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Rap music worked its way to mainstream music around the late 70s to the early 80s. Those who study history would trace rap musics roots way back in American history when Griots or West African folk poets used to deliver their stories in a rhythmic tone accompanied by drums and other sparse instrumentation. Today, the art of rapping has evolved into something that spans cultural and lifestyle dimensions.

Folk roots meet Jamaican-style

Rap music combines the poetry of the Griots with Jamaican-style toasting. Toasting is used by Jamaican disc jockeys or DJs in dance parties to coax people to dance to their music. DJs are the first rappers or MCs (short for master of ceremonies). They would speak over their music to shout out slogans like Work it, work it and Move it to keep encourage continuous dancing on the dance floor. Soon, toasting became longer and became less about dancing and more about life and having fun. Contextually, these raps can be insult raps, news raps, message raps, nonsense raps, and party raps.

This early way of rapping was soon enhanced to include manual manipulation of the sound system to heighten the dance experience. It has been said that people dance because of the beat and not of the lyrics. And so, DJs soon incorporated other techniques like dubbing and scratching to the rap music appeal. Dubbing enhanced Jamaican toasting by cutting back and forth between vocal and instrumental tracks and isolating the beat for danceability. Scratching, on the other hand, is done by moving the record in the turntable from one direction to another and back again while the needle is still in the groove.  Read more...

Jazz is one of the most popular forms of music that has roots originating from blues music. If you want to learn to play jazz, then it’s a good idea to learn basic jazz chord progressions. There are many progressions used in jazz music. This article will share with you some of the most common jazz chord progressions.

ii-V-I

One of the most widely used jazz chord progressions is the ii-V-I progression. Most chords in jazz music are seventh chords, so each chord in this progression will be a seventh. In the key of C, the chords would be Dm7, G7, and Cmaj7. If you don’t know how to play seventh chords, you need to learn them as soon as possible. The notes of Dm7 are D, F, A and C. The notes of G7 are G, B, D, and F. The notes of Cmaj7 are C, E, G and B.

V-ii-I

Another one of the common jazz chord progressions is the V-ii-I. Once again the chords will be seventh chords, but this time they will be in the key of F. The chords played that make up this progression are Cmaj7, Gm7, and Fmaj7. As stated above, the notes of Cmaj7 are C, E, G and B. The notes of Gm7 are G, Bb, D, and F. Finally, the notes of Fmaj7 are F, A, C, and E.

I-vi-ii-V

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The evolution of music has brought forth hundreds of music variations in so many forms to the basic music categories. This diversity in music forms have categorized in alternative music those ish style music that come as slight style alterations to most popular music forms (i.e. alternative rock or rock-ish music for rock music that does not really fit into the mainstream genres of a particular time period).

Alternative music is a category coined as a sort of catch-all for those sub-genres that are unclassified but can be traced with similarities to popular genres. These alternative music are usually those that were not released commercially and are recorded on independent labels. Some music from this category, from word of mouth, would soon find its way into the mainstream and become commercially successful.

Off-Country

Country music that does not conform to the prevailing country style is generally classified as alternative music. Musicians playing alternative country music are generally those who do not subscribe to high production values and popularity concerns. Their music are of lo-fi sound quality and often incorporated strong punk and rock and roll qualities and contained lyrics that are bleak, gothic or socially aware. The range of their music spans American folk tune to rockabilly and honky-tonk to a fusion of rock and country music. Alternative country music has developed several namesakes like Americana, neotraditional, progressive country, lo-fi country, and twang core.  Read more...

Hip hop music or also known as rap, is a kind of music genres which consists of rap backing beats. The rise of hip hop is because of the change in united states urban culture especially in 1970s. Most important is the low cost involved in getting started, living cost was quite cheap, and the chances for anyone to MC with popular hip hoper.

There is a difference between Rap and MC, Rap means talk to girl or speak to someone, it was used by Rappers Delight, Sugar Hill Gang, and become the title for hip hop recording, while MC, is a word to describe a hip hoper hosting a jam and rhyming on the mic or master of ceremony.

There are important volunteers of hip hop :

1. James Brown, his dancing, musical feel and his break beats, influenced the born of hip hop genres.

2. Capoeira, see how the dances, its the root of hip hop dances. As we know capoeira is from angola, it is a kind of african dance, capoeira movement and style influenced hip hop dances.

3. Salsa, latin communities who lives in New York have special dance called salsa or bombi plena, this kind of dance also give important influence on hip hop culture.

Hip hop name is comes from rapper, named Keith Cowboy, through Dj Hollywood, but the first one who create hip hop terms is from Black Spades which is a member of Afrika Bambaataa gang.  Read more...

One genre that appeals to most everyone is pop music owing to its light and catchy qualities. Pop music is so aptly called because it is a categorization that is largely based on the popularity of a song. There is no clear and distinct parameters to classify a song as pop music. For the most part, its popularity should translate to records sold and radio air times.

Pop music is a combination of various styles influenced by the evolving music forms. The development of pop music is one that is progressive, rolling over from generation to generation to snowball into its current form. As this is so, pop music has taken so many forms through each decade to reflect the musical preference of a particular generation.

Rich Vocals

During the 50s, popular tunes were those that were vocally rich with a string accompaniment and a vocal chorus back up. Country music and American folk music were great hits along with variations of standard formats. Great American songbook classics, crooners and big band singers adopted other musical techniques to give their music a modern twist. The listening public lapped these enhancements up and caused songs like Mack the Knife and Singing the Blues to top the charts. In contrast to these classics, rock and roll likewise rocked the American music industry with fast and infectious beats of Rock Around the Clock, Heartbreak Hotel, and Tutti Fruitti. These tunes not only rocked the airwaves, they also rocked the dance floors.  Read more...