Different Types of popular music.

Music is all around us. We all grew up listening to some type of music. No one can really determine when music began or which cultures had music first. There are stories of its origins that go back to ancient times. "Popular music is music produced for and sold to a broad audience."(1) The types of popular music we are going to look at are jazz, country-and-western music, rhythm-and-blues music (R&B), rock music, and rap, also know as hip-hop.(1)

First, we will look at jazz. Jazz is a type of music that was first developed by African Americans around the first decade of the 20th century. (2) It is believed that jazz originated in New Orleans. The first ever recording of jazz was in the 1890's. (3) Jazz developed into different styles. Some of these styles are, Boogie Woogie, which was named this because Clearance "Pine Top" Smith released an album with that style called Pinetop's Boogie Woogie. Next is improvisational jazz, which is the most popular type of jazz. Improve means made up on the spot, which is actually, what this type of jazz is. Improvisational jazz can be played with any instrument. Another is ragtime. It was called this because its rhythm and timing sounded "raggedy". Like improvisational jazz, this was one of the first types of jazz. It was played in cakewalks and was usually played with a piano. (3) "Some of the great musicians who made jazz more popular are, Art Tatum, Earl Hines, Joseph Lamb, James Scott, Scott Joplin, Hot Five and Louis Armstrong."(3) Some of the jazz musicians of today are Kenny G and Rosemary Clooney. Jazz remains a rich and vital presence in the world of music today.

The next type is country and western music. Country and western music was primarily produced...