Popular Music
Popular music is a broad category of music which largely emerged following the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century, and grew into its modern form following the Second Industrial Revolution in the early 20th century with the invention of musical recordings?. It is typically defined in opposition to the categories of folk? music and classical? music, although popular music also heavily draws influence from these sources. As it is "popular", popular music is for the people, much like folk music, but is not necessarily of the people in the same way folk is; popular music is heavily tied to the notion of particular compositions like in classical music, later transformed by the advent of recording technology to focus on recordings and, even later, releases? like albums? and singles?. This is not a definition but rather an attempt at a description; it is difficult if not impossible to fully define "popular music" in all the ways it's been used and understood over time.
I dunno that much about popular music before the 19th century or outside the United States, though I imagine that in the Western world its roots lie in light/comic opera? and operetta, as well as the medieval lyric poetry by travelling and courtly bards in Europe, eventually becoming popular balladry. If you know more, fill me in!
Early popular music of the 19th century in the United States was primarily divided into:
- Parlour music?, for the home and small private venues, distributed via sheet music? with notation for the piano and other commonplace household instruments
- Musical theatre?, performed in larger venues by local or travelling troupes, at this point primarily either minstrelsy? or vaudeville?
Of course, these were not entirely separate ecosystems, with many minstrel or vaudeville songs becoming parlour favourites, and parlour composers like Stephen Foster? also composing songs for minstrel shows. Both of these varieties were heavily influential on the popular music of the early 20th century, and made up some of the earliest recordings on phonographic cylinders in the 1890s and 1900s.
By the 1890s, Tin Pan Alley? had become established as a hub in New York City for songwriters and music publishers, whose stylings and sheet-music releases dominated American popular music from the beginning of the century until the Great Depression hit in the 1930s, and remained heavily influential on popular music through the 1950s and into the 1960s. The early material of Tin Pan Alley was largely ballads? or novelty? songs, but it soon began to incorporate influences from and compose in the style of new African-American styles, beginning with ragtime? and the related cakewalk?, and by the 1910s and 1920s, elements of early jazz? and blues?, notably impacting the development of the vaudeville blues? and vocal jazz? styles. Tin Pan Alley popular songs, along with popular Broadway? showtunes? and jazz standards?, make up the canon of the Great American Songbook?.
Jazz was a popular and influential style of popular music, rising to major popularity in the 1920s "Jazz Age" following its 1910s development in New Orleans in a style now often known as "Dixieland?", influenced by the blues and ragtime. By the 1930s, swing? was the dominant form of jazz, often performed by big bands?. A small-band adaptation of the swing groove became known as jump blues?, and was heavily influential on the development of "rhythm & blues?" (originally known as "race records" and commonly shortened to "R&B") and its offshoot rock & roll.
(This is incomplete. I will add more ^_^)