Many composers began writing music for bigger orchestras, with as many as 100 instruments. It was the period of "Nationalism" (the feeling of being proud of one's country) when many composers made music using folksong or melodies from their country. Lots of famous composers lived at this time such as Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, Frederic Chopin, Johannes Brahms, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Richard Wagner.
From about 1900 onwards is called the "modern period". Many 20th century composers wanted to compose music that sounded different from the Classical and Romantic music. Modern composers searched for new ideas, such as using new instruments, different forms, different sounds, or different harmonies.
The composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) wrote pieces which were atonal (meaning that they did not sound as if they were in any clear musical key). Later, Schoenberg invented a new system for writing music called twelve-tone system. Music written with the twelve-tone system sounds strange to some, but is mathematical in nature, often making sense only after careful study. Pure twelve-tone music was popular among academics in the fifties and sixties, but some composers such as Benjamin Britten use it today, when it is necessary to get a certain feel.
One of the most important 20th-century composers, Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971), wrote music with very complicated (difficult) chords (groups of notes that are played together) and rhythms. Some composers thought music was getting too complicated and so they wrote Minimalist pieces which use very simple ideas. In the 1950s and 1960s, composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen experimented with electronic music, using electronic circuits, amplifiers and loudspeakers. In the 1970s, composers began using electronic synthesizers and musical instruments from rock and roll music, such as the electric guitar. They used these new instruments to make new sounds.
Composers writing in the 1990s and the 2000s, such as John Adams (born 1947) and James MacMillan (born 1959) often use a mixture of all these ideas, but they like to write tonal music with easy tunes as well.
Music can be produced electronically. This is most commonly done by computers, keyboards, electric guitars and disk tables. They can mimic traditional instruments, and also produce very different sounds. 21st-century electronic music is commonly made with computer programs and hardware mixers.
Jazz is a type of music that was invented around 1900 in New Orleans in the south of the USA. There were many black musicians living there who played a style of music called blues music. Blues music was influenced by African music (because the black people in the United States had come to the United States as slaves. They were taken from Africa by force). Blues music was a music that was played by singing, using the harmonica, or the acoustic guitar. Many blues songs had sad lyrics about sad emotions (feelings) or sad experiences, such as losing a job, a family member dying, or having to go to jail (prison).
Jazz music mixed together blues music with European music. Some black composers such as Scott Joplin were writing music called ragtime, which had a very different rhythm from standard European music, but used notes that were similar to some European music. Ragtime was a big influence on early jazz, called Dixieland jazz. Jazz musicians used instruments such as the trumpet, saxophone, and clarinet were used for the tunes (melodies), drums for percussion and plucked double bass, piano, banjo and guitar for the background rhythm (rhythmic section). Jazz is usually improvised: the players make up (invent) the music as they play. Even though jazz musicians are making up the music, jazz music still has rules; the musicians play a series of chords (groups of notes) in order.
Jazz music has a swinging rhythm. The word "swing" is hard to explain. For a rhythm to be a "swinging rhythm" it has to feel natural and relaxed. Swing rhythm is not even like a march. There is a long-short feel instead of a same-same feel. A "swinging rhythm" also gets the people who are listening excited, because they like the sound of it. Some people say that a "swinging rhythm" happens when all the jazz musicians start to feel the same pulse and energy from the song. If a jazz band plays very well together, people will say "that is a swinging jazz band" or "that band really swings well."
Jazz influenced other types of music like the Western art music from the 1920s and 1930s. Art music composers such as George Gershwin wrote music that was influenced by jazz. Jazz music influenced pop music songs. In the 1930s and 1940s, many pop music songs began using chords or melodies from jazz songs. One of the best known jazz musicians was Louis Armstrong (1900–1971).
"Pop" music is a type of "popular" music that many people like to listen to. The term "pop music" can be used for all kinds of music that was written to be popular. The word "pop music" was used from about 1880 onwards, when a type of music called music was popular.
Modern pop music grew out of 1950's rock and roll, (for example Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Little Richard) and rockabilly (for example Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly). In the 1960s, The Beatles became a famous pop music group. In the 1970s, other styles of music were mixed with pop music, such as funk and soul music. Pop music generally has a heavy (strong) beat, so that it is good for dancing. Pop singers normally sing with microphones that are plugged into an amplifier and a loudspeaker.
"Musical notation" is the way music is written down. Music needs to be written down in order to be saved and remembered for future performances. In this way composers (people who write music) can tell others how to play the musical piece as it was meant to be played.
Solfège (sometimes called solfa) is the way tones are named. It was made in order to give a name to the several tones and pitches. For example, the eight basic notes "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do" are just the names of the eight notes that confirm the major scale.
Music can be written in several ways. When it is written on a staff (like in the example shown), the pitches (tones) and their duration are represented by symbols called notes. Notes are put on the lines and in the spaces between the lines. Each position says which tone must be played. The higher the note is on the staff, the higher the pitch of the tone. The lower the notes are, the lower the pitch. The duration of the notes (how long they are played for) is shown by making the note "heads" black or white, and by giving them stems and flags.
Music can also be written with letters, naming them as in the solfa "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do" or representing them by letters. The next table shows how each note of the solfa is represented in the Standard Notation:
The Standard Notation was made to simplify the lecture of music notes, although it is mostly used to represent chords and the names of the music scales.
These ways to represent music ease the way a person reads music. There are more ways to write and represent music, but they are less known and may be more complicated.
People can enjoy music by listening to it. They can go to concerts to hear musicians perform. Classical music is usually performed in concert halls, but sometimes huge festivals are organized in which it is performed outside, in a field or stadium, like pop festivals. People can listen to music on CD's, Computers, iPods, television, the radio, casette/record-players and even mobile phones.
There is so much music today, in elevators, shopping malls, and stores, that it often becomes a background sound that we do not really hear.