index                                                                                                                                                                                                      evolution
THE ROOTS

root


ship  The origins of popular music back to the beginning of the XVI Century, when Europeans, after discovering America, set out colonize it.

To extract the natural resources of this new world, they had to import  slave African slaves
after almost finished with the American Indian population.

Both Europeans and Africans came to America with their musical traditions.

From Europe were imported: ballroom dancing, military marches and classicaafricanl music.
   

From Africa tribal songs and dances.

 

Over the next four centuries,
 European and African musical traditions evolve in the hands of African slaves, to create in the XIX Century two types of American music:

EUROPEAN MUSIC EVOLUTION

Afroamericans, imitating the marches bands on the piano and
adapting the African syncopated rhythms, created the RAGTIME.  
                                                                               rag             rag               rag                                                                                                                

maskAFRICAN MUSIC EVOLUTION

African music traditions, under the dominant European culture, resulted in:

SPIRITUAL: religious song. 

WORKSONG: song they sung while they were working.

BLUES: song of lament accompanied by instruments expresing their problems. blues

 In the beginning of the XX Century, in the suburbs of New Orleans, two musics were mixed:
- the syncopated rhythm of the ragtime
- the notes, structure and feeling of the blues
and as a result JAZZ was born.

Jazz became the most important root of the modern popular music; it is the "Grandfather".

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Listen to some jazz music
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