Are these items Popular Music? Which of these Examples are popular music Why? Why not?

Possible Definitions Popular= widely liked or supported Popular=“of the people” Popular Music as one genre of a trio: folk, art, popular

Widely liked? What about “unpopular” popular musical genres What about “popular” art music styles? How do we measure this –Different kinds of use and engagement –Market is too diverse, so impact and use may differ with different genres –What about “Non-commodity” forms of music

Commercially oriented music? Music produced for mass market This compares PM with “folk” forms associated with face-to-face communities What about Amateur performers? What about Pre-modern societies?

Folk music? Idea emerged in 19 th century “das Volk” (“the folk”) first used by German writer Johann Herder late 1700s Idea of “the folk” as carriers of “national spirit” Folk as a “purified people” (a romantic fantasy)

Popular vs folk “the folk are not the mob of the streets, who never sing or compose, but shriek and mutilate” (Herder 1778) Quotes from Hubert Parry (English composer) form English Folk Song Society(1899) (popular is cheap, low, corrupting) Music hall is “an enemy at the door of folk music which is driving it out” product of “overgrown town”, like “sham jewellery, shoddy clothes”, “commonest rowdyism”

History of term “popular music” First use in English in 19 th C Eg William Chappell’s “Popular Music of the Olden Time” Not widely used in current sense before 1930s equivalent terms not always in other languages

Possible characteristics of Popular Music Distribution: usually mass cf sectional Storage: usually recordings Music theory and aesthetics: ? Composer/author often collective? Music that has some relationship to an industry: –Commercial/creativity contrast

Definition offered by Simon Frith in Symposium “Can we get rid of the Popular in “Popular Music” (Popular Music 2005) * Music made commercially in a particular kind of legal (copyright) and economic (market) system; *Music made using an even-changing technology of sound storage; *Music significantly experienced as mass mediated; *Music primarily made for social and bodily pleasure; *Music which is formally hybrid

History of “Commercial” popular music First mass music industry: Sheet music industry Nineteenth century: large English music publishers Spread of the Upright Piano: Emergence of the “drawing room ballad”

Entertainment and Popular Music Nineteenth century popular theatre Minstrel show: based on negro impersonators Novelty acts, grotesques, comedies, spectaculars

Recording Edison invents phonograph in Berliner invents disc medium 1890s a commercial domestic playing machine developed Commercial recordings start around 1900

Early recordings soloists and singers: eg Caruso, Nellie Melba, Most Popular performers: theatrical performers Duration of 1 side=3 minutes Electric recordings: developed from 1919, but become standard from : magnetic tape developed by BASF Germany

1948: PVC “vinyl” developed: advantages over shellac: microgroove recording 12” LP recording: initially for classical recordings. First “concept” LPs mid 1950s Development of overdubbing techniques and tape based studio recording

1965 : cassette developed, patented by Phillips 1979: The Walkman revolution begins 1981: MTV video support of pop music 1982: CD technology 1988: CD passes vinyl

1989: DAT tape invented 1992: Minidisc technology 1996 the DVD standard set 1998 MP3 developed iPod developed >> iTunes and mass internet marketing of music

Aesthetics of Popular Music Does Popular Music have its own “aesthetic system” Frequently cited characteristics: 1. Entertainment music 2. Secular (non-sacred music) 3. Intuitive appreciation? 4. Bodily or hedonistic appreciation?

Anti-aesthetics of Popular Music Eg Theodor Adorno: German political philosopher and composer Popular music is –Debased –Standardised –Serves to stupefy, subdue or dominate the masses

Standardisation? Popular music and standardisation: Song forms: –32 ballad form –verse/chorus/bridge/chorus Repetitive structures –Eg “Riff” structures in rock –Repetitive dance beat patterns Improvisatory forms tend to use patterns and structures