Writing About Music

Music as art appeared at the dawn of humanity. The gradual development of music and the changes in its genres reflects the significant number of historical events that society has experienced. The music captures the life of particular groups of people, the thoughts and aspirations of individuals, as well as different social processes. If you’re looking for unique ways to start music essay, state that the main merit of music is that at all times, it has revealed a complicated spiritual world of humans with extraordinary precision and depth. Probably, this exact property of music as capable of reflecting feelings, aspirations, and moods, can explain the fact that it still accompanies people both in sorrow and joy. No event, be it a wedding, birthday, or some other celebrations, would be complete without the performance of any musical pieces.

History of Music Essay

It would be appropriate to start essays about music with a history of different genres. Let’s begin with ethnic music. Ethnic music belongs to the folklore legacy of every nation. In this article, some types of ethnic music in different countries are discussed. Also, a few facts will be presented about the history of their development.

Flamenco

Flamenco is a musical genre that has originated in southern Andalusia. It became a unique phenomenon belonging to the musical legacy of Spain. Even though flamenco is a mixture of rhythms and melodies of Arab, Gypsy, Jewish, and Christian cultures, it rightfully can be called original. The full name of the genre is cante flamenco. Interestingly, cante means “singing” in Spanish, although flamenco also includes singing, dancing, and playing the guitar and covers all manifestations of the flamenco style. It would be great to mention these features in your folk music essay. The first documentary reference of flamenco was found in 1780 in Andalusia. This genre was gaining popularity within deprived village areas, and until the last third of the twentieth century, it was unknown outside the narrow circle of amateurs. This genre began to gain popularity during the national fests, attracting more and more admirers to its side, and at the same time, the number of cantors also grew. Gradually, flamenco became a profession and a way to make a living. This fact may be added to the argumentative essay about music.

Finally, one more fact for you: the bulk of Spaniards learned about flamenco only with the advent of special artistic cafes, cafe cantante, where the singers performed. So, looking for music essay topics, feel free to choose flamenco as this genre will be definitely interesting for your readers.

The richness of folk music had a great influence on music as an art form in general. This genre is especially popular in English-speaking countries (for example, the USA and Great Britain), where folk songs are sung not only in the family circle, at a wedding, or a birthday party, but also performed in front of a broad audience. Creating the music then and now essay, it is worth mentioning that such singers as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Judy Collins were and still are the most famous American folk music representatives. At the same time, performing folk music, singers had an opportunity to bring to the world their poetry, in which they reflected their political, economic, and other views.

While writing the instrumental music essay, one may mention that in the 1960s, country singers used a minimum of musical instruments, mainly acoustic guitar and vocals. However, by the end of the 1960s, folk was losing its popular position, with fewer and fewer musicians working in this style. After listening to The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and The Doors, the public demanded a new approach to folk and music in general.

In the country music essay, you may also include some information about Tim Buckley, who worked in the psychedelic folk genre in the United States in 1960-1970s. He had a unique voice, and it made his performance challenging to understand for an ordinary American listener. Perhaps, his talent would be appreciated much higher abroad as compared to the USA, where the number of singers in the same genre was high. However, it is necessary to pay tribute to this singer as his albums Goodbye and Hello, Happy Sad, and others are unlikely to leave anyone indifferent.

The birthplace of another famous folk singer, Leonard Cohen, is Canada, but his successful career began in the United States. Surprisingly, Leonard Cohen is the only representative of the American folk, whose popularity in the UK and Europe was noticeably higher than at home. So he is an interesting person to describe in American music essay. By the way, he began his professional path as a novelist and poet and launched his successful music career only at the age of 33. 

Composing a “my favorite music” essay, you may indicate that the flourishing of English folk came five years later as compared to the American one, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In England, the approach to the music of this style was fundamentally different. Very few musicians played an acoustic guitar, which is a classical folk music instrument. The most famous folk group was the Incredible String Band, which played in the genre of psychedelic folk.

The most famous folk-rock band in the UK is the Fairport Convention. The musicians, having joined in 1967, quickly gained fame thanks to the original combination of folk melody with the stirring vocals of lead singer Sandy Denny. The Irish band Clannad may also be considered as one of the leading folk-rock groups. By the way, country folk has many new substyles nowadays. For instance, if you’re writing a Norwegian folk music essay, you are welcome to state that Wardruna is one of the new Norwegian musician groups who play in the genre of folk-metal.

Ska

Ska is a national form of Jamaican music that appeared at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. It has been developed by Jamaican jazz musicians, who decided to remake the American rhythm and blues and rock and roll genres, heard by them on the radio, to make it close to the national mood. The result of their experiments was the ska style, which is a mixture of Afro-Cuban rhythms, exotic Caribbean sound, and rock and roll harmonies. This genre could be added to the evolution of music essay. The very word “ska” means a somewhat jerky and sonorous guitar sound. A characteristic feature of ska-compositions is a powerful bass. The rhythmic basis of ska is represented by a four-beat rhythm with emphasis on weak parts (small drum beats, guitar accents, etc.). Jamaican vocalists usually deliberately distort English words, which also brings its zest to ska-style. The first known performers of ska were Prince Buster, Desmond Dekker, and Laurel Aitken. However, the true progenitor of ska music is the Jamaican group The Skatalites, which included jazz musicians of world class. Although the group existed a little more than a year (1964-1965), its influence on the development of music as a whole was enormous. Ska music was very popular in the homeland: it sounded in ballrooms, clubs, and parties. In 1964, another music style was formed based on ska – rocksteady. The latter, in turn, was the progenitor of reggae. In the mid-1960s, Jamaican immigrants, seeking work and migrating to England, brought their musical culture there. As a result, recording studios focused on ska and reggae also began to develop in Britain; for example, the famous Iceland Records firm. The ska style became unusually popular in the history of pop music but later went to the shadow, giving way to other musical genres. However, even nowadays, ska music has not lost its attractiveness.

Raï

If you are looking for interesting world music essay topics, raï may be the option. Raï is a traditional national style of Algerian music, which appeared not so long ago. Its native land is called the western Algerian port of Oran, where Arab, Turkish, Spanish, and French influences were mixed. Raï, as a rule, is characterized by a unique vocal style, differing in the abundance of eastern melismatic and vibrato, voice tension, and passion for performance. The themes of the raï songs remain relevant at all times since there are compositions about unhappy love and disappointments among them. Creating the advantages and disadvantages of music essay, you can supplement the fact that raï songs are top-rated among youth circles, but Islamic activists in Algeria sharply criticize them. Over time, the raï has absorbed Egyptian and European musical traditions, making acoustic instruments replaced by modern electric ones. Composing the essay on music, note that mass migration of the Algerian population to France made this style popular in Europe, where it was influenced by chanson, as well as fashionable dance styles. Now, both Europeans and Algerians enjoy this genre.

Country

In the music essay introduction, it is essential to note that the country style is a harmonious mix of ethnic music of England, Ireland, and Scotland. The first immigrants from Europe brought to America their songs, motives, manner of performance, and passed it from generation to generation. Religious music, especially hymns and various ritual songs, were also part of what later became known as country music. Over time, the genre has changed, becoming popular in the eastern, western, and southern states by the end of the twentieth century.

In the outline for music essay, it worth mentioning that the first documented country song in the world was The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane, created in 1871 by Will Hays. Fifty-three years later, it was recorded by Fiddlin John Carson, a well-known radio host. In 1922, Eck Robertson recorded the song Sallie Gooden, which was also referred to as the country style.

It is noteworthy that in the 1920s, the musical form of the country was called in a different way – the Hillbilly. One may state in country music essay that the opening of the Grand Ole Opry show festival in November 1925 was a remarkable event in the country music evolution. Uncle Jimmy Thompson, an 85-year-old violin fiddle player, was the first participant of this show. The subsequent period (from 1927 to 1943) was called the Golden Age of Country Music. By the end of the Second World War, more than 50,000 performers participated in various radio shows and released their records. The most popular radio shows were WLS National Barn Dance, Louisville's Renfro Valley Barn Dance, Richmond, Virginia's Old Dominion Barn Dance, and Shreveport Louisiana.

In the history of country music essay, one may also mention that in 1955, Owen Bradley founded the studio and since 1960, produced a large number of hit country records together with Chet Atkins. The popularity of the country style did not decrease in the 1970s as well. The film named Urban Cowboy was released in the 1980s and caused a new wave of increased attention to country music. As a result, the performers had the opportunity to present their records to a broader audience. However, in the next decade, interest in this genre was noticeably reduced, which was associated with the emergence and flourishing of other musical styles.

Nevertheless, performers such as George Strait, Randy Travis, Clint Black, and of course, Garth Brooks did everything to make country one of the most popular styles of music. Finally, in the classification of several kinds of music essay, it is necessary to explain that, in addition to the mentioned country styles, some experts also distinguished cowboy music, bluegrass, country pop, etc.

Cowboy Music

If you want to compose a short essay on music, cowboy music might be a good topic for it. Cowboy music is one of the popular and well-known country music styles in the US, which later became one of the most favorite genres among country poets. Many country artists have been working in this style since 1908 when Nathan Howard (Jack Thorp) recorded a composition called Songs of the Cowboys. Cowboy music, which was performed in the mid-1920s, eventually became known as western music. The first singing cowboy was Ken Maynard, the actor who starred in the movie The Wagon Master, released in the 1930s. In this picture, he performed his songs The Lone-Star Trail and Cowboy Lament.

While composing what is music essay introduction, one may state that with the development of the Western culture, cowboys have become one of Hollywood symbols. The first person who managed to make cowboy music truly popular was Gene Autry, who starred in 90 films. Gene Autry’s voice was regularly heard on the radio, thanks to the fact that for 17 years, he had been acting as one of the main characters of the radio show Melody Ranch. The most famous songs that Gene Autry performed were Cowboy Yodel, Back in the Saddle Again, etc. In general, the list of all singers who have ever performed cowboy songs is quite extensive. Here are just some of the most famous names from it: Johnny Bond, Jimmy Wakely, Merle Travis, Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, etc.

One more interesting fact is that singing cowboys, as a rule, performed old songs that became an integral part of the folklore of immigrants. In the why I love music essay, you may indicate that Johnny Cash, for example, recorded “country relics” such as Bury Me Not on the Lone Prarie and The Streets of Laredo on his Johnny Cash Sings the Ballads of the True West record. He played these songs in the television shows The Rebel-Johnny Yuma and Bonanza, as well as on the Ring of Fire record.

Even though Western-style films are not so popular nowadays, there are still people and even entire organizations interested in preserving these movies, which is an important fact to include in the influence of music essay. The Warner Western company continues to produce various records of different samples of cowboy music. The first release was the record of Don Edwards Songs of the Trail, in 1992. Since then, this studio has produced a large number of recordings of various bands and performers such as Sons of the San Joaquin, Waddie Mitchell, Riders in the Sky, etc. It should be noted that at present, this style remains quite popular in the US and Western Europe, and many musicians try their hand in it.

Bluegrass

Creating what is music essay, you may also define the bluegrass. The recognized king of the bluegrass music is William Smith Monroe, whose name became famous thanks to the string band, which he created. The group’s compositions were original and close in sounding to what was known as bluegrass later. This is a good thesis statement for a music essay. It is noteworthy that this name of the style of music arose from the name of William Monroe’s group, The Blue Grass Boys, whose first records at the studio Columbia refer to 1946.

While working on my favorite kind of music essay, please add more info about the most popular performers, whatever your most beloved genre is. For instance, if one adores the Stanley Brothers, they may include some information about the band. They began the career of musicians in 1947, after the success of the William Monroe group. Their popularity was brought by the classic composition of bluegrasses called Molly and Tenbrooks, but almost immediately after its recording, the band faced hard times, eventually compelling them to stop performing in concerts in 1951. However, nine years later, the musicians reunited, and their song How Far to Little Rock took 17th place in the country hit chart of the Billboard magazine.

In the expository essay on music, it is worth stating that the brothers Jim and Jesse McReynolds from Virginia were the creators of another famous band playing bluegrass music. Jim was a tenor-vocalist and guitarist, and Jesse owned an excellent technique of playing the mandolin called cross-picking. Jim and Jessie recorded at the Capitol studio between 1952 and 1956, but none of their songs were released until 1958 because rock and roll genre, which became popular at that time, did not leave artists of other styles either one chance of success. Fame came to McReynolds after they made a tour over the Far East and released a second record called Jim and Jesse-Live in Japan.

So this was information about one of the country music sub-genres. By the way, currently, thanks to the efforts of members of the groups The Whites and Union Station, bluegrass remains popular among fans of country music.

Honky Tonk

Honky tonk is an early style of black piano jazz, formed in the early twentieth century. In the traditional music essay, you may add that the origins of it should be sought in roadside South American bars. It should be noted that the term “honky-tonk” denotes not only a particular style of music but also a precise sound reminiscent of the voice of an old poorly tuned piano. Honky-tonk was played a little rough; with the left hand, the pianist repeated the syncopated figures of accompaniment, and the right one was used for improvisation. Although the honky-tonk tradition is primarily associated with instrumental performance, the singer’s vocal also played a significant role. Honky-tonk songs tell what surrounds the author in life: endless parties and what happens the next morning, a loyal company of friends, what the unhappy love is, and which religious feelings the singer experiences. Often, these songs were the whole stories.

Composing the passion for music essay, you may claim that country music performers showed great interest in the honky-tonk in the 1940s-1950s. Such famous musicians as Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, George Jones were among them. However, with the advent of rock and roll and rockabilly, honky-tonk began to lose popularity, but its influence can be found in the works of many contemporary country performers.

Country Gospel

Country music has a Christian background due to the fact that most of the settlers were believers and mainly protestants. That is why almost every country performer has an album of religious hymns in his or her discography. Over time, all these hymns, as well as the manner of performing them, became the basis of the country-gospel style formation. This information will make your gospel music essay interesting. The Carter Family was the first popular country band who attempted to use the gospel motives in their work. In 1928, they recorded a song called Keep on the Sunny Side of Life. Their another song, Can the Circle Be Unbroken, recorded in 1935, was so popular that after a lapse of 37 years, it was sung by the band Nitty Gritty Dirt. In the 1930s, gospel quartets traveling around the country, such as the Swanee River Boys, contributed to the popularization of this style. Those groups were supported by various companies that published and sold religious literature to enhance people’s interest. Thus, many Christian anthems have become an integral part of the country genre, which is interesting enough to be included in the power of music essay. As a proof of this, the following examples can be cited: the song I’ll fly away, recorded in 1932 by a performer named David Brumley, is still a ‘classic’ song that is surely performed at a concert by any singer.

While working on the music essay topics for students, you should consider writing about the significance of religion in country music. Indeed, country songs with religious context did not lose their popularity in the 1960s. Carl Perkin’s song Daddy Sang Bass, recorded by Johnny Cash, was hitting parades in 1968 in the US. In 1970, Glen Campbell recorded the song Oh Happy Day, one more popular Christian hymns. In the 1970s, the country-gospel songs always occupied positions in several categories at once. In the same year, 1973, Glen Campbell was in hit the parades with the song I Knew Jesus (Before He Was a Superstar). Versions of Larry Gatlin’s song Help Me were in the hit parade twice: in 1974 performed by Elvis Presley and in 1977 by Ray Price.

The descriptive essay about music may include the fact that in 1976, Bobby Bair hit parades with his version of the song Drop Kick Me, Jesus. The next year was marked by the appearance of a recording of another hit song May the Force Be with You, which was later used in the famous movie Star Wars. The song performed by Chris Kristofferson They Killed Him, dedicated to Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, also ranked high in several categories of the hit parade in 1987.

Currently, the main themes of songs in the style of the country gospel are the fight against drugs and alcohol. For example, the death that occurred as a result of taking large doses of alcoholic beverages is described in Chris Kristofferson's song Sunday Morning Comin' Down. This song was performed by Johnny Cash and took the first place in the hit parade in 1969. One may include this to the essay about music in my life, as it is noticeable that various music styles influence people in different ways and reflect the problems and hardships one may face on their life path. The song Sam Stone, recorded by John Prine in 1971, tells of such evil as drug addiction. The style of country gospel gradually began to fade in the early 1990s. The festival The Friday Night Opry had lost its popularity, and there was only one gospel radio station WSM Grand Ole Gospel Time.

Reggae

The origins of reggae, one of the Jamaican national forms of pop music, are to be found in folk as well as rhythm and blues genres. This combination emerged in the 1960s as an attempt of Jamaican musicians to combine New Orleans rhythm and blues dongs with folk music. In the importance of music essay, it should be noted that the term reggae means not only music but also a certain worldview. Jamaican reggae musicians are deeply religious people. Their religion is called Rastafarian. Let us explain what it is. The fact is that most of the inhabitants of Jamaica are descendants of Africans who were exported during the Middle Ages to the New World as slaves by Americans and Europeans. At the same time, apparently, in their midst, there was a legend about the emperor of Ethiopia, named Ras (meaning a duke or prince) Tafari Makonnen, who, according to the prediction, was to bring freedom to all suffering and help them return to their homeland, liberated Africa. So, Rastaman music is a reggae style, the historical precursor of which is ska.

Among the performers of reggae music, you should firstly name Lee Scratch Perry, Elton Ellis, and of course, Bob Marley, who is a recognized classic of reggae movement. It was he who managed to create such reggae music that, while remaining danceable, at the same time reflected the mood of the society of that time. Bob Marley died in 1981, but his unreleased records are still coming out. This can be a good conclusion for music essay: for many people, Bob Marley is not just a poet and musician, but also a prophet.

Among the significant figures of the reggae movement, it is also necessary to mention Peter Tosh, who started his career together with Marley in the band called The Wailers, and Linton Kwesi Johnson, who invented dub-poetry, according to which a poetic text monotonously read over the rhythm of reggae. In the 1970s, reggae music began to spread across Europe and America. Bob Marley gave concerts in London; his records occupied high positions in the US music charts. In 1976, the artist was forced to leave Jamaica, fleeing persecution, and move to England. In the persuasive essay about music, you can say that reggae quickly gained popularity in the UK. In 1983, the Jamaican band called Black Uhuru was awarded the Grammy Award as the best reggae group. Since then, many musicians experiment with reggae. Over time, there was an electronic version of this style called dub.

Blues

Blues is the genre of African-American folk music, which arose in the second half of the XIX century. Researchers noted that the blues was born as music of social and racial inequality, a song of an oppressed African-American population, so, one may touch upon this style in the rebel music essay. The homeland of blues is the delta of the Mississippi River. The earliest forms of blues-delta, or rural blues, were played by musicians such as Charlie Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson. In the 1920s, on the wave of mass migration of black people to cities in search of work, the so-called classical or urban blues was formed. In connection with this direction, it would be great to mention the legacy of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. There are also the following types of blues: Texas blues, Chicago-blues, jump-blues, country blues, soul blues, west-side blues, light blues, etc.

Initially, the blues compositions were performed mainly accompanied by acoustic instruments (guitar, often homemade, banjo, etc.). In the 1930s, power tools and ensembles with pianos and drums appeared, and it should be mentioned in the piano music essay as well. More intense, powerful, and vigorous sounding form of this genre – rhythm and blues, found its spread in the post-war period. Representatives of this direction are Muddy Waters, BB King, Buddy Guy, and others. Experiments of white musicians, among whom it is necessary to mention Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, with black blues led to the appearance of rock and roll in the early 1960s, and in the 1960s, it was followed by a wave of the so-called white rhythm and blues.

If you cannot find any proper ideas for what music means to me essay, you may consider writing about the essence of the musical styles. The blues served as the basis for hard rock. Moreover, the close connection between jazz and blues seems much more evident than in the case of other styles. The reasons for this are a direct coincidence of a number of their most essential features, such as the use of bluestones in melody, harmonious specificity, rhythmic freedom, and an expressive manner of performing. By the way, one more fact: the essence of blues is manifested only in a live performance when the listener can enjoy it fully. You can assert this fact in the benefits of music essay.

Rock music

Those who think that rock is just a musical direction are very mistaken. Rock refers to youth culture, the way of self-expression of the younger generation, denial, and revision of the moral and material values ​​of the world. Throughout its history, rock shows the unsolvable relationship problem of parents and children. The emergence of rock is closely related to technical, economic, political, and social development. Moreover, technological progress also contributed to the introduction of this genre. This is confirmed by the fact that rock flourished only in the most developed countries.

If you decided to create music essay questions, it is important to explain the fact that the first electronic musical instrument was not a guitar but a termenvox, created in 1920 by an engineer named Lev Termen. This instrument worked in the following way: the pitch was changed by approaching the antenna or removing the artist’s hand from it. In the future, the inventors came up with many tools, which used electricity, such as trautonium and violin. These facts are unknown to many people. In the 1930s, the first electric guitars appeared, but they had little in common with the modern one. This fact can be included in the evolution of rock music essay as well.

Hard rock

One of the distinctive features of hard rock, which you may add to the rock music essay, is a specific sound. The fact is that hard rock broke the tradition of musical perception, demanding a certain change from the musicians and listeners. The sound of hard rock is characterized by a noticeable weight, high density, and an increase in the metro rhythmic principle, which has become a rigid basis for virtuosic improvisation. The queen of hard rock is an electric guitar, while the king of guitar playing is considered Jimi Hendrix. Among the first hard rock albums, it is necessary to name Led Zeppelin II (1969) of the Led Zeppelin group and In Rock (1970) by Deep Purple. This is good material for college essays about music. The Gold fund of hard rock consists of all the discs of Led Zeppelin, the work of Black Sabbath in 1970-1976, the Deep Purple albums of 1970-1973, and most records of the American Grand Funk band. In the first half of the 1970s, British bands Uriah Heep, Wishbone Ash, Budgie, Scottish Nazareth, Irish Thin Lizzy, American Blue Oyster Cult, and Canadian Guess joined the hard rock clan. Approximately at the same time, independent style varieties of hard rock began to appear. These include heavy rock-roll (Geordie, Aerosmith, AC / DC), heavy boogie (Status Quo), Melodic hard rock, or soft-hard (Scorpions, Mountain, Cheap Trick), etc. In the history of pop music essay, you should also mention the fact that rock was once considered pop music.

Heavy Metal

In the heavy metal music essay, one may indicate that heavy metal singers distinguished the following qualities: hard sounding, polyphonic texture, more exalted vocal style (especially appreciated strong, well-placed tenors, although there is also a falsetto), and masterly soloing. Instrumentation of heavy metal bands included only electric guitars and percussion instruments. Today the sound of many heavy metal bands seems somewhat archaic, but at one time, they made a real revolution in music. The theme of the songs was appropriate: a cult of strength and aggression, heroics, fantasy-like stories, mythological motifs, and love. The image of the musicians was shocking: leather clothes, iron chains, long hair, some people appeared even in animal skins, etc.

Creating the psycho music essay, the writer should remind the readers that heavy metal influenced the formation of almost all styles of metal of the 1980s: speed metal, thrash metal, power metal, glam metal, as well as black metal.

Pop music

If you decided to write the pop music essay, it is important to remember that it is customary to call pop music the combination of various trends in mass musical culture. The concept of pop music is a shortened version of English ‘popular music’, which in translation means ‘public music.’ The name is given by the analogy with the pop art concept, translated as ‘public art.’

In the essay about music, note that the term ‘pop music,’ which appeared in the 1950s, was first used to designate only rock music. At present, it is customary to refer to all the phenomena of the commercial music and entertainment industry to pop music. Pop music includes styles and directions of heterogeneous origin: folk and country (traditional musical folklore of the US rural population); soul, in which the elements of rhythm and blues are combined with the traditions of religious chanting gospel and spiritual songs; funk, which is a gospel mix with dance music of African descent; reggae (with the elements of traditional music of the people of the Caribbean); disco (dance tunes of European discos); rock music, as well as many other mixed styles (jazz-rock, etc.). Currently, rock music does not belong to pop music and is an independent musical direction.

Another direction of pop music is soul, in which the rhythm-blues elements are organically combined with the traditions of religious songs in the gospel and spiritual styles. By the way, if you are creating the historical context of hip hop music essay, you should say that soul, together with jazz and funk, were the main bases for the hip-hop origin. The poetic spiritual, which is one of the genres of American spiritual music, imbued with moods of tragic loneliness and absorbed the best traditions of African and Anglo-Celtic musical folklore, differs somewhat from the gospel-spiritual music of African-Americans, performed accompanied by a piano or instrumental ensemble. Like the religious composition, the gospel is an evangelical non-cult solo song, written for a specific spiritual purpose. In the 1960s, the most famous people working in this genre were the composer Tommy Dorsey and the poet Langston Hughes. The soul is a powerful music genre; it is understandable even to people who do not speak English and are not versed in the subtleties of African American slang as it tells not only about the love of God, but also about the feeling inherent in everyone –  the love of a man and woman. Add this fact to your popular music essay.

Jazz

The term jazz first appeared in the middle of the 1910s. At that time, this word served to denote the small orchestras and music that they performed. The main features of jazz are non-traditional methods of sound extraction and intonation, improvisational nature of melody transmission, as well as its development, constant rhythmic pulsation, and emotionality. Jazz has several styles, the first of which was formed in the period from 1900 to 1920. This style, called New Orleans, is characterized by the collective improvisation of the melodic band of the orchestra (cornet, clarinet, trombone) against the background of the four-legged accompaniment of the rhythm group (percussion, wind or string, bass, banjo, and in some cases pianoforte). 

In your jazz music essay, state that in the early 1930s, a new jazz style appeared, called swing. It was bound with the musical activity of large orchestras – big bands. The number of musicians in this orchestra is 10-20 people. The music of the swing testifies to the strengthening of the role of the arrangement, where four or five saxophones, three or four pipes, and the same number of trombones are contrasted or combined with the rhythm group performing dance rhythm formulas. By the way, if you are writing what is Broadway music essay, you may state that jazz was often played on the Broadway stage.

Rap

Rap is a kind of music, which is characterized by uneven rhythm, simple and clear harmonies, and short musical phrases, enclosed in a continuous line. The vocal in rap is absent, and its role is played by a recitative placed on pre-recorded instrumental tracks. In the mid-1980s, the synthesis of rap became widespread, and its connections with thrash and punk-rock also appeared. These facts may be included in the classification of music essay. Soon all of them turned into independent directions. Classical compositions in the style of rap assume the mandatory use of a turntable with a set of vinyl records as an additional tool of the rhythm section. In the evolution of rap music essay, you may state that rap texts should express the desire of black youth for the ideals of freedom and equality, but actually, this is sometimes expressed only in the use of informal vocabulary. Rap was introduced in the mid-1970s in New York disco clubs for blacks. At that time, the performance of rap music did not require any complicated skills.

Techno

If you still don’t know how to write music essay, consider including some info about techno, which is one of the most popular music genres nowadays. Unlike rock music, which has a rich history, techno has appeared relatively recently. The German group Kraftwerk owns the right to be called its founder. In the late 1960s, the repertoire of most of the pop singers in Germany consisted of American and English hits. Such a state of affairs outraged some young musicians. To create an entirely new, unlike the English-language music samples, they turned to national traditions. Groups such as Faust, Can, Tangerine Dream, and Kraftwerk (their members had classical music education) began to create works that differ in structure and differ from those that filled the first lines of top charts. This style shares some common features with the rock, so the British music press called it krautrock. Soon, the forenamed bands became a role model for many other German groups.

When one is speaking of techno, it is impossible to forget about house music, especially if a person is choosing the topics about electronic dance music essay. The origin of the term House music comes from the name of the Chicago club The Warehouse, where this music was born. From 1977 to 1983, DJ Frankie Knuckles was the club president. His music was a mixture of underground disco, funk, and soul. To make music more danceable, he used the drum machine called Roland 909, which accompanied the recording of a song and helped highlight the rhythm. Another extremely effective reception by Frankie is the mixing of compositions with a synthesized rhythm, produced with the help of a simple multi-channel tape recorder, as a result of which one track flowed into the other, and the process was completely unnoticed by the listener.

Music Essay Topic Ideas

If you are searching for good and meaningful music essay themes, you may consider writing about classical Baroque music and its most prominent representatives. Let’s start with the Baroque genre. 

Baroque is one of the main style trends in European and American culture of the late XVI-XVIII century. Characteristic features of the art of this period are grandeur, splendor, and dynamism, as well as passion for spectacular spectacles, combining imaginary and real, and sharp contrasts of scales and rhythms, materials, and textures, light and shadow. Baroque music is also characterized by contrast, tension, dynamic images, gravitation towards majestic splendor, and a combination of reality and fiction. In the baroque music essay, it is recommended to describe several genius representatives of the Baroque period.

Claudio Monteverdi is one of the first composers whose work led to the development of a musical drama that was introduced in Italy in the second half of the 16th century. In orchestration, Monteverdi applied such sound effects as tremolo and pizzicato for stringed instruments for the first time in the history of music and enriched the orchestra with new orchestral combinations. The most outstanding works written by Monteverdi, which one should mention in the opera music essay, are the operas Orpheus, Ariadne, Stolen Proserpine, Return of Ulysses, and The Coronation of Poppea.

Writing the classical music essay, you may mention the brightest representatives of the era. The great French composer Jean Baptiste Lully was born in 1632 in Florence in the family of a miller. Lully made an invaluable contribution to the development of musical art, being the first musician to establish the form of the overture. He also introduced a new instrument into the orchestra – timpani. Besides, Lully is considered the founder of the French national opera.

In the comparison and contrast of baroque and classical music essay, you can mention that the work of the great German composer Ludwig van Beethoven was the pinnacle of the heyday of classical music. 1802 marked the beginning of a new stage in the composer’s work, whose talent reached the peak of its heyday. In the next decade, he wrote many of the best pieces, among which the overtures, such as Egmont, Coriolanus, Appassionata, and Kreutzer Sonata for violin and piano should be named.

To sum up, it is worth to say that classical music remains popular till now. In the Disney music essay, one may say that the Walt Disney company often used piano music, including famous classical compositions, in their films.