Music Appreciation: Reggae Music and Classical Music

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Reggae Music
The Classical Music
Unity of genres
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

Music affects its listeners through varieties of styles and genres it is represented by. Each of them has its peculiar features and influences the audience in various ways. People differ in their appreciation of this or that dimension of music, but no one would deny their significance in people’s life. The current paper is concerned with the investigation of the two musical genres, namely, reggae music and classical music. We strive to explore the history of the two genres, their peculiar features, and the great names that stand to represent them. At the end of the paper, the relationships between reggae and classical music will be considered with the emphasis made on the similarities between the genres.

Reggae Music

The term reggae comes from Jamaica (around 1960) where it was used to denote a “ragged” style of dance music rooted in New Orleans rhythm’n’blues. Soon, reggae acquired the lament-like style of chanting where the syncopated beat prevailed. The term implies a particular music style that originated after the development of ska and rocksteady. During the 1960s, the latter were the two main music styles in Jamaica being influenced by the North-American rhythm & blues and the music of Trinland, Calypso. Thus, the origin of reggae goes back to Jamaica.

The rich planters in Jamaica formed slave orchestras that entertained the audience during slave holidays like End of Crop Time, Piccaninny Christmas, Recreation Time, and the Grandee Balls (Davis). Rural Jamaica has preserved rhythms, songs, and dances that are purely African.

A 1924 study of possible survivals of African songs in Jamaica identifies African-derived work songs and grave songs in Western Jamaica’s Cockpit Country as featuring part singing, antiphonal call-response chanting, and the repetition of single short musical phrases–all of which are characteristic of reggae (Davis).

The study mentioned above-collected songs among the Cockpit Maroon tribes that focus on significant figures in African culture like Anansi the spider and Jesta the trickster. Various Afro-Caribbean cults that were common in Jamaica are also African in origin. The ideology of Jamaican descendants of African slaves also contributed to the formation of the reggae style. The institution of slavery formed the ideological basis of it. Burning Spear, one of the most popular reggae groups in Jamaica, has a chant with the following lines: “Do you remember the days of slavery? Do you remember the days of slavery?” (Davis)

As far as the problem of defining reggae is concerned Verena Reckord’s investigation of Reggae, Rastafarianism, and Cultural Identity (1997) becomes very important. The author singles out three components of reggae mechanics: “riddim – the polyridimic overlays in the percussive weave – melody, and voice” (Reckord 11). According to her, the music is characterized by “a great deal of emotionalism, spiritual vitality and gnomic function.” (Reckord 11) The rhythm style of reggae is characterized by regular chops on the off-beat, known as the skank. If compared to ska and rocksteady the reggae tempo is generally slower. As a genre of Jamaica’s music becoming more and more popular, it was viewed by many as “the very expression of the historical experiences of the Jamaican working-class, unemployed and peasant” (Johnson 589).

In 1972, Michael Manley during his election campaign appealed directly to Jamaica’s Rastafarian community. He adopted the biblical name Joshua and displayed a “magical” walking stick that was told to be given to him by Haile Sellasie during his earlier visit to Ethiopia. According to Stephen A. King (1998), Manley hired reggae musicians to play at political rallies tapping into the island’s burgeoning popular culture (King 39). Manley’s reforms failed to improve the position of the Jamaican underclass, therefore, reggae did not lose its significance as the voice of protest. As it often happens, political and, especially, radical political music is less commercially viable. This was just the case with reggae.

The world fame came to this genre during the 1970-80s with reggae stars Bob Marley and his Wailers (formed in 1963). Speaking about the influence of the Wailers, we should say that before them reggae never had commercial success. The recordings were made as singles and were not generally accepted by the public. The factor that influenced the movement of reggae throughout the world was the fusion of reggae and Rastafari (King 39). King further states that.

This marriage of “movement” and “music,” however, also created tensions within the movement. Increasingly divorced from the poor Rastafarians in the Jamaican ghettos, the movement became more “political,” “secular,” and, critics would argue, preoccupied with superficial symbols rather than genuine religious practices. Attracting middle-class intellectuals, and spawning pseudo-Rastafarian groups around the world, reggae’s international popularity was both a blessing and a curse for the movement (King 39).

More and more critics praised the new international sound of reggae and more and more musicians imitated this style. In King’s work, we find evidence to this fact: in 1973, Time correspondent Joan Downs described reggae as “lilting pop-rock” and called it the “most captivating musical expert since steel bands”, more critique King found in the entertainment magazine Sepia by journalists Patrick and Barbara Salvo who praised reggae and claimed that it had “the energy and momentum to get the fans up out of their concert hall seats and dancing in the aisles once again” (King 39). As for the influence that reggae had on representatives of other musical genres, blues artists recorded famous reggae songs (for example, Taj Mahal recorded the Wailers’ Slave Driver). Paul Simon was the first white American musician who recorded a reggae-influenced song Mother and Child Reunion. One cannot underestimate the role of rock guitarist Eric Clapton in popularizing reggae music in the United States. His 1974 cover of the I Shot the Sheriff by the Wailers outsold the original version and became an international hit. Even the punk movement of the United States was influenced by the themes explored in reggae music. They were especially interested in the issues of rebellion and alienation. Punk groups like the Clash incorporated reggae numbers into their sets.

The meeting of cultures in reggae music became a theme of Bob Marley’s song Punky Reggae Party that he recorded in 1977. Taking into account the contribution of this reggae artist we would like to give it some close consideration in this paper.

Robert Bob Nesta Marley is known as a musician who introduced the world to reggae which was a completely new brand of music. The new style introduced by Marley was a mixture of “traditional African rhythms and drumming techniques (the legacy of slavery), and exaggerated backbeat, black Caribbean musical innovation, and 1950s and 1960s black American soul” (Farred 215). Freedom from economic exploitation, physical degradation, and moral debasement was the leading themes of his works. Fareed suggests that Marley was much more than just the Third World’s first musical superstar, in the second half of the 1970s he was considered as one of the region’s outstanding and most highly regarded spokesperson (Farred 215).

Considering the significance of Marley’s postcolonial figure Eusi Kwayama states: “Bob Marley’s music has done more to popularise the real issues in the African liberation movement than several decades of backbreaking work by Pan-Africanists and international revolutionaries.” (Farred 215) When on April 18, 1980, the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe, and his people achieved independence from imperial Britain, Bob Marley was not only the headline musical act but an honored guest of Mugabe’s incoming black majority government. We should admit that the first words were spoken in Zimbabwe when the British flag was lowered and the new nation’s flag was raised were: “Ladies and Gentlemen, Bob Marley and the Wailers!” One of the Jamaican unofficial archivists claims even that “Bob Marley opened a nation.” (Farred 216)

By the time Zimbabwe gained its independence cancer began to spread through Marley’s body. Three years before Bob hurt a toe while playing football and the wound had become cancerous. The star was treated at the clinic of Dr. Joseph Issels in Bavaria. For some time Marley’s condition seemed to stabilize. At the start of May 1981, he left Germany for his home in Jamaica but the journey was never completed. On Monday 11, 1981 Robert Nesta Marley died in a Miami hospital and was given an official funeral on Thursday, May 21, 1981. The funeral was attended by the Prime Minister and the Leader of Opposition. Marley’s body was taken to his birthplace at Nine Mile where it now rests in a mausoleum.

That year in April Marley was awarded Jamaica’s Order of Merit, the nation’s third-highest honor that recognized Marley’s contribution to the Jamaican culture (His Story). After Bob Marley’s death, his music has rapidly grown in popularity. Marley became a mythical figure of 20th-century music history; the reggae performer remains a legend the roots of which are never understood up to the end.

The Classical Music

The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Music (2007) defines classical music as music produced in the traditions of Western ecclesiastical and concert music which embraces the period from the 9th century up to the present day (1234). The norms of the ecclesiastical traditions were codified during the so-called common practice period that encompassed about four centuries from 1550 to 1900.

Classical music includes a wide variety of forms, styles, genres, and historical periods, therefore, it is almost impossible to give a comprehensive overview of the works of this type. We will outline the peculiar features of classical music through four perspectives: instrumentation used, form and technical execution, the complexity of the classical works, and the significance that classical music has in society.

Classical music is characterized by the variety of instruments used. Mostly, the instruments used in classical music works were invented before the mid-19th century. The instruments can be roughly divided into those used in an orchestra and those used while soloing performances. If we consider medieval music the instruments of that time fall into two categories: loud instruments that were used outdoors or in church, and quieter instruments that were used indoors.

As for the forms that classical music can take, these are concerto, opera, symphony, suite, dance music, etude, and others. The technical execution of pieces of classical music differs depending on the performer. One of the commonest techniques used by the artists is musical development, that is, the process by which an idea or motif is repeated throughout different contexts or in a different form.

Classical works are characterized by musical complexity that is established through the composer’s use of development, modulation, variation, variety of length, counterpoint, polyphony, and harmony of musical phrases.

In the public mind, classical music has always been seen as opposed to popular music. Speaking of the spread of classical music in the United States we should say that the stereotype exists that this genre is popular with an upper-level society mostly if compared to hip-hop that is popular in urban areas and country and folk music that is widespread in rural American areas. But this assumption about the classical music that represents the upper-class society is rather unsubstantiated as a lot of working classical musicians represent the USA middle-class. Moreover, it is not a rule that classical concert-goers and buyers of classical music production belong to the upper class.

The history of classical music encompasses seven periods: Medieval period, Renaissance period, Baroque, Classical, Early Romantic period, Late Romantic period, and Post “Great War” years.

The medieval period of classical music is the period from 1150 up to 1400. During this time the earliest written secular music appeared. The brightest manuscripts still have a religious basis. Throughout this period monodic (written as one musical line) Gregorian chant and plainsong developed into organum (two or three lines moving simultaneously but independently thus representing the beginnings of harmony) that was yet, however, restricted to rigid rules governing melody and rhythm (History of Classical Music).

The Renaissance period may be divided into two periods: up to the second half of the 16th century and after it. The 15th-century composers were devoted to choral writing, now they got more freedom in the use of harmony. The works of this period are characterized by textual variety and contrast. The four names that stand to represent the classical music of the fifteenth century are Dunstable, Ockeghem, Despres, and Dufay.

The second half of the 16th century is the period when classical music acquired its peculiar features by which it is recognized by contemporary listeners. Composers that worked during this period gradually moved away from the principle of harmony that reigned for more than 300 years, now each piece of their works had a definite tonal center, the works were organized into major and minor scales. Representatives of the period are Dowland, Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Frescobaldi, Palestrina, Victoria, Lassus, Lobo, Cardoso, and Gesualdo (History of Classical Music).

The Baroque period lasted from 1600 up to 1750. During this period the idea of the modern orchestra was shaped, along with it opera, the concerto, sonata, and modern cantata developed. From the beginning of the 18th-century choral music no longer dominated, increase color and variety were common for instrumental works of the period. Classical music performed different functions: it was played at different parties, in the form of opera, or on a purely domestic level. The famous names of 17th-century classical music are Scarlatti, Schutz, Buxtehude, Purcell, and Lully. The first half of the 18th century is represented by Bach, Handel, Telemann, Rameau, Scarlatti, and Vivaldi (History of Classical Music).

The classical period lasted from 1750 up to 1830. This period witnessed the introduction of sonata form. This form dominates instrumental composition up to the present day. Obsession with structural clarity is a characteristic feature of the Classical period. Some names of the Classical period are now largely forgotten, such as Schobert and Honnauer, others do not lose their significance (Haydn, Mozart).

As far as the Early Romanic period of classical music is concerned (1830-1860), it witnessed the artists’ obsession with originality and individuality of expression. The composers strived for the balance between the expressive and the formal in their works. Other peculiar features of the works of this period include:

The most difficult pieces were performed with nonchalant ease;
The most intricate themes were developed for the enjoyment of the adoring audience;
The harmonic vocabulary and variety of the instruments used increased the emotional range of music;
The works embraced the ideals of Romanticism.

The leading composers of the period were Glinka, Smetana, Berlioz, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt and Verdi (History of Classical Music).

The composers of the Late Romanic period (1860-1920) were more concerned with the emotional content of their works rather than organic structural growth. A lot of national schools appeared during this period. Bohemia, France, Great Britain, Hungary are the countries where the great composers of the time created their masterpieces.

The last but not the least period in the history of classical music embraces the Post “Great War” years (1920) up to the present day. Contradictory and opposing directions characterize the styles of the composers of the period. This period is considered to be the most bewildering of all.

The styles adopted by the composers are so diverse that it is extremely difficult to single out particular features of this or that composer, it is neither possible to define the characteristics of the whole period. Again, Bohemia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, and other countries are proud of their composers who worked in terms of the Post “Great War” period.

Unity of genres

The two styles explored we assume that the reggae style has borrowed much from the music of the classical period. The concept of harmony is common for the works of the two genres. Different pitches were used simultaneously. The notion of harmony in its most general sense is also characteristic for the two genres under consideration, as the artists of each of them strived to find a balance between the form and the content in their works.

What unites the two genres is the clarity of rhythm. This distinguishes reggae and classical music from other genres.

The use of winds and keyboard instruments is common both for the reggae and for the classical genre.

Conclusion

To conclude, we should say that each style is unique and has a lot of admirers throughout the world. Each having peculiar features, the genres have much in common which proves once more the fact the dimensions of music are closely interconnected and contribute to each other’s importance in human life.

Works Cited

“His Story. The Life and Legacy of Bob Marley.” BobMarley. 2008. Web.

“History of Classical Music.” Naxos Digital Services Ltd. 2008. Web.

Davis, Stephen. “Reggae Bloodlines: In Search of the Music and Culture of Jamaica.” Easy Star. 2002. Ipcar. Web.

Farred, Grant. What’s My Name? Black Vernacular Intellectuals. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.

Johnson, Linton Kwesi. “The Reggae Rebellion.” New Society 10 June 1976: 589. Kennedy, Michael. “Classical.” The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Music. 2 vols. Oxford, 2007.

King, Stephen A. “International Reggae, Democratic Socialism and the Secularization of the Rastafarian Movement, 1972-1980.” Popular Music and Society 22.3 (1998): 39.

Reckord, Verena. “Reggae, Rastafarianism, and Cultural Identity.” Reggae, Rasta, Revolution: Jamaican Music from Ska to Dub. Ed. Chris Potash. New York: Schirmer, 1997. 3-13.

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