Netherlands VWO 6 (eindexamenjaar) Music (arts music and music)

1. Music and culture

Classical line: middle ages to classicism · Classical line: romanticism to today · Jazz line · Pop line · Music in its cultural context

• Music History: From Chant to Pop – Music is older than writing. Every culture grew its own music, often passed on by ear, like Indian raga, African drumming and gamelan. In the Western tradition the main eras are Medieval (chant, about 500–1400), Renaissance (polyphony, 1400–1600), Baroque (1600–1750), Classical (1750–1820), Romantic (1820–1910) and the 20th century to today (jazz, recording, film, pop, electronic). Each era changed the texture (how many lines sound together), the size of the group and music's place in society.
• Jazz – Jazz is a music that grew in African-American communities in New Orleans in the early 1900s, mixing blues, ragtime, brass bands and church music. Its key features are swing rhythm (long-short beats), blue notes, syncopation, rich chords, call and response, and above all improvisation over a repeating chord pattern. Over a century it changed style many times: New Orleans, swing and big band, bebop, cool and modal jazz, fusion and today's global jazz.
• Popular Music: How Pop, Rock and Urban Songs Work – Popular music is music made for a wide audience, spread by radio, records, TV and the internet. A band plays in layers: drums and bass make the rhythm section, guitar and keys fill the harmony, and the voice sings the melody. Most songs use 4/4 time with a backbeat on beats 2 and 4, a verse-chorus structure and a catchy hook or riff. Styles grew one from another: blues and jazz, rock and roll, rock and pop, disco and punk, hip hop and electronic dance music, plus world styles like reggae, K-pop and Bollywood.