[ Music. The origin of today's mainstream ]

[Zuvio]

Well, I had a debate with a friend recently about the origins of today's mainstream music. He said that the afro-american culture, during the period that they were mostly slaves on the cotton-fields, laid the basis for today's music. Mainly because of their sense of rhythm. He claimed that their music evolved into nowadays punk music, hardcore, R&B and what not.

I can understand this point of view, especially about the blues (how do you call the early music of the afro-americans, and are they even afro-americans? My history is kinds rusty, so I hope no one takes offense if I get the facts all wrong) evolving into rap, hip-hop and R&B.

I, on the other hand, think that classical music is the foundation of all modern music. Classical music encompasses so much more than most ppl think at first. If you compare present and past melodies, you'll find tons of similarities. Also, I believe that classical music is much older than the blues.

Now, it's not my intention to win the debate or anything, but my curiousity has peeked and I do so much enjoy having/gathering knowledge.

I already checked with Google offcourse, but the information offered is quite overwhelming and not always on the stip. It goes back to the neanderthale flute, which is a little too far back

[Gangrell]

Well, I'm not going to say that the blues is the foundation of all music, because quite frankly that's not right. The first music was Ragtime back in 1900, before the blues came out I think. But generally, I think, honestly, whoever started singing instead of just playing instruments, like most blues players did during that time, laid the foundation of today's music.

In my point of view though, I think classical music did pave the way for everything we hear today. Because as for the blues, you hardly hear that anymore at all and there really aren't a lot of similarities between the blues and today's sounds of music.

[Beaumanoir]

You cant really date music back to anything like blues because it has all gradually evolved from Baroque and Classical, To Romantic, and then gradually merging and changing to what we have now (As shameful as it is, I hate todays mainstream music)