Music Appreciation Notes Feb. 9 PDF

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Dennis Leoni...

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Music Appreciation Notes Monday Feb. 9, 2015 Dennis Leoni The British Invasion: The Beatles  Rock and Roll in the United Kingdom o Not much American interest in British artists o 4 major labels (Decca, EMI, Philips, and Pye) o The BBC was owned by the government  Saturday Club began to air in 1958 o White artists performed the majority of rock and roll music that British audiences encountered at this time. o It was very difficult to access rhythm and blues records by black artists o Films featuring Elvis Presley and Alan Freed were very popular o Dixieland and big band jazz had sold well earlier in the twentieth century o Skiffle: A style of music that developed in British in the 1950s that blends elements of folk music, rock, and the British ballad tradition; bands often consisted of guitar, banjo, and improvised instruments such as washboard and washtub bass. o Lonnie Donegan’s “Rock Island Line”  Becoming the Beatles o Beatles formed in 1957 o Lennon and Paul McCartney teamed up as a skiffle band called the Quarrymen o Indra in Hamburg, Germany o The Cavern Club: a club in Liverpool where The Beatles played frequently from 1961-1963 and where their manager, Brian Epstein, first discovered them. o Brian Epstein became the band’s manager.  Decca Records rejected  George Martin, a recording engineer (EMI’s Abbey Road Studios) o “Love Me Do” No. 17 on the British pop charts. o Ringo o Please Please Me  “I Saw Her Standing There”  “Do You Want to Know a Secret”  “Twist and Shout (American Cover)” o With the Beatles  Shows the group’s careful study of many different types of American popular music  “Money (That’s What I Want)” (Motown)  “Chains” (Carole King)  “All My Loving” and “It Wont Be Long” (Originals)  Epstein publicized the group

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Epstein orchestrated an advanced publicity campaign o Articles in Newsweek, Time, Life, and all the major newspapers o Top of the American Charts o 25,000 screaming teens at Kennedy International Airport o The Ed Sullivan Show o The Beatles played only two live concerts o Beatlemania swept the United States o The Beatles also appeared in several movies. The Music of the Beatles recorded and performed in the early 1960s was modeled on that of popular American music, including rock, Motown, rhythm and blues, girl groups, and rockabilly. Verse-bridge structure Mersey beat: known as backbeat in the U.S., Mersey beat was the U.K. term for music with a strong accent on beats two and four The first bridge of the song is sung in unison, and the second iteration of the bridge is sun in two-part vocal harmony. In the middle of the 1960s, The Beatles became more and more interested in record production. They stopped touring in 1966 Experimenting with studio effects, unusual forms and structures, new instruments, and unusual timbres “We don’t write songs anymore, we write recordings.” Rubber Soul in late 1965 and Revolver in 1966 Personal, professional, and financial conflicts plagued the Beatles in the late 1960s....