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Sousa
John Philip Sousa was a bandmaster that was known for marches. He conducted “The President’s Own” Marine Band. -
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Ives
Charles Ives is one of the most innovative and original composers
and one of the great American composers of the first half of the 20th century. His father shaped his music style, and he used a lot of Polyrhythms and Polymeters, as well as limited atonality. -
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Dett
Robert Nathaniel Dett is a Pianist that graduated from Oberlin and the Eastman School of Music, and studied with Natalie Boulanger and at Harvard and Columbia. He also helped found the National Association of Negro Musicians. -
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Russolo
Luigi Russolo is an Italian Futurist painter, composer, and builder of experimental musical instruments wrote a creed or manifesto titled “The Art of Noises.” -
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Price
Florence Price was the first black female composer to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra: Symphony No. 1 in E minor. -
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N. Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger taught all 20th Century American composers except George Gershwin, and refused to let him in her class. She help other composers find their “voice.” -
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Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev is a Russian composer that did orchestral pieces, piano works and film music. He was important as a Russian voice in Western culture. -
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L. Boulanger
Lili Boulanger is Nadia's sister, and Lili was a very successful musician and was better than her older sister Nadia, however she died young. -
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Still
William Grant Still is the first Black American composer to have a symphony and opera performed by a major ensemble and conduct a major symphony orchestra. -
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Cowell
Henry Cowell was John Cage’s teacher, and he was an American innovator who was drawn to non-Western music. He invented chance music and invented new techniques for playing the piano. -
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Gershwin
George Gershwin is an influential American composer, pianist, and conductor who worked in Hollywood, and successfully fused jazz and pop music. -
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Ellington
Duke Ellington is an American jazz composer, band-leader, and pianist. He created a unique style of big band jazz, and was the first African-American composers to cross races with his music. -
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Copland
Aaron Copland was a composer, teacher, critic, conductor, and sponsor of concerts. He also taught at Harvard, gave lectures and conducted festivals in many American schools. Copland’s style is mostly tonal. -
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Seeger
Ruth Crawford Seeger is an American composer and folk-music specialist. -
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Dallapiccola
Luigi Dallapiccola is an Italian composer, writer, and pianist. He is considered the principal innovator in Italy in the 20th century. -
The Unanswered Question
The Unanswered Question is an Orchestral work, no specific genre, and was originally one of two “Contemplations," paired with “Central Park in the Dark.” -
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Carter
Elliott Carter is an American composer, and he was influential as a teacher and as a composer for 50 years. -
Tone Clusters
Tone Clusters are groups of adjacent notes that are highly dissonant. -
World War I
The experience of World War I had a major impact on US domestic politics, culture, and society. WWI was known at the time as the Great War, the War to End War, and (in the United States) the European War. -
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Holiday
Billie Holiday is one of the leading female jazz singers, and
she broke racial barriers by performing with white bands. She is also known for her renditions of blues songs. -
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Strayhorn
Billy Strayhorn composed A Train, and the “A” train is the subway line that runs through Manhattan up to Harlem. -
12-Bar Blues Progression
12-Bar Blues Progression: I, IV, I, V, IV, I -
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The Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance emerged a kind of cultural capital of African American arts, including literature, painting, and music.
It lasted up until the depression in the 1930s, but provided a cultural movement well into the 1940s -
Scat Singing
Singing on nonsense syllables -
Stock Market Crash
The stock market crashed, wiping out billions of dollars of wealth and heralding the Great Depression. -
Musical Development
Polyrhythm, Polytonality, Polymeters, Polychords and more complex music. -
Melody
Melody was no longer the focus of a composition, and new conceptions of harmony (polychords, polytonality, atonality) pressed music beyond the traditional systems of tonality. -
Instrumentation
The strings lost their dominant position in the orchestra and
winds, brass, and percussion became just as important. -
Genres
Maximalism, Minimalism, Impressionism, Expressionism, Jazz, Serialism, and Primitivism. -
Creation of FM Broadcating
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Lieutenant Kijé
Lieutenant Kijé is a commissioned film score composed by Prokofiev. -
Symphony No. 1 in E minor
Symphony No. 1 in E minor was the first time a black female composer's work was performed by a major American orchestra. -
Porgy and Bess
Gershwin wrote Porgy and Bess to be an American folk opera, and it was the first opera with an all black cast. -
Peter and the Wolf
Peter and the Wolf is a programmatic orchestral piece, in which commissions to create music that would help cultivate musical taste in young children. -
World War II
World War II is a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries, including all of the great powers forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. -
Appalachian Spring
Ballet for Martha Graham who also danced the lead. In 1945 Copeland made an orchestral suite drawn from the ballet. Copland created suites from many of his ballets so he could sell the music to different markets -
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Bebop
Bebop was considered the "new" jazz. Many of the new cool tunes were based on chord progressions of already popular songs. Bebop is characterized by a flatted fifth in the diatonic scale and by upper chords tones such as ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths. -
A Black Pierrot
A Black Pierrot is an art song from a song cycle, that echoes Arnold Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire." -
Rock ‘n’ Roll
During the mid 1950s, Chuck Berry, along with Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis, blended the musical styles of jump blues and honky-tonk with an edgy attitude to create a new genre known as rock ‘n’ roll. -
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Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a movement that tried to achieve Civil Rights equal for African Americans, including equal opportunity in employment, housing, and education, as well as the right to vote, the right of equal access to public facilities, and the right to be free of racial discrimination. -
West Side Story
West Side Story is a musical theater, and the music was complex. -
Creation of Audio Cassette
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Tonality
Tonality was abandoned and then redefined into neo-tonality, particularly in the 1970s.Comopsers were fascinated with extremes: pitch range, dynamics, lengths, brevity, difficulties, etc. -
Creation of Mobile Phone