Traditional pop music

Traditional pop music - in modern English-language terminology, popular music before the rock-n-roll era, that is, western, primarily American, popular music in the style that was standard until it was replaced by rock-and-roll in the mid-1950s.

It is this term that is used by the American National Academy of Art and Science of Recording, which is the organizer of the Grammy Awards (which are also awarded in this category). Grammy Award for Best Traditional Vocal Pop Album - awarded since 1992. In the first year, the category was called Best Traditional Pop Performance, in 1993–2000. Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance, from 2001 to the present Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.

Swamp Pop

Swamp Pop is a popular music genre shaped by the indigenous people of South Louisiana (the Acadian region) and the adjacent part of South East Texas. The swamp-pop ancestors were the Cajuns, who experimented with sound in the 1950s - early 1960s; the genre itself combines a new Orleans rhythm and blues country and traditional musical currents of French Louisiana. Although swamp-pop is a rather vague term, the genre has a large audience in its native regions, South Louisiana and southeastern Texas, this musical direction is also quite popular in the United Kingdom, Northern Europe and Japan.

Synthpop

Sinti-pop (also known as techno-pop) is a genre of electronic music that became famous in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. The genre originated in Japan and the United Kingdom during the post-punk era and as part of a new wave of the late 1970s and until the mid-1980s.

The pioneers of synth-pop were the Japanese group Yellow Magic Orchestra and the British group Ultravox and The Human League, the latter widely using monophonic synthesizers to create music with a simple and strict sound. After breaking through Gary Newman and his Tubeway Army band in the UK singles chart, a large number of bands achieved success in the early 1980s, including Soft Cell, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Japan and Depeche Mode in the UK, while in Japan The success of Yellow Magic Orchestra opened the way for such synthpop groups like P-Model, Plastics, Hikashu. The development of low-cost polyphonic synthesizers, the emergence of the MIDI standard and the use of drum machines has led to more commercial and affordable synth-pop sound. The merger with the new romantics movement, along with the growth of MTV, led to the success of a large number of British synthpop groups, including Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, in the United States.

Pop-rock

Pop-rock (Pop N 'Rock) - a genre of music that combines elements of pop music and rock music.

Stylistics of the genre

The songs are characterized by a simple structure, catchy melodies, repetition of musical phrases (from the pop), but using electric guitars, drums and energetic melody (from the rock) as the main instruments. The severity can be different, from practically instrumental pop to very “heavy” compositions, but diluted with pop melodies. As a result, many groups have to justify that they are playing rock, while others are the opposite, that they do not play pop-rock.

Pop Punk

Pop punk is one of the basic subgenres of punk rock, characterized by a mixture of principles and instrumental section of typical punk rock with soft pop melodies and pop music techniques (as well as other “light” genres). Having appeared along with punk rock, pop-punk experienced a “new birth” and the largest (for punk rock in general) commercial success in the 90s.

History

The first pop-punks are the first punk rockers - the Ramones. For some of their songs, especially the early ones, the entertainment orientation, the absence of social problems and the general positive mood, which is so uncharacteristic for “dark” punk genres that appeared on the brink of 80s (such as hardcore and Oi!), were already characteristic. The very first "full-fledged" pop punk band became Buzzcocks, who managed to achieve a very light sound, combining the guitar pressure and air melodies characteristic of punk rock, compared to the rather brutal and unusual arrangement of the unprepared listener. based on pop rock and bubblegum pop 1960s.

Indie Pop - Sub Genre of Pop Music

Indie Pop is a subgenre and subculture of alternative rock / indie rock that appeared in the late 1970s in the UK. He was inspired by DIY punk ethics and was associated with punk ideology, spawned flourishing fanzines, indie labels, clubs and concert tours. Indie pop is different from indie rock in that it is more melodic, less abrasive and relatively not dreary. His subgenres include Twee-Pop and Chamber Pop.

Bubblegum Pop - a Kind of Pop Music

Bubblegum pop - a kind of pop music, which is characterized by catchy (often "sweet") melody, simple clear arrangement, built on repetitive elements and plain text, as a rule, the youthful, romantic, playful nature. Bubblegum, whose products are designed for children and young people, merges with the notion of "manufactory" pop music.

The music press is usually pokes fun bubblegum pop, "It is a form of popular music, which to an extent sickeningly sugary that I want to close up the ears of chewing gum" - a definition of bubblegum given in the
book «Book of Bad Songs» humorist Dave Berry.

The Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble - II

Further south, at the Catholic courts of Munich, Innsbruck, and Vienna, cornetts and sackbuts were cultivated at a level rivaling Venice. Indeed, there was a constant exchange of musicians across the Alps, often involving cornett and trombone players (e.g., cornettist Girolamo Dalla Casa and his trombone-playing brothers, who were employed for a time at the Bavarian court). Music for the Imperial Court at Vienna, in particular, often included brilliantly virtuosic parts for these instruments.

Moreover, literally hundreds, if not thousands, of sacred works in manuscript of composers such as Johann Joseph Fux, Heinrich Biber, Giovanni Francesco Anerio, Giovanni Felice Sances, and Antonio Bertali call for cornetts and sackbuts colla parte or in modestly obbligato roles. Characteristically, these pieces call for an ensemble of one cornett, two trombones, and a curtal (fagotto) instead of a cornett and three trombones.

The Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble - I

The cornett is a lip-vibrated, wooden, fingerhole horn, usually curved and of octagonal cross section, which went out of use in the early nineteenth century. The sackbut is the ancestor of the modern trombone, made of thinner brass and with a narrower bore and bell than its descendant. The histories of these two instruments, differing so greatly in physical characteristics, nevertheless became inextricably intertwined in the course of the sixteenth century, remained so throughout the seventeenth, and gradually diverged in the eighteenth as the cornett fell into obsolescence. The story of this “marriage” is unique in the history of musical instruments and largely determined the destinies of both instruments for two hundred years.

The cornett, developed through the addition of fingerholes to the animal horns widely used for signaling in the Middle Ages, evolved around the turn of the sixteenth century into the most important soprano voice of the Renaissance instrumentarium. The sackbut, derived from the medieval natural trumpet through the application, in the late fifteenth century, of a U-slide mechanism, developed quickly into the most important tenor and bass wind instrument of the sixteenth century. Each of these instruments needed the other to provide the homogeneous consort typical of Renaissance tastes; each complemented the other perfectly. The sackbut generally lacked the agility necessary for intricate ornamentation required of soprano lines; the cornett family lacked middle and low voices. (Tenor and bass cornetts were eventually developed but were never as popular as sackbuts on lower parts.)

It was first and foremost in Italy where ensembles of cornetts and sackbuts took hold, eventually replacing the late-medieval mixed wind band of shawms and slide trumpet. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the cornett reigned as the virtuoso solo instrument par excellence, and the concerto di cornetti e tromboni, usually known as the piffari, was an essential feature of the musical landscape of virtually every city of any importance in Italy. Outside Venice, the center of cornett and sackbut playing, extensive  documentation exists for such groups in cities including Bologna, Genoa, Brescia, Udine, Florence, Rome, and Naples. Virtuosos of the cornett were extravagantly praised by local chroniclers (and often correspondingly remunerated by their patrons). Their numbers included highly trained composers (Giovanni Bassano in Venice, Ascanio Trombetti “detto del Cornetto” in Bologna, “Il Cavaliere” Nicolò Rubini del Cornetto in Modena), at least one famous artist (Benvenuto Cellini), as well as several cloistered nuns (most notably at the convent of San Vito in Ferrara).

The duties of the piffari centered on ceremonial civic functions: daily “performances” in the public square, accompanying the entrances and exits of prominent officials as well as providing entertainment for their meals, playing for processions and at public celebrations, and so forth. In addition, these groups often provided music for Mass or for other church functions, either as an official unit or, more often, as a pool of players to be called upon when needed to augment the salaried musicians of the cappella. Not all theorists agreed (nor did the church, at least officially, since the Council of Trent) that these instruments were appropriate in the church. In disparaging their use in sacred or refined circumstances, though, Vincenzo Galilei clearly expresses a personal bias:

[Cornetts and trombones] are often heard in masquerades, on stage, on the balconies of public squares for the satisfaction of the citizens and common people, and, contrary to all that is proper, in the choirs and with the organs of sacred temples on solemn feast days; . . . these instruments are never heard in the private chambers of judicious gentlemen, lords and princes, where only those [musicians] take part whose judgement, taste and hearing are unsullied; for from such rooms [these instruments] are totally prohibited.

Ensembles of cornetts and sackbuts were heard in Italy right through the seventeenth century, and in some cases through the eighteenth century as well. The Concerto Palatino della Signoria di Bologna, one of the most renowned of these ensembles, existed for more than 250 years, usually in a formation of four cornetts and four trombones, and was not disbanded until 1779. By this time, standards on the cornett had sunk so low that the city fathers voted to silence the Concerto Palatino, stating that

either the great difficulty of adapting the said cornetts, very imperfect in their structure, to the harmonious expression of that kind of music which corresponds to the genius of the present time, or the scarceness of subjects in possession of the natural disposition necessary to take on and cultivate the sound of this instrument, actually out of use, has made manifestly clear the absolute necessity of substituting the cornetts with some other instrument more grateful to the ear and which might remove the unpleasantness which results from hearing, in the public functions and, above all, in the churches, a very disagreeable dissonance, from which derives a manifest scandal.

The Concerto Capitolino in Rome, with six cornetts and six sackbuts, was not disbanded until 1798, when, upon the arrival of Napoleon, it was replaced with a military band.

North of the Alps, most German civic authorities maintained a wind band by the fifteenth century. Its principal instruments were (by the sixteenth century) the cornett and the sackbut, but the players each mastered many instruments. This instrumental versatility appears to represent one of the principal differences between the German Stadtpfeifer and the Italian piffari. To be sure, many Italian cornettists and trombonists played other instruments as well, but the practice seems to have been neither as widespread nor as officially sanctioned as in Germany, where wind players often began their careers among the string players (Kunstgeiger) and only later were promoted to the more prestigious wind instruments. A particularly good example of this instrumental flexibility is shown in the seventeenth-century Ratsmusik of Hamburg. Though much under the sway of English consort music, the Hamburg musicians retained a far more varied instrumental usage than their English stringplaying contemporaries. One document indicates that the cornett players were also required to play violins and recorders and the trombonists either viola and recorder, or string bass and curtal, to use “pro variatione.”

As in Italy, the duties of the Stadtpfeifer included functions both civic (including the famous “tower music”) and sacred. A truly enormous quantity of German sacred music from the seventeenth century includes parts for cornetts and sackbuts, sometimes in obbligato roles, but more often doubling voices in the ripieno choir. This practice was virtually universal in the performance of music in the stile antico, the classical sixteenth-century polyphonic style still much used in German Lutheran churches as late as the eighteenth century. A manuscript in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek which preserves, partly in the hand of J. S. Bach, a group of instrumental and vocal parts to Palestrina’s Missa sine nomine à 6 bears witness to the prevalence and persistence of this practice in Leipzig. Bach’s instrumentation of this Mass includes two cornetts and four trombones, as well as a continuo group of organ, harpsichord, and violone.

Bach’s famous complaint in 1730 that the Leipzig Stadtpfeifer were “partly retired, and partly not at all in such practice as they should be” undoubtedly reflects a decline in this famous group which took place after 1720. Nevertheless, the Stadtpfeifer continued to play cornetts and sackbuts into the nineteenth century in some places. The French composer and musicologist Jean Georges Kastner heard them in Stuttgart in 1840, though he was little impressed with their skill.

Reeds - The Oboe and Bassoon

Almost half a century has passed since Josef Marx suggested that the oboe was invented in the 1650s and first used in Lully’s Ballet de l’amour malade of 1657. Scholars have generally accepted his reasoning; recently, however, Bruce Haynes has shown that the iconographic record supports a later dating of the emergence of the true oboe (i.e., somewhere in the 1680s), and Rebecca Harris-Warrick has questioned some of Marx’s readings of the written evidence and thus some of his conclusions. Together these researchers have furthered the view that the change from shawm to oboe was a gradual and evolutionary one, perhaps over a few decades, rather than a sudden and decisive one. While it is true that not all the characteristics we associate with the Baroque oboe had to have been present at the outset, two were absolutely essential to its acceptance as an orchestral instrument: in order to be mixed with violins, it had to play at an acceptable volume and at a compatible pitch. Historians have paid more attention to the matter of volume, even though pitch is actually the more crucial consideration from the standpoint of instrument design.
(Volume is at least as much a question of reeds.)

As pointed out by Bruce Haynes, the actual interval between a typical Renaissance treble shawm and an oboe at low French pitch is a perfect fourth—just as we have found in comparing typical Renaissance and Baroque alto recorders; the new treble instrument is once again closer in pitch to the old tenor. This pitch difference does not manifest itself so obviously as a size difference in the case of the oboe and shawm, however; the treble shawm is already rather long for its pitch, having a considerable bell extension past the fingered holes. This bell extension is not “just for show”; its proportions (and the positions of its resonance holes) are carefully engineered to stabilize crucial notes in the scale. (In particular, the half-holed notes a minor third and minor tenth above the seven-finger note—E♭s on an instrument considered in c'—are rendered stable by this extension.) Making a proportional expansion to bring a treble shawm down a fourth would result in an instrument almost a yard long—obviously a clumsy and inelegant solution; clearly a complete remodeling was in order. Jointed construction was “in,” as was ornamental turnery.

Reeds (part II)

Acoustically related to the shawm is the curtal (pronounced “curt’l”), in which a conical bore like that of the shawm is doubled back on itself to produce a long sounding length in a short—in effect, “curt”—package. (It is still often called the “dulcian”—one of its German names—because the first suppliers of copies in this century were Germans, who called it that on their price lists. But “curtal” is its traditional English name.) Praetorius illustrates a whole family of them, in sizes corresponding to those of the shawms. However, he says that the doppel Fagott (the curtal corresponding to the grossbass Pommer) is available in two different pitches, one a fourth and one a fifth below the bass curtal or chorist Fagott; these are known as the quart Fagott and quint Fagott, respectively. (However, no representatives of the quint Fagott appear to survive.) In addition, curtals were made in two styles, offen (open) and gedackt (covered); in the latter the bell opening is provided with a sieve-like cover, somewhat damping the sound. Praetorius says that the Fagotten are softer and sweeter in sound than the Pommern (hence the alternative name Dolzianen) due to the folded bore  and — when present — the bell cover. (On the other hand, as we have seen, an offen chorist Fagott could substitute for a bass Pommer in a shawm band, so the difference was not necessarily extreme.)

Reeds (part I)

It is now time to return to the early seventeenth century and pick up the story of the reeds. The late Renaissance is often characterized by the variety of its reed instruments, a variety made evident in Syntagma II of Praetorius. Of course, the full panoply of instruments was not available in all geographic areas or to those in all social strata. As students of performance practice, it should be our focus to determine the limitations of the use of these instruments as well as their possibilities. Fortunately, there have been some excellent modern studies that have addressed these issues in detail, combining archival and iconographic information with that provided by the treatises and the existing instruments themselves.

Developments of the Late Seventeenth Century (part II)

Also surviving the Interregnum in England was the name “recorder,” even though the new form of the instrument was greeted by some as a newcomer and not as part of a continuing tradition. For instance, John Hudgebut, in his preface to A Vade Mecum (the first tutor for the Baroque-style recorder, published in 1679), says, “though the Flagilet like Esau hath got the start, as being of a more Antient Standing, The Rechorder like Jakob hath got the Birthright.” Soon the name “recorder” begins to disappear, being replaced by flute douce, flute a bec, or simply “flute” — the name it would carry through most of the eighteenth century. Thus, in the few years between the working careers of Matthew Locke (one of the last, it would appear, to use the Renaissance-style flute consort and Purcell, the word “flute” had taken on an entirely new meaning. It is quite certain that for Purcell, “flute” meant recorder; he did not know (or in any case employ) the transverse flute at all.63 In its limited seventeenth-century appearance in England (notably—perhaps exclusively — in James Talbot’s notes on instruments, ca. 1695), the latter is called by its French name flute d’Allemagne, suggesting that it was not quite yet a naturalized citizen.

Developments of the Late Seventeenth Century (part I)

At some as yet undetermined point after Mersenne’s writing, the recorder and flute underwent the radical alterations that produced the forms we now call “Baroque.”

Both were given three joints: a cylindrical head, a tapering body, and a foot (tapering on the recorder, generally cylindrical on the flute). The flute was given a closedstanding key for D♯/E♭ (a difficult half-hole fingering on the keyless Renaissance flute), and both instruments were graced with ornate exterior turnery. Along with these changes in morphology came changes in pitch, nomenclature, and intervals between sizes—changes that represented especially radical departures for the family of recorders. (It is meaningless, in fact, to speak of a “family” of flutes in this period, since most of the evidence—sparse at best—concerns one size, the one we would now call the “concert flute,” or simply “flute.”) As mentioned above, the Renaissance habit of separating family members by fifths was given up in favor of alternating fourths and fifths (as with most modern orchestral woodwind families); the result is the “C and F” alignment of recorders with which we are still familiar. In France itself—still thought to be the origin of the new designs—the pitch standard to which recorders and flutes were now made was very low (a' = 392 to 405 or so, judging by extant examples). Such a low pitch was already quite normal for Renaissance flutes, as we have seen, but it was unusual for recorders. The change in both nominal pitch and pitch standard had a particularly drastic effect on the alto recorder, now the dominant solo member of the family. The real pitch difference between an old alt in g' at high Venetian pitch (a' = 460 or so) and an alto in f' at a' = 392 is a fourth; the new instrument is actually closer in pitch to the old tenor.

Late-Renaissance Winds (part III)

Recorders and Flutes (II)

Mersenne’s set of recorders is—on the surface, at least—not all that different from Praetorius’s. Unlike Praetorius, however, he divides them into two groups, a petit jeu and a grand jeu, which, he says, can be “tuned” (i.e., played) together, just as are the small and large stops (jeux) of the organ. The petit jeu consists, he tells us, of three sizes, separated by fifths: dessus, taille (which also serves for the haute-contre), and basse. This information is thus in accord with standard Renaissance practice, as explained (for example) by Philibert Jambe de Fer almost a century earlier. Mersenne gives no specific pitches for any of his recorders; we can only assume a continuance of the traditional f, c', and g' (sounding) pitches for the instruments of the petit jeu. The problem comes when we consider their physical measurements. His length for the basse (two and three-quarters pieds, or about 893 mm) is reasonable enough, being in the neighborhood of the length of Praetorius’s bassett. (Unfortunately, Mersenne fails to clarify whether his measurements are of total lengths or
sounding lengths, making exact comparisons impossible.) But his taille measurement of one pied five pouces (460 mm) is far too short; it is midway between what we should expect for taille and dessus proportioned to such a basse. However, the worst is yet to come; he claims that the dessus is but eleven lignes (less than an inch!) in length. This is of course ridiculous, but even at eleven pouces (298 mm) it is too short to stand at a ninth above the basse. It is close, however, to the length of Praetorius’s discant in c'', suggesting that there was (unbeknownst to Mersenne) a fourth size of recorder in the petit jeu in France—not surprising, given developments elsewhere.

Late-Renaissance Winds (part II)

Recorders and Flutes (I)

Praetorius begins his discussion of woodwinds with the recorder. By his time, the original set of three sizes (ones we would now call alto, tenor, and bass) had expanded considerably; he lists eight sizes: klein Flötlein or exilent in (seven-fingers) g'', discant in d'', discant in c'', alt in g', tenor in c', bassett in f, bass in B♭, and grossbass in F. Such a complete set — presumably with some duplications of certain sizes, following his earlier recommendations — was available from Venice for about 80 Thalers, he says, and indeed those illustrated resemble surviving examples of Venetian manufacture. These are characterized by a plain, robust, one-piece construction, a comparatively wide bore, and a voicing that favors the low register; sizes larger than a tenor are fitted with a key (for the bottom note), which is covered by a protective barrel or “fontanelle.” The majority of surviving examples have what has been called a “choke” bore: the top end is basically cylindrical but begins to contract near the upper fingerholes and then widens out again at the bottom. The contraction itself is what makes the larger recorders feasible, for without it, the fingerholes have to be impractically large and finger stretches become impossible.

It is the expanding “foot” section that distinguishes this bore profile from that of the Baroque and modern recorder, whose foot-joint bore continues instead to contract. This terminal contraction is responsible for the success of the Baroque highnote fingerings, which generally do not work on Renaissance-style recorders (except on some of the smaller ones, provided they have comparatively large fingerholes; see, for instance, the modern instruments based on the late seventeenth-century “transitional” set by Hieronymus Franziskus Kynseker of Nuremberg). In fact, Praetorius mentions that the larger recorders—those with keys, it would seem from the chart of ranges — are ordinarily limited in range to a thirteenth, while the smaller ones can generally reach a fourteenth; certain extraordinary players, however, can force another four to seven tones beyond the standard range. (Has he been reading Sylvestro Ganassi about this?)

Late-Renaissance Winds (part I)

The Sources

We owe much of what we know about instruments of the early seventeenth century — and, indeed, about Renaissance instruments in general—to two remarkable writers, Michael Praetorius and Marin Mersenne. Each produced a comprehensive treatise on musical theory and practice: Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum (in three volumes, 1614–204), and Mersenne, Harmonie universelle (1636–375). The two authors are often lumped together, but despite their shared thoroughness they could hardly be more different in style and approach. Praetorius—Lutheran composer, organist, and Kapellmeister—is always the more pragmatic; Mersenne—Jesuit priest, mathematician, philosopher, and scientist—the more speculative. Praetorius’s information appears to flow from his own practical experience, while Mersenne’s often seems a secondhand acquisition (which he does not always understand in depth). Rare is the page in Mersenne’s instrument descriptions without some inexplicable ambiguity or frustrating lack of clarity. (Not that Praetorius himself is without errors or inconsistencies, but his usually have some simple explanation.) Mersenne treats verbally of matters (such as instrument dimensions) that Praetorius entrusts to the carefully drafted plates of the Theatrum instrumentorum (the appendix to Syntagma II) to communicate; such verbal descriptions are naturally prone to error. Perhaps it should be mentioned in Mersenne’s defense, however, that his text simply has more information about instruments than Praetorius’s (including fingering charts and musical examples), providing more places for things to go wrong.

Woodwinds

Of all the centuries in the recorded history of Western music, the seventeenth witnessed the most thoroughgoing and decisive changes in the nature of woodwind instruments. While the sixteenth century had produced some remarkable developments, resulting in the rich and varied instrumentarium of the late Renaissance, these can be viewed as essentially evolutionary in spirit; they consisted of expansions of existing families and the invention of complementary types intended to serve with them and round out the palette of instrumental colors. The developments of the mid- to late seventeenth century were, by comparison, nothing short of revolutionary, consisting of complete remodelings of a limited number of Renaissance winds — flute, recorder, shawm, and curtal—to produce radically new types that ultimately eclipsed their progenitors (not to mention their few remaining rivals, such as the cornett). The affinity between these new forms (Baroque flute, oboe, and bassoon, in particular, the recorder representing something of a special case) and our own seems clear; we recognize them more as youthful versions than as ancestors of our modern designs despite the tremendous technological gulf between them.

Choral Music in Italy and the Germanic Lands (part IV)

Intonation is one of the most critical aspects of this style; florid lines require harmonic clarity which only good intonation can give. Nevertheless, intonation and tuning would themselves have varied with the performance context. When singers were unaccompanied, they would likely have sung simultaneous octaves, fifths, and thirds as close to pure as possible. But when they performed with instruments, we must assume that they adopted the instruments’ tuning. This is of particular concern with regard to the fretted strings and keyboard instruments, especially the organ, on continuo parts. Fretted strings such as lutes and viols can make some concessions to just intonation through the use of double fretting or variable finger placement and pressure at the frets, but keyboard instruments are completely inflexible, and any instruments or voices performing with them must match their pitches.

In the early seventeenth century, matching keyboard pitches often meant performing in quarter-comma meantone, which provides perfectly lovely pure thirds as long as one keeps to the right keys. By the time of Buxtehude, however, the use of a wide variety of well-tempered tunings were coming into vogue in Germany, especially the temperaments of Andreas Werckmeister. The greater chromatic flexibility permitted by these temperaments was balanced by the fact that more chords were slightly out of tune, although not as badly as the wolf chords of the meantone system.

Principal Seventeenth-Century English and French Singing Treatises

Bénigne de Bacilly’s Remarques curieuses sur l’art de bien chanter (1668) provides a window on singing and vocal pedagogy in seventeenth-century France. Though the author’s expressed main purpose was to deal with the esoterica of applying quantitative rhythm to French poetry, over half the book is devoted to general principles of good singing.

John Playford’s An Introduction to the Skill of Musick contains, in editions of 1664 and later, a “Brief Discourse of the Italian Manner of Singing,” much of it lifted from Giulio Caccini’s Le nuove musiche (1602). Playford’s handbook went through nineteen editions, many thoroughly revised, spanning the years 1654 to 1730, so we may surmise that Caccini’s advice on singing — attributed by Playford to “an English Gentleman who had lived long in Italy” — remained pertinent as the decades and the editions passed.

Pier Francesco Tosi’s Opinioni de’ cantori (1723) distilled a lifetime of experience as a successful professional singer and teacher. It was translated into several languages; the English translation, John Galliard’s Observations on the Florid Song (1743), adds explanatory annotations and examples. Though Galliard was German, both his translation and his footnotes are in clearer English than Playford’s.