“Twentieth century American music was originally built on the swing beat.”
It’s nice to just get into the topic for class. Professor O’Malley proceeded to give some examples of this statement starting with Jumpin’ Jive, along with how the rock beat replaced the swing beat sometime in the 1960’s, which he explained in the beginning of class. He compounded the topic of the swing beat with a gospel song, called “Bedside of a Neighbor”. We can even hear the swing beat in early rock and roll music, such as Chuck Berry music. Amusingly, Chuck Berry’s early music sounded very country. We heard more music that shows the slow transition from the swing beat to the rock beat, a transformation that is complete with the arrival of the Beatles.
One of the characteristics of American music in the 20th century was a lot of chords. The trend of American music in the last decade was to have less chords. It’s harmonically moving around a lot. A general trend is to have one or two chords. To my surprise, Professor O’Malley didn’t really have an argument against it like he did in earlier classes against current music trends such as compression.
Professor O’Malley noted that there are theories that the reason for this is another result of the Great Migration, with music from islands and such seeping into American mainstream music. This actually led to a discussion of racial politics in Cuba and Puerto Rico, which showed the differences that these countries had to the United States.
We then discussed the “mambo craze” of the 1950’s and 1960’s, based on religious ceremonies in Cuba, where artists used drums in their music, even though it was not really a mambo. “They were trying to Latin it up,” Professor O’Malley explained. It’s another example I’ve seen of America trying to adapt other culture’s music into their own. I can’t help but wonder how this went in Cuba, considering Mambo was looked down upon in the Upper-Class. It’s interesting to see how different people see music.
Because Mambo is harmonically static, it is easy to sample. Hispanic influences on American music also come from the West coast, and are central to early rock and roll music, but often rendered invisible. “Louie Louie” is famous in history of rock music, since anyone can play it. It’s fascinating to hear all of the different versions of one song, especially considering how simple it is compared to a lot of other music that I listen to.
It was also interesting to hear how the 1963 version was widely claimed to have obscene lyrics that were difficult to hear, which actually lead to an FBI investigation. I have to wonder how those people would react to music now, considering how explicit music can be.
Continuing the conversation to see how the melody of old songs can be heard in modern music, such as Pitbull, was a nice reference to how music tends to be similar in some way. Granted, I’m not really the kind of guy to notice these things, so if it’s pointed out to me, I just find it amusing. We then hear about how the adaptation of songs have an interesting road in history.
“Any music you hear has a very thick displacement of history in it.” Professor O’Malley said. It’s weird to hear, mainly because I am not really focusing on music, but this is a different way to listen to music that I’ll keep in mind in the future.
“Displaced persons are the story of the USA. Displacement is a major engine of cultural innovation and creativity.” As a History student, I’ve heard this before, but the new aspects of the world such as music is nice to see.