Country Music

    It is very interesting where Country Music came from and how it got to where it is today. the term "country" originated from "hillbilly" or bluegrass music. Country Music was widely embraced in the 1970s, while Country and Western has declined in use since that time, except in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where it is still commonly used. However, in the Southwestern United States a different mix of ethnic groups created the music that became the Western music of the term Country and Western. The term country music is used today to describe many styles and subgenres.

Here is an example of what Country Music was originated by: 
http://www.gospely.com/watch/58161/

     Country music has produced the two top selling solo artists of all time in the United States. Elvis Presley, who was known early on as “the Hillbilly Cat” and was a regular on the radio program Louisiana Hayride went on to become a defining figure in the emergence of rock and roll. With 129.5 million albums sold, Presley is the top-domestic-selling solo artist in U.S. history. Contemporary musician Garth Brooks, with 128 million albums sold, is the second best-selling solo artist in U.S. history.
While album sales of most musical genres have declined since about 2005, country music experienced one of its best years in 2006, when, during the first six months, U.S. sales of country albums increased by 17.7 percent to 36 million. Moreover, country music listening nationwide has remained steady for almost a decade, reaching 77.3 million adults every week, according to the radio-ratings agency Arbitron, Inc.

Derived from the traditional and honky tonk sounds of the late 1950s and 1960s, including Ray Price (whose band, the "Cherokee Cowboys", included Willie Nelson and Roger Miller) and mixed with the anger of an alienated subculture of the nation during the period, outlaw country revolutionized the genre of country music.

Willie Nelson

"After I left Nashville (the early 70s), I wanted to relax and play the music that I wanted to play, and just stay around Texas, maybe Oklahoma. Waylon and I had that outlaw image going, and when it caught on at colleges and we started selling records, we were O.K. The whole outlaw thing, it had nothing to do with the music, it was something that got written in an article, and the young people said, 'Well, that's pretty cool.' And started listening." (Willie Nelson)
The term outlaw country is traditionally associated with Hank Williams, Jr, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, David Allan Coe, Whitey Morgan & The 78's, John Prine, Billy Joe Shaver, Gary Stewart, Townes Van Zandt and with a few female vocalists such as Jessi Colter and Sammi Smith. It was encapsulated in the 1976 album Wanted! The Outlaws. A related sub-genre is Red Dirt.

     Country Music began changing in the 1900s and 2000s. Several rock and pop stars have ventured into country music. In 2000, Richard Marx made a brief cross-over with his Days In Avalon album, which features five country songs and several singers and musicians. Alison Krauss sang background vocals to Marx's single "Straight From My Heart." Also, Bon Jovi had a hit single, "Who Says You Can't Go Home", with Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland. Other rock stars who featured a country song on their albums were Don Henley and Poison.
One infrequent, but consistent theme in modern country music is that of proud, stubborn individualism. "Country Boy Can Survive" and "Copperhead Road" are two of the more serious songs along those lines; while "Some Girls Do" and "Redneck Woman" are more light-hearted variations on the theme.

Taylor Swift

In 2005, country singer Carrie Underwood rose to fame as the winner of the fourth season of American Idol and became a multi-platinum selling recording artist and multiple Grammy Award winner. With her first single, "Inside Your Heaven", Underwood became the only country artist to have a #1 Hit on Billboard Hot 100 Songs chart in the 2000-2009 decade. In 2007, Underwood won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist and became the first country artist in 10 years to win such award and the second of only three to ever win it. Underwood also made history by becoming the seventh woman to win Entertainer Of The Year for the Academy of Country Music Awards, and the first woman in history to win Entertainer of the Year for the Academy of Country Music Awards twice, as well as twice consecutively. Underwood's debut album, "Some Hearts", was not only the fastest-selling debut album by any country artist in history, but was ranked by Billboard.com as the #1 Country Album of the 2000-2009 decade.
In 2008, Taylor Swift rose as a major country-pop artist, with her single "Love Story" becoming the first country song to reach No. 1 one on the Nielsen BDS CHR/Top 40 chart. Another of her singles, "You Belong with Me", also reached No. 1, making Swift the only country artist to have two No. 1 singles atop the chart. Both "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" became the best-selling country song of all time, with "Love Story" in the first position with a domestic total of 4.4 million digital copies sold, and "You Belong with Me" in the second with 3.4 million sales, respectively. In 2010, Swift's second album "Fearless" was awarded the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, becoming the first album in history to win the American Music Award (AMA), Academy of Country Music Award (ACM), Country Music Association Award (CMA), and the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in the same year.
In the same year, Hootie & the Blowfish vocalist Darius Rucker released his second solo album and country music debut, Learn to Live. The first three singles from that album all debuted at No. 1, making Rucker the first solo artist to debut with three No. 1 hits in over a decade. He is also the first African American with a No. 1 country hit since Charley Pride in 1983.
In 2009, George Strait was named Artist of the Decade by the Academy of Country Music.
In 2010, the group Lady Antebellum won five Grammys, including the coveted Song of the Year and Record of the Year for "Need You Now". 

^{Here is an example of newer country and how much the genre has changed.}
http://www.cmt.com/videos/eric-church/649665/homeboy.jhtml?artist=2112595

20/21st Century music

20th and 21st century music has changed the world in many forms. Some elements of the previous century have been retained but there is a growing move towards post-modernism, polystylism and eclecticism, which seek to incorporate elements of all styles of music irrespective of whether these are classical or not. These efforts represent a slackening differentiation between the various musical genres. Pop, jazz, rock, and others are seen as styles to be used in any work, rather than as separate disciplines. The combination of classical music and multimedia is also a notable practice in the 21st century.

The 20th century was a big start for women composers. Although women have been composers in earlier centuries the 21st century has seen an increase in their number and importance.

Swing Jazz

Swing jazz became famous in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style in 1935 in the United States. This different type of music uses a strong rhythm section of double bass and drums as the anchor for lead part of brass instruments like trombones or trumpets, wood winds such as saxophones and clarinets, and some of sting instruments like guitar and violin. These artists usually use medium to fast tempos and rhythms. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of bandleaders such as Benny Goodman and Count Basie was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1945. The verb "to swing" is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong rhythmic "groove" or drive.

Compared to the styles of the 1920s, the overall effect was a more sophisticated sound, but with an exciting feel of its own. Most jazz bands adopted this style by the early 1930s, but the "sweet" bands remained the most popular for white dancers until Benny Goodman's appearance at the Palomar Ballroom in August 1935. Swing's birth has been traced by some jazz historians to Chick Webb's stand in Harlem in 1931, but they noted the music failed to take off because the onset of the Depression in earnest that year killed the nightclub business, particularly in poor black areas like Harlem. Fletcher Henderson, another bandleader from this period who needed work, lent his arrangement talent to Goodman. Goodman had auditioned and won a spot on a radio show, "Let's Dance," but only had a few songs; he needed more. Henderson's arrangements are what gave him his bigger repertoire and distinctive sound. The show was on after midnight in the East and few people heard it, but unknown to them, it was on earlier on the West Coast and developed the audience that later led to his Palomar Ballroom triumph. The audience of young white dancers favored Goodman's hot rhythms and daring swing arrangements. "Hot Swing" and Boogie Woogie remained the dominant form of American popular music for the next ten years.

The Romantic Era

The Romantic period made a huge influence on our music history. It created a new style, and it made a big impact on peoples music lives. The Romantic Period explores the use of large ensembles, extreme emotion, and wild orchestration, which makes it very popular. A few composers were Ludwig van Beethoven, Ferdinando Carulli, and Anton Reicha, were big influences and great composers in the romance period. These great composers made big accomplishments in life with their imagination in music.

The Romantic Era was an artistic movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education, and natural history. This time had strong emotions in the composer's work.  The literary work in these actions made a big impact on life and death, as well as problems and love lives.

The Romantic Era will never be forgotten and will be looked back on for hundreds of years and brought down from generations to generations. 

Amadeus

There are some differences that are between the movie and reality. In the play, only Baron van Swieten continues to support Mozart. Indeed, by the end of the play, Mozart is surviving solely because of the charity of his brother Masons. Finally, Salieri convinces Mozart to compose an opera based on the mythos of the Masons. As a result, Mozart produces the comedy Die Zauberflate. Van Swieten is horrified to see that Mozart has, in his opinion, parodied the venerated traditions of Freemasonry. He summarily removes Mozart from the Masons. Meanwhile, Mozart's partner in the production of Die Zauberflate, Emanuel Schikaneder, cheats Mozart out of most of his share of the ticket proceeds.
Now thoroughly destroyed and without recourse, Mozart simply wastes away and dies, still at work on his last work, Requiem.

Mozart's career came up into popularity very easily. Soon, he was known as the best keyboard player known. He also started writing operas and started becoming rich for his work. Pretty soon, he was known as thee best composer, but that caused conflicts, Antonio Salieri, who was famous also, but not as good as Mozart. He had a few accomplishments, but not as many as Mozart. He was jealous, and wanted Mozart to die so he could take over his piece. Because of all of his jealousy, he wanted to get to know Mozart, and to pretend to become friends, so he could get his last piece of music. Pretty soon, it was all worked out, and Mozart died and everything seemed tofall into place for Salieri. After everything went over, it all worked out by both of the composers becoming successful and happy after all.

The Baroque Period

Baroque music expresses order, the fundamental order of the universe. Yet it is always lively and tuneful. Music reflects the mood of the times, then as now as always.From the earliest times to the present day, with baroque music in historical context, the period has influenced many composers and artists through the years.
When we speak of music associated to the Baroque era we are actually speaking of music from a wide range of styles and geographical region. This music was composed during a period of 150 years. The term Baroque as applied to music is a more recent development, only acquiring currency in English in the 1940's. In the 1960's it was mostly described as to the result of lumping together such diverse music.

Baroque music was the basis for pedagogy and as a result retained a stylistic influence. It became an influence in the 19th century as a paragon of academic and formal purity. Many composers set a standard to aspire to from Bach's fugue style in music. In contemporary music there are many pieces being published as “rediscovered” Baroque such as a viola concerto written by Henri Casadesus but attributed to Handel. In addition many pieces have been termed as neo-Baroque for a focus on imitative polyphony.

Here is a picture of a Baroque Period theatre: