Pop music is translated from English pop music. Generally speaking, the so-called pop music refers to instrumental music and songs with short structure, popular content, lively form and sincere feelings, which are loved by the broad masses, widely sung or appreciated, and are popular for a while or even passed down to future generations. These music and songs are rooted in the fertile soil of public life. Therefore, it is also called "pop music". However, such a definition may make music that does not belong to pop music, such as The Internationale, March of the Volunteers, La Marseillaise, Waves in Hong Hushui, Singing the Motherland, Dongfanghong and Nanniwan, be classified as pop music just because they are also widely circulated among the masses. On the other hand, music that is obviously pop music is excluded from pop music because it can't circulate, which is also quite a lot in pop music. Obviously, pop music is not always popular, and pop music is not just pop music. The accurate concept should be commercial music, that is, music created for profit. It is a commercial music entertainment and all the "industrial" phenomena related to it. (See the Encyclopedia Dictionary of Music of the former Soviet Union (version 1990). Its marketability is the first and its artistry is the second. Although some songs are sung by popular singing, they are ideological and artistic. These songs are not commercial songs. Such as Great China, Sailing with Paddles, Glory of Asia, Fifty-six Moon Circles, What a Big Tree, etc. In fact, there is no necessary connection between the types of songs and the singing methods. We can't think that art songs can only be sung by bel canto, folk songs can only be sung by national singing, and pop songs can only be sung by popular singing. First of all, the division of the three singing methods is not very scientific and reasonable, which has been recognized by the music industry. No musician will think that the division of the three singing methods is completely scientific and reasonable; Secondly, there are three kinds of singing methods at present (if you add the original ecological singing method and five kinds of children's singing methods), but the types of songs are far more than three kinds of art songs, folk songs and pop songs, and there are many types of carols, lyric songs, March songs, queue songs, military songs, campus songs, satirical and humorous songs, etc. Thirdly, countless facts in the music industry have proved that the same song can be sung in different ways. The famous singer Liu Bingyi sang many campus songs with Bel Canto in Taiwan Province. Xi Lan Xiu, a Hong Kong singer, sang many folk songs in a popular way. And the list goes on. The concept of "commodity music" is more scientific, reasonable and accurate than any other concept. Literally, "popular" means easy to understand and "popular" means widely circulated, so it seems that songs such as March of the Volunteers, Singing the Motherland, Dongfanghong and Nanniwan can also be called pop songs or pop songs. At first glance, it's ridiculous, but when you think about it, it's not completely unreasonable, because these songs are easy to understand and spread widely. However, these songs can never be called commercial songs, because they are never created for profit. From this point, we can also see that the concept of "commodity music" is scientific, reasonable and accurate. Defining the concept of "commercial music" can solve many controversial problems in the music industry. For example, the question of whether pop music can enter the classroom has proved to be a "non-negotiable" question. And this discussion will never end, and it will never reach a final conclusion. The reason is that "pop music" is not a scientific and accurate concept. After defining the concept of "commodity music", we can draw a conclusion that "commodity music" must not enter the classroom, and the songs mentioned in the second paragraph with high ideological and artistic quality can completely enter the classroom. The main difference between pop music and other mass media is that pop music has five characteristics: 1. The novelty of pop music lies in its popularity or fashion. Novelty is a prominent feature of all popular things, and curiosity is a feature of human psychology. As a kind of commercial entertainment music with the main purpose of satisfying consumption, pop music must be "based on certain representative social psychology, so as to be generally accepted by the public." Attending: Pop music is built on this basis, so it will inevitably "cause this kind of behavior and object of singing, playing, listening to a certain track or using a certain style to spread in a certain social scope, forming different degrees of social popularity and social group fanaticism." ? 7? Pop and fashion are the foundation of pop music. 2. Entertainment of pop music The content of pop music works is easy to understand, and the themes are mostly taken from daily life. Most of them show the theme of love, and the main consumers are ordinary people or subcultures, so it emphasizes its own entertainment and recreation. Its popularity determines that it has a mass base. People can take the initiative to participate in the performance, which increases the activity space and fun, and people can relax and enjoy it. Therefore, pop music pays more attention to and emphasizes its own entertainment, and "entertainment" is an important feature and function of pop music. 3. Commercial Pop Music The carrier of pop music is mainly various tapes and records as consumer goods of pop culture. Under the market economy, because the producer is faced with a huge commodity market, it is bound to take profit as his ultimate goal. 4. Rapid upgrading Because pop music is commercial, like other commodities, it is one of the main forms of mass cultural consumption goods, so it must have the characteristics of mass production and products are launched quickly to meet the constantly updated cultural consumption needs of consumers. With the ever-changing demand of pop culture, the change cycle of pop music is getting shorter and shorter, and then it will be quickly replaced by more fashionable and novel forms. 5. The theme of participating in pop music creation is generally based on daily life, emphasizing personal psychological feelings and self-emphasis, which is particularly easy to cause college students' emotions. Moreover, the melody of pop music is easy to remember and sing, which can satisfy the self's emotional catharsis and produce narcissism, thus obtaining a sense of creative satisfaction. This greatly enhances the sense of participation in pop music. 6. The scientific and technological progress of the means of communication of pop music has greatly changed the means of communication of pop music, from tapes, records, CDs and broadcasts without images at first to TV, karaoke, VCD, DVD and MTV with images, and then to portable high-tech inventions such as mp3, mp4 and MP5. The emergence of these scientific and technological products has greatly satisfied the widespread "popularity" of pop music. The emergence of MIDI, multi-channel recording technology and electronic sound synthesis technology has greatly improved the effect of pop music production and the richness of sound expression. Therefore, the expansion of the popularity of pop music can not be separated from these modern scientific and technological means of communication. The representative figures of various music schools in the history of pop music can be traced back to at least the middle of19th century, and are usually divided into different schools. Different genres tend to attract different age groups. Big bands may be an older group than rap music listeners. With more and more young people becoming socially and economically independent, this "generation gap" has become wider and wider since the Second World War. The concert halls before the 1940s were not clearly dated. From the end of the Great Depression to the end of the war, bing crosby was the highest-selling recording artist in the United States. His fan base has no age division. The average age of the audience in the concert hall is 2 1 year. After crosby retired, 1954 had a big generation gap. Elvis Presley has become the most popular singer among teenagers, and Frank Sinatra is the most popular adult. In the Oxford Music State in the 1970s, "The exploration of bands such as King Clayton and Yes involves complex musical instrument patterns and textures, usually involving profound musical themes and structures." In the 1980s and 1990s, Michael Jackson, known as the "King of Pop Music", was the most popular artist. Rock Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, little richard, Pink Floyd (Pink Floyd), led zeppelin (led zeppelin), Soul aretha franklin (aretha franklin), Ray Charles (Ray Charles), James Brown (James Brown), Marvin Gaye (Marvin Gaye), etc. Pop (Michael Jackson), Prince (Prince), Madonna (Madonna), Frank Sinatra (Frank Sinatra), elton john (elton john), ABBA (ABBA Choir), diana ross &; Supergirl, jackson 5, The Beatles R&; B (R&B) Michael Jackson (Michael Jackson), R kelly (Luo Kaili), Arthur (Usher), Baby Face (Baby Face), Mariah Carey (Maria Kelly), Rap) 2pac, Dr. Derry, N.W.A., B.I. Reggae Bob Marley Folk Song Bob Dylan Bruce. Several styles of King are popular in Europe and America. Since the end of 19, there have been many music publishing companies, all of which have song salesmen playing the piano all day to attract customers. Due to the excessive use of Qin, the timbre is worn out, just like knocking on a tin board, so some people jokingly call this place "Dingbang Lane" (or translated as "Pan Ting Hutong"). Ding Bangxiang is not only the publishing center of pop music, but also a symbol of an era and a representative of a style in the history of pop music. It lasted nearly half a century. Ding Bangxiang's songs are generally written by white professional composers. Different writers have different styles in different periods, but there are similarities. From the content, it is mainly about love, full of romantic feelings, or slightly nostalgic and sad, or cheerful and funny. No matter what happens at home and abroad, it is rarely reflected in Ding Bangxiang's songs. Mainly show the sunny side of life, as if Americans are enjoying life carefree; From the form of expression, the melody of singing, the uncomplicated rhythm and the harmony of natural sound system (sometimes changing chords and tone sandhi between phrases) mostly appear in the form of "verse-chorus" (such as 18). Ding Bangxiang's songs are generally sung by professional singers according to the score, paying attention to vocal skills, accompanied by bands or choirs, and often accompanied by string groups as the background timbre. For example, the famous pop singer Ping at that time? 6? 1 bing crosby (1904 ~ 1977), Frank? 6? 1 Frank Sinatra (19 15 ~ 1997) mainly sings Ding Bangxiang's songs. Dingbang Lane songs are mainly spread among urban whites, and rarely spread to blacks or the lower classes. The appearance of rock music in 1950s challenged the position of traditional Ding Bangxiang songs in the whole pop music. Jazz Jazz has won the love of the audience with its dynamic syncopated rhythm, distinctive jazz syllables and unconventional improvisation (or singing), and has been recognized by people from all walks of life in the music field. It originated from blues and ragtime music. After a whole century of development, it is now colorful and full of flowers. Jazz is gradually formed by improvisation in the form of a small band, based on blues and ragtime, with some white music elements added. Bruce was formed in the 1990s of 19. At the beginning, we talked about the inseparable relationship between jazz and blues, because some jazz is based on blues music, while others are directly transformed from blues music, and they use the song structure of traditional blues music, that is, the so-called twelve-bar blues. "Bruce" has multiple meanings. In addition to the type of music, it is also an adjective of the scene. Usually when people see this word, they will immediately think of melancholy and sadness, which are the basic characteristics of blues music. Blues music originated in the late19th century (1890), and its music content is a mixture of African battlefield cries and Christian hymns. The reason can be said to express the singer's personal feelings, and even can be said to be a portrayal of the early life of black people. In the movie The Color Purple, we saw two black people working hard and singing to the rhythm. This is the original work song (work son, the predecessor of blues music). This kind of music sounds very melancholy, and this way of expressing one's inner thoughts directly with songs is completely different from the music of white society at that time and has become the center of jazz and rock music. Generally speaking, New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, appeared in190' s. However, the first jazz record in history was released in 19 17 and recorded by "original Dixieland jazz Bal 1d" in New Orleans. Therefore, we will never know the characteristics of jazz music before 19 17, but according to the music records and photography at that time, the speed of early jazz music was between medium speed and fast speed, and people who first came into contact with jazz music felt full of energy and excitement. Another feature of early New Orleans jazz, perhaps the most important feature, was collective improvisation. Mutual humility and cooperation are only limited by the chord progression structure. The most attractive thing about this kind of performance is that the band members have both competition and cooperation, and they pay attention to and turn a blind eye to the restrictions imposed on them. This new sound can be heard by any audience at the beginning of the 20th century, which is called "jazz". Country music appeared in the 1920s. It originated from the folk music of South China agriculture in the United States, and was first developed under the influence of traditional British folk songs. The earliest country music is the traditional Hilby music, with simple tunes, stable rhythm and strong narrative. Different from the sad pop songs in the city, it has a strong local flavor. Folk songs began to blend into the mainstream of American pop music, and the earliest country singers appeared, such as James Rogers (1897 ~ 1933), Bruce, Yodels and folk songs. They were regarded as pioneers of country music and were named "country music". The Disabled Children's Family (composed of AJvin Carter, 189 1-l960, his wife and brother-in-law) won the audience's love with its comfortable and harmonious style, focusing on themes such as home, God and faith. For artists like the Carters, singing is just an amateur way to make a living. But in the primary stage of country music, they did make great contributions to the development of country music, and also left valuable recording materials for early country music. Many country musicians have made great contributions to bringing country music out of the south or midwest, among which hank williams is the most important. Jambalaya is Williams' most famous masterpiece and has become a world-famous classic song. Since the 1990s, country music has been fully integrated into the mainstream of pop music. Of course, in this process, its popular color has also become stronger. By the end of the 20th century, almost no kind of music was not popular, on the contrary, it would be considered "different". Another feature is that it has become a very common phenomenon that singers and their songs win prizes across the list, and few people insist on one position. This is the result of commercial speculation. Economic leverage is playing a regulatory role, and people are willing to stoop for five buckets of rice, so following the trend has become a fashion. In 1990s, country music became more and more global, which was related to economic globalization. The world has become a global village, and "walking around" is no longer unusual. Country music is no longer a patent in the United States, and can be heard in every corner of the world, but it is less original and more contemporary. This brand-new country music has become the local accent of the villagers of the earth. There is no doubt that most singers in this period are cross-century. Young and full of hope, they are pioneers in the new century.