Academic Decathlon – WWI

1. Academic Decathlon – WWI Music – Section III Supposedly created by Steven, but no one can really prove that.

2. Disclaimer & Legal Notice Due to legal obligations, I am required to insert this disclaimer into every presentation I make. No rights reserved, end of story. By reading this slide for at least 0 seconds, you agree to the terms and conditions. I am not responsible for any damage this presentation may have caused you, whether it is damage to your feelings, nap time, or grades. Especially grades. Nor am I responsible for factual accuracy. If you find an inaccuracy, go sue your packet, not me. That’s what the packet is for. THIS IS A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE SECTION. IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, PLEASE ASK THEM, CHANCES ARE I WON’T HAVE AN ANSWER! I will NOT cover any of the listening sections, for they should be straightforward enough to, uhh, listen to. I did a lot of b….hitting because the packet did a lot of b….hitting. Favour returned.

3. Some Notices This presentation will be very brief and will barely go into detail. If you need more detail, please ask for it. If you have a question, please ask it. A very important note is that important vocabulary terms in this presentation have been bolded and underlined like this example. You’re welcome. 

4. Folk Music It’s traditional music passed via culture. They usually convey some kind of message. Because folk music conveys messages, this type of music serves a purpose. Music composed with purpose is called vernacular music.

5. Folk Music It essentially serves as the roots of all music genres about to be discussed. They were usually passed down orally, and very few physical records of them exist. However, it’s a great reflector upon the culture where it was derived. (e.g. Blues is very indicative of African American culture during slavery in America.)

6. Stage Music It’s music performed to accompany other performances, like an opera, or a musical, or some other third thing.

7. Opera A play with music. Actors sing their parts instead of saying them. That’s all, really. The most “celebrated” (which I interpret to mean “popular”) actor is called a primo uomo. The actress equivalent, which many have heard of, is called a prima donna.

8. Opera Originated from Italy. No surprise, music (as we know it now) seems to have “originated” from there too. Other countries found this to be popular entertainment, so they too got caught in the hype. Other countries meaning other European countries and the United States. A seria is serious and a buffa is comic. Think “serious” and “buffoon”.

9. Opera Yes, pirating existed back then, and apparently it was okay to do that in America, where money is the primary incentive. Competition was fierce. By this, I mean that everyone was trying to be the better imitator. A few Brits who originally wrote some of the operas got pissed and moved their operations to America to claim their stake.

10. Minstrel Show America’s attempt for claiming the title: “#1 Most Racist Country”, though I never knew if they actually won that award (tied with South Africa?). It’s basically an opera with other forms of side-entertainment to boot, to keep the audience entertained in between acts. Most of them had white actors with black dye on their faces to imitate blacks.

11. Minstrel Show A cakewalk is where people walk on a giant cake. …but I wish that were the actual definition. It actually refers to a competition among actors, where the person who could best mimic a certain figure (like an aristocratic slave owner) would win a cake. I’m not sure why the prize had to be a cake.

12. Music Hall A place for one to perform music. Eventually became a place for any sort of entertainment. Usually had alcohol in them, because alcohol and entertainment mix surprisingly well, whatever the implications of that are. Basically another venue through which to spread musical influence.

13. Vaudeville, AKA “Variety” Food is to jambalaya as music is to Vaudeville. It’s basically a smorgasbord of “acts”, with each act being provided by a separate entertainer or group of entertainers. “Turn” is a synonym for “act”. An “act” is a complete portion of a performance, or play. “Circuit” is a series of acts.

14. Vaudeville, AKA “Variety” A cue sheet is to music, as clip art is to, err… art. A cue sheet is a set of short pieces of music, with each piece being vague enough to apply in many situations. Each piece is supposed to only convey a general feeling. For example, if you wanted dissonance, you could ask your local pianist to smash a diminished chord.

15. They all seem the same! And from my perspective, I totally agree. It’s really hard to tell the difference between an opera, a vaudeville, and a music hall. In fact, I myself believe the difference is arbitrary. But because your beloved packet insists on it (yes, a stack of papers can insist), just have a general idea of what they are. And yes, I know it’s bullshit, but just bear with it.

16. Band Can either be made of rubber or musicians. In the most general sense, it’s a group of people playing the same class of instruments. Today, it’s used to refer to an ensemble of wind and percussive musicians. Because the instruments used are portable, these musicians can march. Because they can march, bands were popular for use in the military to boost morale.

17. Band A march is where people walk together in a synchronised fashion. This is to keep time and look uniform. Multi-thematic Form is where you have multiple “segments” within a song, and each segment is distinguishable by its melody. A strain can either be when you pull a muscle, or the melody of a musical segment. Strains in many music genres are usually repeated.

18. Gospel It’s what happens when you take folk music, and Christianity and run them through a particle collider. In other words, it’s Christian folk music. And remember that most folk music is usually sung, so gospel would be no exception.

19. National Anthems Basically, the music that “represents” a country – and do remember that music usually portrays a message. During the early 20th century, most countries had not adopted a national anthem. Some European countries and the United States were one of the first to do so. A bit too nationalistic if you ask me…

20. Political Music Music can convey messages, and the messages they convey usually appeal to emotions (pathos for those of you in AP Lang, or for those who read too much). Because people like to get on boxes of soap all the time, it’s no surprise much music was made to convey a political message, like nationalism or women’s suffrage.

21. Development of New Genres If you think really hard about it, the new music genres of the 20th century were formed by mixing old genres. So really, there wasn’t any “out-of-the-box” thinking, just mixing the best of genres together to form a new, original one. Keep in mind, original ≠ creative, but they usually go together.

22. Is it over yet? You wish.

23. Ragtime What makes something a ragtime is its rags (go figure).These rags, not referring to pieces of cloth, are basically syncopated rhythms. In plain American, all this means that the beat is irregular to “conventional” music. Notes get played offbeat, and the emphasis goes to the offbeat. This is especially prevalent with bass lines.

24. Maple Leaf Rag Composed by Scott Joplin, considered the “King of Ragtime”. The only reason why I’m bringing this up is because I can play it on piano, but there’s no piano and no time to play it. This song is the archetype of ragtime, however. Everything about it is characteristic of ragtimes.

25. Legacy of Ragtime Waltz is a triple-meter ballroom-dance-type music. I wouldn’t consider Swing a genre on its own, but rather a popular music technique where one puts more time-emphasis on the “on-beat”, or initial note. I guess the purpose is to quickly transition a strong note to another strong note, or something. Stride piano is when your left hand makes big jumps and usually plays chords. It would actually be far easier if I could demonstrate examples of these by playing on the piano, but again, there isn’t a piano to play on.

26. Blues Unlike ragtime, it was rooted far deeper in folk music of African Americans. Included a lot of call-and-response, where two or more sides take turns singing, as if they were singing in a conversation. Also contained many melismatics, where a single syllable is held out over multiple notes.

27. Blues Blues was a music genre focused on alleviating emotional distress. Hence the name: when one feels “down”, they feel “blue” (not as in choking). A spiritual is basically a song of solace – usually with religion in it. Solace means to find comfort in times of distress. This packet has stupid vocabulary. A shout is a group of people energetically singing a spiritual.

28. Blues Work songs, which are basically the same as field hollers, are Blues-themed music created to help slaves work through their day by keeping them distracted on better things to think about. Blues notes are a set of notes that make up Blues scales. I believe they’re called pentonic when I think they’re hextonic. Such scales are ambivalent because they share both characteristics of a minor and a majour scale.

29. Blues There are generally two types of blues. Country blues is more folk-oriented, and is thus more improvised. Classic blues is more structured. A small ensemble of musicians playing blues or jazz is called a combo, for reasons that are beyond me. Blues made jazz – or so that’s how the legends go.

30. Too many words! The packet makes it hard for me to make simple bullet points.

31. Jazz Jazz is characteristic mostly through its use of improvisation, seventh chords, and deviation from the normal majour/minour modes. Or if you’re me, you’d call them the Ionian and Aeolian modes. Jazz was born in New Orleans in Storyville, which consisted mostly of prostitution and other sorts of behaviours. (Yes, Jazz was born from not one, but many brothels.)

32. Jazz For some reason, while visiting one of the many brothels, customers thought that it would be better if music was involved. Musicians flocked to this part of New Orleans for jobs and started competing by trying to be creative. Thus, jazz was born. But during WWI, Storyville was shut down, because the secretary of war couldn’t have a district of questionable behaviours near an army training camp. Or maybe the soldiers need to exercise more self-control.

33. Jazz Because Storyville was shut down, musicians needed to find new employment in a place where they were accepted. So of course they’d go to Chicago – which is where Chicago Jazz came from. Solo breaks – where a single musician would perform an improvised solo – were emphasised here. A chorus is like a jazz-version of a strain.

34. Random Vocabulary Stop-Time is when one plays a staccato’d chord on every downbeat. I’m not even sure what the hell a Wah-wah mute is or does. The packet did a great job of explaining it like everything else. Seriously, who do they pay to design these packets? I’ve seen a drunk, blind chimpanzee on a defunct, rusted typewriter do better than this.

35. Jazz Oh, let’s not forget that there were also Jazz/classical hybrids. This meant that they combined the style of jazz with the everything-else of classical music. This was because jazz was hard to get down on paper.

36. Operetta It’s a short opera. This packet is wasting my time. “The Wizard of Oz” was an operetta. This now constitutes as a full, informative slide.

37. Musical Comedy It’s like one of the many sitcoms you’ve seen or heard of on TV before, but the actors sing their parts instead.

38. “Speed! Speed!” Technically, I wanted to cover every sub-topic the packet had to offer, but I don’t even know how this one was significant. Again, this begs the question: “Who the hell designed this?” Let’s just ignore this one.

39. Random Points Oh no! The packet is losing coherency! Both in the adhesive and the content. Broadway is the main theatre district of New York. West End is the London equivalent to Broadway. Star-turn was never explained, but my interpretation is that it means “a new part (of a play)”.

40. Random Points Interpolation refers to any “addition” (adding a part) to a show, or play. Vamp is a short motif that can be played at will and repeatedly until a performer is ready. In other words, it’s a musical way to stall. Verse-chorus form is when the song alternates between “verses”, which are melodies, and “choruses”, which are repeated motifs.

41. Is it almost over yet? The pain never stops for you, does it?

42. Revue An operetta that reviews the events of the previous year. They don’t have a plot; it’s just a bunch of chained together acts. Thus interpolations are very easy. Why did this get its own section in the packet? It’s great for being historically (un)informative, or at least I would think…

43. Tin Pan Alley It’s not an alley full of tin pans, or pans of any metals. It got its name because that’s what many pianos going off at once supposedly sounds like. This term refers to any “district” within a city or town that specialises in musical business (recordings, performances, etc.).

44. More Randomness Song-pluggers were performers who would promote a song. You could think of them as song-marketers. Barbershop is a type of singing that includes a harmonised quartet and lots of seventh chords. I’m not sure why it’s called barbershop, as singing has nothing to do with cutting hair.

45. ASCAP Due to popularity of such musical media, piracy was rampant, and composers/writers everywhere were angry that they weren’t being given credit (in the form of cash) for many performances of their plays in America. So they got together and formed “ASCAP”, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. This helped give rise to publishing and recording industries.

46. 3rd Most Sung American Song It’s “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”. I’m moving on.

47. Cracker Jack This has nothing to do with music or World War I.

48. Some Closing Points Live music was played with silent film to mask the noise generated by the projector, just like makeup on a pig. This evolved into vaudeville’s impact on nickelodeons, where music was always expected to accompany silent film. Film score is a score composed specifically for films. Can either be custom or original. The packet doesn’t explain what either mean, but I’m guessing custom is specific to a scene, and original is specific only to the film.

49. The Birth of a Nation It was really racist.

50. Recording Sound As the century progressed, sound recording became more prevalent and more feasible. It would soon displace many of the live musicians who worked to play the music for the masses. As a result, many musicians were to go unemployed. The Great Depression was probably a harder slap in the face, accompanied with a metal boxing glove.