, were performed by professional minstrels. In the 15th century, a growing merchant and upper class supported composers of secular vocal part music, such as the chanson in France and the madrigal in Italy; theater music; and instrumental music, notably for lute and keyboard. Even the church embraced secular elements. In the 16th century, Martin Luther set vernacular religious texts to secular melodies; Roman Catholic composers from the 14th century on have written masses on secular tunes; 20th-century gospel songs meet all criteria for popular music.
Music was first printed in multiple copies about 1500; thereafter, the sale and circulation of printed music made wider popularization possible and began to replace private patronage as the chief source of income for composers. Performers, too, gained public patronage with the growth of public concerts in the 18th century. In England, from the 16th century on, itinerant singers sold ballad texts printed as broadsides (loose sheets) to be sung to a familiar tune such as “Greensleeves.”
18th and 19th Centuries.
With the coming of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, the distribution of wealth to a broader level of society allowed more families to purchase musical instruments. Manufacturers began mass-producing instruments in the late 18th century, and the piano and guitar soon became standard commercial products. Songs and arrangements of orchestral and operatic selections were sold as sheet music for the home parlor, and popular songs were introduced in concerts and stage shows. Music became part of the curriculum in public schools. The quantity of music in print increased throughout the 19th century, with publishers in every major city. After about 1880, music publishers in the U.S. were concentrated in New York City, where the district and the music they produced were called “Tin Pan Alley.”
20th Century.
The invention of the phonograph by the American Thomas Edison made music even more accessible in the home, because consumers needed no training to have music on demand. Coin-operated phonographs (forerunners of the jukebox) appeared before 1900, and by World War I many popular entertainers and even concert musicians were making recordings. Radio in the 1920s and television in the late 1940s began broadcasting live and recorded music directly into the home. In public places, sound films after the late 1920s introduced many popular entertainers; and public-address systems were used to broadcast music that was designed to ease stress subconsciously—offering the least objectionable styles possible, although allowing listeners no choice in what they heard.
As the popular music industry expanded, it increasingly involved the financial, legal, and social professions. Composers and publishers sought protection of their commercial rights through copyright and performing-right laws, and professional performers formed unions to protect wages and regulate working conditions. The rise of popular music changed the role of music in daily life. Music in the home, formerly either a diversion of the wealthy elite or a form of folk life, became a customary part of middle-class home life. Song texts came to reflect the fundamental concerns of the family, portraying hope, despair, heroism, humor, frustration, nostalgia, and, above all, love. As cities overtook rural areas in population, popular music styles served psychological needs more strongly as bearers of cultural values and as buffers against the inescapable presence of other people.
Cross-Cultural Influences.
The 20th-century mass media facilitated the mixing of elements among popular, folk, and classical styles as music traveled freely from one part of the world to another. American jazz and black–derived social dances swept Europe during and after World War I. The radio and phonograph introduced European and U.S. styles to Africa, resulting in kwela music in South Africa and highlife in Ghana and Nigeria. In highlife, the ensemble was modeled on British dance bands, and the musical style was borrowed from U.S. jazz. In the 1960s, soul music replaced highlife. In Egypt and the Middle East, the recording industry fostered a pan-Arabic popular vocal style based on traditional folk idioms. Instrumental ensembles in Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands added Western guitars. In India, China, and Japan, European pianos and violins had a great impact, and popular music was increasingly arranged for distribution through films and recordings.
European and U.S. Trends.
In the West, a pan-European style slowly eroded local and national distinctions, as European and U.S. performers cultivated international audiences. In the U.S. an influx of Latin American dances and instruments occurred in the 1930s, and the urban-based folk revival of the 1950s borrowed songs, instruments, and vocal styles from Anglo-American folk music. Opera and operetta provided models for Broadway musicals, and selections from symphonies and ballets became popularized.
The “baby boom” and concomitant emphasis on youth culture following World War II produced a large teenage market that overwhelmed adult tastes. A new dominant genre developed: rock and roll, which amalgamated elements from two other popular genres, white country and western music and black rhythm and blues.
Style and Format.
Some pieces of popular music (“standards”) have become exceptionally familiar across several generations. With performers and public demanding fresh material, however, and publishers finding it profitable to advertise increasing numbers of pieces, the majority of items created have been ephemeral. The media have sometimes determined the format of popular music; since lengthy works are not readily purchased and since bulky items are more costly for dealers to handle, sheet music usually has only about six pages, and single recordings are only two and a half or three minutes long.
Each popular song or instrumental piece is arranged to conform with one of various styles, such as country, jazz, soul, gospel, rock, Jamaican reggae, or a Broadway tune. Each style’s characteristics are conveyed in the text (if the piece is a song) and in the musical elements of instrumentation, rhythm, melody, texture, harmony, and vocal style. Some examples of the musical elements follow.
1. Instrumentation—South Sea music uses Hawaiian steel guitars; early rock and roll, the saxophone.
2. Rhythm—some kinds of rock set voices against rapid guitar and drum rhythms; “disco” music has repetitive, danceable rhythms; “easy listening” orchestral music has slow rhythms with light accents.
3. Melody—“acid” rock has angular lines with wide intervals and abrupt breaks; gospel and country music have narrow ranges and more repetition.
4. Texture—in some jazz, each instrument has a different line; in “easy listening” music, chord-based arrangements blend all parts and emphasize the melody.
5. Harmony—gospel music uses a few chords, repeated in patterns; some rock and jazz have complex aggregates of notes following no pattern.
6. Vocal style—country emphasizes lower ranges, husky timbres, and nasality; singers of “standard” and show tunes employ more open, resonant vocal production.
