Any music that has a wide appeal and gets distributed to a large audience, either nationally or globally, is termed as popular music. Contemporary music could belong to any type of musical genre. Usually, it is a contrast to traditional or art music, which gets disseminated only to local or smaller audiences either orally or academically. This popular music has initially become termed as ‘pop music’ as an abbreviation but in reality, but they are not normally interchangeable terms. Contemporary composition is the kind that appeals to all ages and all tastes, while pop refers to certain specific musical genres only.
Forms of Contemporary Music
Popular melodies consists of several sections such as verse, bridge, and chorus or refrain, as well as forms such as verse-chorus form, twelve bar blues, and thirty-two bar form. Trendy songs could have an introduction and a tag called coda or outro but they are not absolutely essential. Songs using verses and choruses generally have a bridge, connecting the verses and chorus at required points in the songs. The verses and chorus get repeated throughout any song but other items like bridge, introduction, and coda are generally used only sparingly. A few pop songs have only solo sections, especially the ones influenced by rock or blues.
History of Music
The original popular western composition was classical and it was divided into various genres according to the periods in which they existed. The medieval music existed from 500 to 1400 AD, Renaissance was between 1400 and 1600 and baroque between 1600 top 1760. The tunes between 1730 and 1820 were classical and romantic melodies ruled between 1815 and 1910. The modern era lasted between 1890 and 1930. However, the most prominent change came in the twentieth century.
Twentieth Century Modern Genres
The first influence in western composition occurred when the African people started to bring in their styles of harmony, which were instant hits with people who had become accustomed to traditional music. The most famous African genres were Cape Jazz, Reggae, Semba and Afrobeat. The other melody was known as avant-garde which was mainly experimental. The blues became famous after that, with blues of different genres like African blues, country blues, punk blues, etc., though many American cities had their own types of blue like Chicago blues, Texas blues, Detroit blues, etc. Caribbean melodies, Brazilian compositions, Mexican melodies and other Latin American music also became part of modern musical trends. Even modern trends like metal and jazz are combining with neoclassical, modernist, postmodernist, etc. to bring something new to lovers of songs.