A Journey to the Western Music

Throughout history all cultures have been influenced by music. Before the Baroque era in music there were many forms of western music. Most of this music was monophonic, sung in chant used mostly for religious purposes. During the previous millennia most music was sung in chant form with very little accompaniment, save a harp or a violin. In these times music was a simple art, sung by the people to praise the Lord. Eventually polyphonic music developed, first starting as monophonic chant, and later polyphonic music was created. During this time the music notation system was standardized, originally a modified Greek system; music notation evolved into the notation that is used today. Having the use of music notation set the foundation for Baroque music and for all music after that.

In the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century the Baroque style of music started in Italy. Italy, where the renaissance started, was able to create a new type of music rich in feeling. In the seventeenth century a famous and a genius composer was born in Salzburg, Austria. His name was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who composed more than six hundred compositions including his famous works that are widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. Mozart is among the most popular classical composers. Mozart once said –
“Music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.”

After Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, a famous German composer and a pianist was born. Beethoven's personal life was troubled. In his late twenties he began to lose his hearing, and yet continued to produce notable masterpieces throughout his life. Beethoven also radically redefined the symphony of Mozart. Both Mozart and Beethoven is milestone in the field of music. Both had a unique style of composing.

Gradually different artist invented different style of composing music. This is popularly known as musical genre. A music genre is a division of music that share a certain style or "basic musical language". Music may also be categorized by non-musical factors such as geographical origin. Categorizing music, especially into finer genres or subgenres, can be difficult for newly emerging styles. But still music can be classified into Classical music and Popular music.

Classical music is a traditional genre of music conforming to an established form and sometimes religious. Works by Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven exemplify this style. Unlike classical music popular music is broad and at its broadest, it refers to all music other than classical music, also known as art music. In the early 19th century, the traditional songs of the common people were referred to as popular songs. By the late 19th century these songs were referred to as folk songs. Popular music originated in the mid 19th century, and is commonly subdivided into genres, and genres into sub genres.

Different genres often appeal to different age groups. Some popular genres are:
Jazz
Rock and Roll
Rock
Rhythm & Blues (R&B)
Reggae

Jazz –
It is a kind of music that developed in the southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was developed by West African Blacks. Jazz has been described as "America's Classical Music," and started in saloons throughout the nation. The root of jazz is the blues, the folk music of former enslaved Africans in the U.S. South and their descendants, heavily influenced by West African cultural and musical traditions, that evolved as black musicians migrated to the cities.

According to jazz musician Wynton Marsalis:
“Jazz is something Negroes invented, and it said the most profound things -- not only about us and the way we look at things, but about what modern democratic life is really about. It is the nobility of the race put into sound ... jazz has all the elements, from the spare and penetrating to the complex and enveloping. It is the hardest music to play that I know of, and it is the highest rendition of individual emotion in the history of Western music”.

Jazz became world popular when Louis Armstrong, an American trumpeter and vocalist, invented a new style music. He is another Jazz master who is one of the most loved and best known of all jazz musicians. He first achieved fame as a trumpeter, but toward the end of his career he was best known as a vocalist and was one of the most influential jazz singers. Armstrong had many hit records including "Stardust", "What a Wonderful World", "When The Saints Go Marching In", "Dream a Little Dream of Me", "Ain't Misbehavin'", and "Stompin' at the Savoy". "We Have All the Time in the World" featured on the soundtrack of the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Tony Bennett, a famous jazz singer, once said –
"It's America's classical music ... this becomes our tradition ... the bottom line of any country in the world is what did we contribute to the world? ... We contributed Louis Armstrong"

Some of the famous jazz artists are - Muhal Richard Abrams, Carl Allen, Geri Allen, Wessell Anderson, Tatsu Aoki, Peter Appleyard, Louis Armstrong, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Albert Ayler etc.

Rock and Roll –

Rock 'n' roll is a genre of popular music, originated in the 1950s. The song is mostly an instrumental piece, with a rhythmic drum and bass line. In the early rock and roll style of the early 1950s, the saxophone was often the lead instrument, replaced by guitar in the late 50's.
Rocking was a term first used by black gospel singers in the American South to mean something related to spiritual rapture. By the 1940s, however, the term was used as a double meaning, seemingly referring to dancing, but with the hidden sub textual meaning of sex; an example of this is Roy Brown’s "Good Rocking Tonight." This type of song was rarely heard by mainstream white audiences.

What should be considered the first rock and roll record? Well this is a debatable question. There are many candidates for the title of the first rock and roll record. In 2004 and 2005, debate was sparked between fans of Elvis as well as many in the music business who claimed "That's All Right Mama" was the first rock and roll song and those who feel the proper claimant should be Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" — both songs celebrating their 50th anniversaries in those two years.

But the title of "The King of Rock 'n' Roll" or "The King", was given to an American singer and actor Elvis Aron Presley simply known as Elvis. He was the most commercially successful singer of rock and roll. Presley started as a singer of rockabilly, earliest form of rock and roll, but very soon the young Elvis has become an icon of modern American pop culture. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986), the Country Music Hall of Fame (1998), and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame (2001).In 1984 Elvis was given the W.C. Handy Award from the Blues Foundation in Memphis for "keeping the blues alive in his music - rock and roll.” In 1993, Elvis Presley's image appeared on a United States postage stamp as young Elvis.

Some of the most influential Rock n roll artists are –
Elvis Presley, The Beatles, James Brown, Bob Dylan, Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Ray Charles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd etc.

Rock –

A popular music style developed in the United States and Great Britain in the late 1960s. In 1960s The Beatles were the biggest musical act of the twentieth century, consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr ). “Beatle mania" (term that was used during the 1960s to describe fan frenzy, particularly by young teenaged girls, toward The Beatles) stole the momentum from the blues scene and understood how to turn that music into a mass-media attraction. Rock music as a major business was born. In the wake of Beatlemania other British bands headed to the U.S., notably the Rolling Stones and other acts like The Animals and The Yardbirds. They turned down the Beatles' clean-cut image and presented a darker and more aggressive image.

The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show
(1964)
The Rolling Stones, the Kinks and The Who represent the triad of British rock bands of the mid 1960s that would influence entire generations of rock bands for decades. The Who were composing autobiographical songs of the angry and frustrated urban youth. The Rolling Stones were composing autobiographical songs of the decadent punks of the working class. The Kinks were composing realistic sketches of ordinary life in conservative England. The three together provide a complete picture of the time.



The most influential bands of the second generation were Cream, Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan. Cream and Led Zeppelin started playing very loud blues. Cream's lengthy solos and Led Zeppelin's fast riffs created the epitome of "hard rock". Bob Dylan was arguably the most influential musician of the era. He led the charge against the establishment with simple songs and poetic lyrics. A generation believed in him and followed his dreams. Music became the expression of youth's ambitions. In the 1980s, popular rock diversified into many subgenres:

Hard rock, glam metal and Instrumental rock

Hard rock is a kind of Rock music. It is symbolised by a heavy use of distorted electric guitar, bass guitar and drums. British rockers like The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Who and The Kinks modified rock and roll and created the basis for hard rock by adding to the standard genre harder sounds, heavy guitar riffs, often bombastic drumming and harder vocals.
During the 1970s hard rock spawned a new genre of music, known as heavy metal the pioneers of heavy metal, such as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and Queen.

Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock is a musical style inspired by or attempting to replicate the mind-altering experience of drugs such as cannabis, psilocybin, mescaline, and especially LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide). However, an inner core of the psychedelic style of rock that came to public attention in 1967 can be recognized by characteristic features such as average melodies; mystical lyrics often describing dreams, visions, or hallucinations; longer songs and lengthy instrumental solos; and "trippy" electronic effects such as distortion, reverb, and reversed, delayed and/or phased sounds. The album that brought psychedelic rock into pop culture was The Beatles's Revolver.

Progressive rock

Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music which arose in the late 1960s, reached the peak of its popularity in the 1970s. Progressive rock songs have long compositions, sometimes running over 20 minutes, with intricate melodies and harmonies. Progressive rock artists reject the limitations of popular music and aspire to create music for serious listening. The major artists that defined the genre in the 1970s are Jethro Tull, Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Rush, Gentle Giant and King Crimson.

Classic rock

In the mid-1980s, a radio station programming format evolved from the album oriented rock (AOR) format, commonly known as Classic rock. The core albums, artists, and songs most often represented in classic rock radio represent a subset of the albums and artists that were actually popular during the so-called "classic rock era". British hard rock and progressive rock bands make up a central pillar of classic rock artists; significant among these are AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Cream, and Queen.

Punk Rock and New Age

Punk rock is an anti-establishment rock music movement which began around 1974–1975. The phrase "punk rock" (punk means a beginner or novice) was originally applied to the untutored guitar-and-vocals-based rock and roll of United States bands of the mid-1960s such as The Standells, The Sonics, and The Seeds, bands that now are more often categorized as garage rock. It is represented by The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, The Damned, and The Clash. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, New age born out of the punk rock movement. The genre was fashionable during the 1980s, but became popular again during the 2000s.

Alternative rock

The terms alternative rock and alternative music1 were coined in the early 1980s to describe punk rock-inspired music genres which didn't fit into the mainstream genres of the time. At times it was used as catch-all phrase for rock music from underground artists in the 1980s and rock music in general in the 1990s. More specifically, it is made up mostly of genres that appeared in the 1980s and became popular or well known by the 1990s, such as indie rock, grunge, gothic rock, and college rock. Important bands of the '80s alternative movement included R.E.M., Sonic Youth, The Smiths, Pixies, Husker Du, The Cure, and countless others. In 1990s bands like Nirvana, Guns and Roses, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Linking Park etc joined the stream.

R&B

R&B was used to designate upbeat popular music performed by African American artists. It was strongly influenced by jazz and jump music as well as black gospel music. Musicians paid little attention to the distinction between jazz and rhythm and blues, and frequently recorded in both genres. "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On", the first hit by Jerry Lee Lewis was an R&B cover song that made number one on pop, R&B and country and western charts. Other artists who popularized R&B included Professor Longhair, Clarence "Frogman" Henry, Frankie Ford, Irma Thomas, The Neville Brothers, and Dr. John.

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre developed in Jamaica. Reggae may be used in a broad sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, including ska, rocksteady and dub. The term is generally used to distinguish a particular style that originated in the late 1960s. Reggae is founded upon a rhythm style which is characterized by regular chops on the back beat, known as the "skank", played by a rhythm guitarist, and a bass drum hitting on the third beat of each measure, known as "one drop."

One of the main themes of reggae music has been social liberation. This has both political and religious aspects. The music attempts to raise the political consciousness of the audience, like Bob Nesta Marley, a Jamaican singer, guitarist, songwriter, and activist. Much of his

music dealt with the struggles of the impoverished and gave a voice to the oppressed around the world while spreading messages of hope and unity. His songs expressed his experiences of struggles of everyday life in Jamaica in a way that all could relate to, making his music universally loved.

Bob Marley once said

“My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die”.
Repression of many kinds, and especially repression linked with the prohibition of ganja (marijuana), which is considered a sacrament by Rastafarians, is another recurring theme in the music. Bob Marley is a prominent marijuana icon. The pioneers of reggae are Bob Marley, Johnny Clarke, Horace Andy and Barrington Levy etc.
Bob Marley is a prominent marijuana icon.