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Popular music - The nature of popular music

Popular music - The nature of popular music: Encyclopedia II - Popular music - The nature of popular music

Fred Lerdahl (1992), for example, claims that in comparison with classical music popular music lacks the structural complexity for multiple structural layers, and thus much depth. However, Lerdahl's theories explicitly exclude "associational" details which are used to help articulate form in popular music, while Allen Forte's book The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era 1924-1950 analyses popular music with traditional Schenkerian techniques. (Middleton 1999, p.144) P ...

Popular music: Encyclopedia II - Popular music - The nature of popular music

Popular music - The nature of popular music

Fred Lerdahl (1992), for example, claims that in comparison with classical music popular music lacks the structural complexity for multiple structural layers, and thus much depth. However, Lerdahl's theories explicitly exclude "associational" details which are used to help articulate form in popular music, while Allen Forte's book The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era 1924-1950 analyses popular music with traditional Schenkerian techniques. (Middleton 1999, p.144)

Popular music - Popular music as a business enterprise

Much popular music is the product of the modern business enterprise, disseminated for the purpose of earning a profit. Executives and employees of popular music businesses try to select and cultivate the music that will have the greatest success with the public, and thus maximize the profits of their firm. In this respect, popular music differs from traditional folk music, which was created by ordinary people for their own enjoyment, and from classical music, which was originally created to serve the purposes of the Church or for the entertainment of the nobility. (Today classical music is often subsidized by governments and universities.)

Although the controlling forces of popular music are business enterprises, young people who aspire to become popular musicians are certainly not always driven by the profit motive. Rather, they often want to find an outlet for their sense of expression and creativity, or simply to have fun. Historically, the conflicting motives of business people and musicians has been a source of tension in the popular music industry.

Debate continues about the status of popular music. Some emphasize the commercial motive and suggest the big companies manipulate the audiences and sell them products with no intrinsic value; others underline that the development of the demand for a particular type of music can articulate the needs and concerns of ordinary people. This is the debate about "authenticity" which rages whenever popular music is discussed.

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The nature of popular music", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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