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Stereotypes Of Music Essay

What is the first thing listeners pay attention to when listening to a good song? The instrumental and how it shows the rhythm and base of the composition’s flow? The voice and how it shows the feeling and how it captivates people with the harmony? The lyrics and how it carries the melody while painting a picture? However, does the artist get the most attention as they display their simple characteristics, such being their impact, gender, race, or age? Listeners have been swayed to like artists that fit into their stereotype, but I believe stereotypes are unrealistic and are only holding people back from to the real background.

Music, in theories, has been known since the beginning of time. Historiographers have found traces of Music in “primitive cave drawings, stories from the Bible, and Egyptian hieroglyphs”, which showed “the fact that people had created instruments and had been making music for centuries” (ipl. org). Music was also first written as Muses, the nine goddesses of various arts from ancient Greek mythology. These only point to the fact, that music may not have a true origin. However, the first known study of music was made in 500 B. C. The philosopher Pythagoras and his followers incorporated music into their daily lives.

Music depicted their health depending on the selection of music. Certain songs and dances were prescribed to cure bad moods like rage, anger, and sadness. Pythagoreans also held music in the center of their religious practices, as they worshipped musical deities. “Pythagoreans thought music was the manifestation of harmony in the world” (Karamanides, 86-87). Pythagoras discovered musical ratios, or octave, through a harmony in the world, which was heard in the pounding of hammers a blacksmith was using. After experimenting, he found the correlation between numbers and music.

He became first to discover musical theory in written history. “the work of Pythagoras and his followers is considered the foundation upon which all Western music theory is based”(Karamanides, 89). Sarced music was highlighted throughout Western music and this will count as one of the first genres. One of the earliest genres was spirituals. Since churches were very powerful in the Dark Ages, they had influence on most people’s lives and views. “Music was seen as a gift from God and making music was a way of praising the heavens for that gift” (Espie Estrella, The Rise of Secular Music, about. om). The Georgian chant influenced the monophonic style, “which is a single melody without any harmonic support or accompaniment” (ipl. org). Near the ninth century, the polyphony style, which is “two melodic lines simultaneously at parallel intervals”(ipl. org), was introduced.

In the Renaissance, Churches begun to lost their influence just as “composers and their patrons were ready for new artistic ideas” (Espie Estrella, Music Forms/Styles of the Renaissance, about. com). Secular music existed during the findings of polyphony. This music was not bound by the traditions of the Church, nor was it even written down for the first time until sometime after the tenth century” (ipl. org). “One of the most important composers of that time was Guillaume de Mauchaut who wrote both sacred and secular music. Another important composer was Francesco Landini; a blind Italian composer. Landini wrote madrigals; a type of vocal music based on secular poems set to music that had simpler melodies. ” (Espie Estrella, The Rise of Secular Music, about. com).

They influenced the look on music that contained “the subject of the overwhelming majority of these songs is love, in all its permutations of joy and pain” (ipl. org). A forward into time would introduce another genre called Classical music. “The contrapuntal practices of the German Baroque began to give way in the first half of the eighteenth century to a highly ornamented style of melodic instrumental music”(ipl. org). This genre was originally a simple melody with sonatas. Orchestras were introduced including the string quartets that also composed the simple melody.

This genre reached its “majestic culmination” with those symphonies. Even though this genre was at a magnificent peak, Classical music didn’t originate with a story or an expression until the Romantic period in the nineteenth century. Symphonies and Operas were now much more dramatic as this period was such an emotional time. These opinionated times may have also introduced the stereotypes of classical music since folklore was also a genre. “In the 18th century the wealthy nobility were the patrons and commissioners of classical music, opera, and live performance”. Liz Lambson, Stereotypes & Misconceptions Part I: Classical Music is for Rich People, violinist. com). This is one of the stereotypes that can only be view from the aspect of a middle social class. However, take that in this time classical was one of the only genres that were shared. Let’s introduce Franz Joseph Haydn.

“Without money, a job, or a home, the young man somehow survived by singing, playing the harpsichord where he could, and teaching, all the time practicing and continuing to study music”(ipl. org). Another stereotype would be “So it is true that Western classical music originated (note: past tense) in Europe. (Liz Lambson, STEREOTYPES & MISCONCEPTIONS PART II: CLASSICAL MUSIC IS RELAXING, violinist. com). Even if that seems so, other countries in the east were also making their own classical music. “Indian music had spread and passed on by word of mouth and depended on how the disciple understood the composition. ” (Vamsi Krishna, quora. com). Indian classical music was polyphony before Europeans wrote it down. In addition, there are many countries that weren’t western that specialized in just music with just instrumental. There was also another type of secular music called Folk.

This traditional music told stories of legends and other stories that weren’t stories. “It is generally considered to be an expression of life in the communities in which the music was developed and is a great help to historians in discovering the way of life of a people”. (www. music-folk. com). This genre was popular in the Romantic period as well. This music installed a chill attitude that influenced the stereotypes about “Vegetarians, Hippies, Starving Activists, Tree-Hugging Environmentalists, Old-Timer Music, and Hillbillies/Hick musicians” (http://laurensmediaproject1. logspot. com/).

Cecil James Sharp, the founder of modern folk music, had a moment as “an asthmatic vegan, suffered in his quest, tramping up muddy tracks in the Appalachian mountains” (Colin Irwin , Cecil Sharp and the Morris Men, The guardian). However, as time passed, more recent artists have strayed away. Other contemporary genres in the 30 are held really similar stereotypes as well. “The blues evolved from hymns, work songs, and field hollers — music used to accompany spiritual, work and social functions.

Blues is the foundation of jazz as well as the prime source of rhythm and blues, rock ‘n’ roll, and country music. ” (http://teacher. scholastic. com/). Jazz and blues hold the same qualities of Black music. “Born of a multi-hued society, it unites people across the divides of race, region and national boundaries and has always made powerful statements about freedom, creativity and American identity at home and abroad”( http://www. apassion4jazz. net/). Music of black people in this time was taken and turned around or described as music for the new kids.

Rock music was a new sound that was made in the classical era. This genre wasn’t named rock until the 40’s and 50’s. “ It is known that the history of rock music comes from the old R&B mixed with some country and western and fused with a little rockabilly” (http://rockmusic. mu/). This genre was stolen and twisted by different ethnicities as well as jazz and blues. Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bill Haley had their lyrics stolen by artists such as Elvis and The Beatles. These artists benefited greatly from this, making the stereotype that this genre is only meant for white people.

R&B has been in such predicaments, but blue-eyed artists didn’t benefit as much as black artists in the 50s. “Surging employment during World War II accelerated the migration of the rural poor to cities and helped create a younger, more urban black audience. ” ( Brad Cahoon, Rhythm and Blues Music: Overview, Georgia encyclopedia). As many things that are different, this type of music encountered its misconceptions. “They associate R&B with individuals who are emotional. ”( (http://hcc102. blogspot. com/). R&B is soul music deprived of black people.

Even with Blue-eyed soul, their lyrics and voices also embellish a type of mood. “it is solely based around sex and feelings. ” (http://hcc102. blogspot. com/). This highlights one mood, but doesn’t clarify thee “broader spectrum” in this genre. Rap and R&B “started because of the hardships African American individuals went through”. (http://hcc102. blogspot. com/). Rap was a form of expression just as all genres. This one was started from the beat of boom boxes and MCs from the 70’s on streets with people of color breakdancing. These beats became tracks as DJs and MCs got together and begun rapping.

These beats were sampled, but the flows were completely original at the time. As those times became the present, rappers expanded to all countries and the meaning moved from struggle to luxury. Rap’s biggest stereotypes from these movements in time associate with Drugs, Money, Violence, and Misogyny. This is rather negative do to the people that read the words not the people who heard them. Since Rap is grown from concrete, this music is hard. Violence would come from the gangs and times the rappers were a part of, but there is a wide spectrum with this genre as well.

In the addings of drugs and misogyny, many rappers; Common, Mos Def, and, Joey Bada$$; are just three of the thousands that have music about things that don’t go toward such views that degrade black people. Sex and Money are things rappers want to achieve, but even that isn’t always the case with most. The biggest stereotype would be only black people rap, listen to it, and that we are all bad for doing such. Eminem is one of the contributors to the four stereotypes up above and he is white. Riff Raff and Nerco are also upon the list unnoticed by media but still making negative step backs.

There are good rappers like Dynamic Duo, G-Eazy, and the Beastie Boys held good intentions writing their flows. This genre also has an “opposite” known as pop music. Pop, as many other genres, has a large spectrum. Popular music is very vague with origins since popular culture and time keeps changing. Even though the former is a description of music, which is popular, while the latter is a specific genre containing qualities of mass appeal”. (www. citelighter. com). Taking a more detailed start in the 80s, this genre introduced new sounds that took over the decade.

This sound fused with other genres and added to dances in its captivation. Such high views left basic stereotypes since this genre just couldn’t be for people of color. “People think the lyrics of pop music are only about heartbreak and women as sex symbols”. (http://hcc102. blogspot. com/) Just as Rap and R&B, those genres can also uplifts women. /some songs can seem girly or not for you, but thats the equivalence of colors. The whole point of pop music is that it’s popular. Just like Rap, its biggest stereotype is that this genre is only meant for white people.

Genres will continue to be made and we will live by their labal once, but not everyone. “Assuming a person looks a certain way based on the music they play or listen to, is inaccurate. We all listen to different genres of music, but our appearance doesn’t give it off. “(http://hcc102. blogspot. com/). As humans, we are in the same label, but we are different no matter what. Our appearances draw the wall in front of our views, but it shouldn’t. It’s just brain work, what’s different is either looked down upon or what brings you up. ” We all are quite different and so is our taste in music. ” (http://hcc102. blogspot. com/).

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