IT'S POP MUSIC Whatdoes It mean to You?
Table of Contents
- It's pop music Pg 1
- Table of Contents Pg 2
- Intro Pg 3
- That's My Music Poem Pg 4
- History of Pop Music Pg 5'
- Pop vs Rock Pg 6
- Epic Artist Fails Pg 7
- Work Citied Pg 8
Intro
That's My Music
Music it's what's always been there for me When I think of music I don't think of the lights flashing And cameras snapping. I hink of the messages that is unseen
History of Pop Music
Pop music is, in common with jazz, primarily an aural and improvised music. Pop and jazz represent parallel, yet only indirectly related, developments, despite their sharing a common folk music ancestry. Pop music initially drew its repertoire from the folk traditions of the US, and thus indirectly from previous African and European traditions.
From the moment that it became big business, pop music came largely from Tin Pan Alley's publishing houses. Tin Pan Alley thrived on the opera, ragtime, cakewalk, foxtrot and show tunes. As the latter came to represent more and more of the songwriter's business, in the 1930s Tin Pan Alley moved north, near the Broadway theaters. Finally, by the end of World War II, the American landscape had been dramatically altered by the radio, the jukeboxes, a broader availability of records and turntables, and a proliferation of dance halls.
Pop vs Rock
Pop music is a genre of music that is often regarded as the softer alternative to rock. It constitutes the type of songs that are relatively short and aimed at commercial recording. The main audience for pop music is the youth market although it usually cuts across age sometimes, given that this type of music constitutes relatively short love songs with a straight message that identifies with the ups and downs common in relationships of all type. Whereas rock music has got a lot of sub genres, pop music’s basic elements have fairly remained unchanged for some time now although it has on a small scale been influenced by other popular music genres.
Whereas pop music will reach out to the general audience, rock music mainly identifies with a particular subculture, having evolved from western and country music to rock and roll and then to mainstream rock. The typical sound of rock music often has three chords formed by a rhythm section of bass guitars, which are the strong, the insistent back beat and a catchy melody. Rock is often performed by a group of members known as a rock band or rock group. Each band member will usually be skilled in playing a particular instrument so it is common to find a bass guitarist, electric guitarist, a drummer and a lead singer making up a rock band. For pop artists they will usually come as solo artists or if in a group they will all be singers without anyone taking up a particular instrument. Notable pop groups include N-Sync and popular pop solo singers include Britney Spears.
Pop music gives its listeners a notably different sound from rock. Pop involves more singing and vocal expression, with a danceable beat to it and it comes as no surprise that pop songs are one of the best songs to learn dancing with. Rock on the other hand is an expression of emotions through instruments so vocals matter less. But that may be another reason rock has got many sub genres because there’s a variety of ways to express emotions through instruments. Sub genres of rock like classic rock, hard, alternative, indie and soft rock are all ways of expression of emotions using metals.
That's not it
The first thing I want to point out is that your throat is going to vibrate whether you’re singing from your diaphragm or not. Vibration is normal, as resonance is what creates the fullness of the sound while singing. Tension however, is not, which is what often is present when we’re not singing from the diaphragm.
So, how do we sing from the diaphragm?
First off, we breathe deeply into the body. I like to imagine that I’m breathing all the way down to the ground. The other thing I try to do while breathing in is expand around the lower area of the rib cage. This indicates that I have a more than enough breath, and the diaphragm is flexed so that I have control over the flow of that air.
That being said, let me describe why we breathe from the diaphragm in the first place.
Our biggest goal in breathing from the diaphragm is to be able to create a steady, consistent flow of air. The diaphragm is a muscle that’s attached to the bottom of the lungs.
When you inhale and press your diaphragm down, you have control over the amount of air that exits your body and you don’t have to regulate it at your throat. When you breathe into your chest while not utilizing the diaphragm, you’ll have to use your vocal cords to control the rate at which the air exits your body, which often causes unnecessary tension as well as shortness of breath.
All that being said, simply breathing from your diaphragm isn’t enough. You also have to continue the downward push of the diaphragm in order to regulate the amount of air exiting the body (this may sound gross, but if you were to imagine what it feel like when you’re going to the bathroom… not #1… you’d get a good idea of how this feels). That being said, if you don’t continue to moderate the rate the air exits your body with the diaphragm by that continual push down, then you might as well not have breathed from the diaphragm in the first place.
So, now that we know what we’re doing with the diaphragm, how we can we make sure we’re breathing properly? Simple.
Work Cited
"Difference Between Rock and Pop." Difference Between, 13 Nov. 2009. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.
Famous People in Music." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, 2015. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.
"Kanye West Vs. Michael Jackson: Who's the Real King of Pop?" GQ, 16 Mar. 2015. Web. 01 Mar. 2016
P, DK. "Citelighter Is the Fast, Fun, and Easy Way to Do Research." History of Pop Music Web. 01 Mar. 2016
S, P. "A History of Pop Music." A History of Pop Music. N.p., 2002. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.
S, R. "Music History 102." Music History 102, 2012. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.
"The History of Rock and Roll." The History of Rock and Roll , 25 Nov. 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2016
"Why the Pop Music Industry Is Built to Discourage Good Music." Mic. 2016. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.