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Western music
Western music
is the genres of musicoriginating in theWestern world(Europe and its former  colonies) includingWestern classical music, AmericanJazz,Country and Western, pop music  androck and roll. The word
Western
may be misleading as the definition of the western worldhas changed over time and because of the inclusion of Western influenced genres.Musical genres in the Western tradition include:
•
Classical music
o
Medieval music
o
Renaissance music
o
Baroque music
o
Classical music era
o
Romantic music
o
20th century classical music
o
Contemporary music
•
Popand popular music 
o
Acid (disambiguation)
o
Bluegrass
o
Blues
o
Country music
o
Disco
o
Folk 
o
Hymns
o
Jazz
o
Metal
o
 Neofolk 
o
Punk rock 
o
Rap
o
Rock and Roll
o
Ska
o
Soul
o
Spirituals
o
Swing
o
Synthpop
o
Techno
o
Trance
 
Western music (North America)
Western music
is a form of folk  music originally composed by and aboutthe people who settled and workedthroughout theWestern United StatesandWestern Canada. Directly related musicallyto old English, Scottish, and Irish folk  ballads, Western music celebrates the lifeof the cowboy on the open ranges and prairies of Western North America.
[1]
TheMexican musicof the American Southwestalso influenced the development of this genre. Western music is related tocountry music, thelatter sharing similar origins but developed in theAppalachians, thus it reflected the life of the people of that region. Guitars,fiddles, and theaccordionare the most common instruments used in Western music.
Origins
The origins of Western music can be traced back to the folk music traditions of England,Wales, Scotland, andIreland. The music was brought to North Americaduring the mid-nineteenth century by pioneers and ranchers who settled thewestern plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the American Southwest. The mix of ethnic English, Welsh, Scotish, Irish,German,Mexican,andEastern Europeanpeoples who settled these regions gave the music its unique qualities. Reflectingthe realities of the range and ranch houses where the music originated, the early cowboy bandswere string bands supplemented occasionally with theharmonica. Otto Gary, an early cowboy  band leader, stated authentic Western music had only three rhythms, all coming from the gaits of the cowpony—walk, trot, and lope.
[2]
In 1908, N. Howard "Jack" Thorppublished the first book of Western music, titled
Songs of theCowboys
. Containing only lyrics and no musical notation, the book was very popular west of the
 
Western music
Stylistic originsTraditional American and immigrant musicCultural originsAmerican WestTypicalinstruments
(SeeString band 
 
 )
Fiddle - Mandolin - Guitar -Bass  fiddle- Cello -Banjo -Harmonica Derivativeforms
Western swing
Other topics
Western arts
Contents
•
1 Origins
•
2 Mainstream popularity
•
3 Decline in popularity
•
4 Rediscovery
•
5 List of Western songs
•
6 List of Western singers
•
7 References
•
8 Bibliography
•
9 External links
 
Mississippi. Most of these cowboy songs are of unknown authorship, but among the best knownis "Little Joe, the Wrangler," written by Thorp himself.
[3]
In 1910,John Lomax, in his book 
Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads
, first gainednational attention for Western music. His book contained many of the same songs as Thorp's book (he collected most of them before Thorp's was published). However, Lomax's compilationincluded many musical scores. Lomax published a second collection in 1919 titled
Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp
.With the advent of radio and recording devices the music found an audience previously ignored bymusic schoolsand Tin Pan Alley.
[4]
Many Westerners preferred familiar music aboutthemselves and their environment.The first successful cowboy band to tour the East wasOtto Gray's Oklahoma Cowboysputtogether by William McGinty, anOklahoma  pioneer  and former Rough Rider . The band appeared on radio and toured the vaudeville circuit from 1924 through 1936. They recorded fewsongs however, so are overlooked by many scholars of Western Music.
[5]
Mainstream popularity
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Western music became widely popular through theromanticization of the cowboy and idealized depictions of the west inHollywoodfilms. Singingcowboys, such asRoy RogersandGene Autry, sang cowboy songs in their films and became  popular throughout the United States.Film producers began incorporating fully orchestrated four-part harmonies and sophisticated musical arrangements into their motion pictures.Bing Crosby, the most popular singer of that time, recorded numerous cowboy and Western songs.During this era, the most popular recordings and musical radio shows included Western music.Western swingalso developed during this time.
Decline in popularity
By the 1960s, Western music was in decline. Relegated to the
country and Western
 genre bymarketing agencies, popular Western recording stars released albums to only moderate success.Rock and Rolldominated music sales and Hollywood recording studios dropped most of their Western artists. Caught unawares by the boom in "country and Western" sales from Nashville that followed, Hollywood rushed to cash in. In the process, country and Western music lost itsregionalism and most of its style. Except for the label, much of the music was indistinguishablefrom
 Rock and Roll 
or 
 Popular 
classes of music. Some Western music traditionalists oppose theassociation of Western music with the country and Western genre, which does not reflect thespirit of true Western music.
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