N5 Understanding 20th & 21st C Music
N5 Assessment - Genres and Music Concepts
UM 20th & 21st Century Music Course
N5 UM Concepts
N4 UM Concepts
Rock 'n Roll
Rock 'n Roll is the 1950s American music which grew from the combined styles of jazz, blues, gospel and country. Bill Hailey and the Comets exploded onto the scene with Rock around the Clock in 1954.
In the 1960's Pop music in the USA and UK gradually became
controlled by new young vocal-groups, taking their power from a combination of the performer's charisma and great songwriters. Artists include: The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan and Diana Ross. Listen here to a 1965 live performance, in Paris, of A Hard Day's Night by the Beatles.
Country music is a genre of American popular music that
originated in the rural regions of the Southern United States in the 1920's. Country music often consists of ballads and dance tunes with generally simple forms and harmonies accompanied by mostly string instruments such as banjos, electric and acoustic guitars, fiddles, and
harmonicas. Here is a recording of Johnny Cash singing a humorous song called "A Boy Named Sue".
A musical play which has speaking, singing and dancing and is
performed on a stage. The video clip below is from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein - notice how the time signature alternates from 6/8 to 3/4 throughout..
N3 UM Concepts
A style of music that mixes Celtic folk music and rock
together. Here is a recording of the Glasgow band Skerryvore performing at the O2. There is a long slow introduction featuring bagpipes and fiddle - at 3 mins they break into a rock like style with reel inspired tunes!
Punk is a music genre that developed in the USA, UK and
Australia in the mid-1970's. Punk bands created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Here is the Sex Pistols with Johnny Rotten singing "Anarchy in the UK" - The band were dropped by EMI for their infamous "swearing" incident on live television - at the time was shocking to the majority of the British public.
Punk - Workbook
A style of music formed in 1970's New York consisting of stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping -although rapping is not a required component of hip-hop music. The genre may also incorporate other elements of the wider "hip-hop culture", including DJ-ing, scratching, beat-boxing, and sampling. Here is Kanye West demonstrating the Hip Hop style.