Ragtime Song

Ragtime is an African American–rooted piano style that flourished from the 1890s to the 1910s, characterized by lively syncopation in the right hand against a steady, march-like “oom‑pah” accompaniment in the left hand. Typically written in 2/4 or 4/4 time and notated with straight (unswung) eighth notes, classic rags unfold in multiple 16‑bar strains, often in the form AABBACCDD. The music draws on cakewalk rhythms, marching-band forms, and popular song, and it became a sensation through sheet music, piano rolls, and parlor performance. Scott Joplin, known as the “King of Ragtime,” helped codify the genre’s refined, compositional approach, calling for moderate tempos and a clear, singing melody. Beyond solo piano, ragtime was arranged for small ensembles and orchestras, found a home in vaudeville and dance halls, and laid essential groundwork for early jazz, stride piano, and much of 20th‑century American popular music.

Classic blues (often called "classic female blues") is the early, urban, theater-bred form of the blues that flourished primarily in the 1920s. It is characterized by powerful lead vocalists—frequently women—fronting small jazz ensembles or a piano accompanist, with arrangements that translated the blues idiom to vaudeville stages and recording studios. Musically it typically uses the 12‑bar blues form, AAB lyric stanzas, swung or shuffle rhythms in 4/4, and prominent use of blue notes (flattened 3rd, 5th, and 7th). The style sits at the crossroads of Southern blues traditions, ragtime and early jazz, and the songcraft and professionalism of vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley. Classic blues differs from country/delta blues by its more formal arrangements, band instrumentation, and theatrical delivery. It launched the commercial “race records” era with Mamie Smith’s 1920 hit "Crazy Blues," and set the template for later jazz and R&B vocal performance.

Blue‑eyed soul is a style of soul music performed primarily by white artists who adopt the vocal inflections, rhythmic feel, and arranging language of classic R&B and gospel. Emerging in the 1960s in the United States and the United Kingdom, it bridges Motown polish and Southern soul grit with pop‑oriented songwriting. Typical recordings feature impassioned lead vocals, stacked harmonies, backbeat‑driven rhythm sections, Hammond organ or electric piano, punchy horn lines, and occasionally lush strings. The result is radio‑friendly soul that retains emotional intensity while appealing to mainstream pop audiences. The label “blue‑eyed soul” has been used descriptively and sometimes controversially; it points to a sound rather than identity. Historically, however, it referred to white performers making music in a soul idiom.

Totalism is a postminimalist current in American contemporary composition that emerged in New York City at the turn of the 1990s. It pairs minimalism’s driving repetition and clear harmonies with the simultaneous layering of contrasting tempos, meters, and rhythmic cycles. Where classic minimalism often favors a single steady pulse, totalism embraces multiple, coexisting pulses—often in rational tempo ratios (such as 3:2, 4:3, 5:4)—to create grooves that are both propulsive and metrically intricate. Its sound world frequently mixes amplified chamber ensembles with rock instrumentation (drum set, electric guitar and bass) and draws rhythmic inspiration from rock, funk, and global polyrhythms. Aesthetically, totalism sought a middle path between the austerity of modernist complexity and the smooth surfaces of early minimalism: music that is visceral and loud, yet intellectually and rhythmically detailed.

Traditional pop is the pre–rock and roll mainstream of American popular song, centered on the Great American Songbook and the crooner/orchestral style that dominated radio, records, and film musicals from the 1930s through the 1950s. It favors memorable melodies, elegant lyrics (often about romance), and lush arrangements for strings, woodwinds, and big band rhythm sections. Singers use close‑mic "crooning" to deliver expressive, legato phrasing over jazz‑tinged harmonies and steady, unhurried grooves. Typical forms include the 32‑bar AABA standard, with sophisticated but accessible harmony (secondary dominants, ii–V–I cycles, tasteful modulations) and an emphasis on interpretation—how the vocalist shades timing, dynamics, and diction to make a familiar song feel personal.

Lovers rock is a romantic, melodically rich branch of reggae that emerged in the United Kingdom during the mid-to-late 1970s. It emphasizes smooth vocals, tender lyrics, and polished arrangements over the heavier political themes or rugged rhythms often associated with roots reggae and dub. Built on reggae and rocksteady grooves but infused with the sensibilities of soul and R&B, lovers rock often features warm basslines, gentle one‑drop drum patterns, silky rhythm guitars, and lush keyboards or string pads. The result is an intimate, slow‑to‑mid‑tempo sound designed for close dancing and heartfelt expression.

New Orleans R&B is a piano-driven, horn-rich strain of rhythm and blues that emerged in the late 1940s and flourished through the 1950s. It blends blues harmony with the lilt of Caribbean rhythms, the swing of jazz, and gospel’s vocal inflections, creating an irresistibly rolling groove. The style is marked by triplet-based piano patterns, parade-inspired backbeats, syncopated horn riffs, and relaxed yet danceable shuffles. Its sound was defined by the city’s storied studio scene (notably Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Studio), visionary bandleaders and producers like Dave Bartholomew and Allen Toussaint, and charismatic singer-pianists such as Fats Domino and Professor Longhair. Lyrically, New Orleans R&B favors good-time party themes, romance, and streetwise vignettes. Its warm, unhurried feel and rhythmic cross-pollination would prove foundational to rock and roll, soul, funk, ska, and swamp pop.

Dixieland is one of the earliest forms of jazz, crystallizing in New Orleans in the 1910s and spreading to Chicago and New York in the 1920s. It is characterized by collective improvisation, where the front line—trumpet or cornet carrying the melody, clarinet weaving countermelodies, and trombone providing "tailgate" harmonies and slides—creates a lively polyphonic texture over a buoyant two-beat feel. Its rhythm section often features banjo or piano, tuba or string bass, and drums playing parade-derived press rolls and stop-time figures. Harmonically it draws on functional tonality (I–IV–V with frequent secondary dominants), and structurally it favors 12-bar blues, 16-bar strains from ragtime, and 32-bar AABA song forms. Repertoire includes marches, blues, spirituals, popular songs, and Creole dances, rendered with a brassy, celebratory sound that evokes the New Orleans brass band tradition.