African American music African-American music is an umbrella term covering a diverse range of music and musical genres largely developed by African Americans and their culture. Their origins are in musical forms that first came to be due to the condition of slaver ...

, and in

deejaying A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile D ...

and

turntablism Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more turntables and a cross fader-equipped DJ mixer. The mixer is plugged into a PA system ...

, a cut "overtly insists on the repetitive nature of the

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

, by abruptly skipping it back to another beginning which we have already heard. Moreover, the greater the insistence on the pure beauty and value of

repetition Repetition may refer to: * Repetition (rhetorical device), repeating a word within a short space of words *Repetition (bodybuilding), a single cycle of lifting and lowering a weight in strength training *Working title for the 1985 slasher film '' ...

, the greater the awareness must also be that repetition takes place not on the level of musical development or progression, but on the purest tonal and timbric level" (Snead 1984, p. 69, drawing on Chernoff 1979). David Brackett (''Interpreting Popular Music'', 2000, p. 118) describes the cut, repetition on the level of the

beat Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery ( ...

ostinato In music, an ostinato (; derived from Italian word for ''stubborn'', compare English ''obstinate'') is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch. Well-known ostinato-based pieces include ...

, and the harmonic sequence, as what makes

improvisation Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...

possible. In a cut repetition is not considered accumulation. "Progress in the sense of 'avoidance of repetition' would at once sabotage such an effort" (Snead, "Repetition as a Figure of Black Culture", 1984, p. 68). Brackett (ibid) finds the cut in all African American folk and

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

"from

ring Ring may refer to: * Ring (jewellery), a round band, usually made of metal, worn as ornamental jewelry * To make a sound with a bell, and the sound made by a bell :(hence) to initiate a telephone connection Arts, entertainment and media Film and ...

to rap" and lists the

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

(AAB), "Rhythm" changes in

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

, the

AABA form The 32-bar form, also known as the AABA song form, American popular song form and the ballad form, is a song structure commonly found in Tin Pan Alley songs and other American popular music, especially in the first half of the 20th century. A ...

bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...

, the ostinato

vamp The VaMP driverless car was one of the first truly autonomous cars Dynamic Vision for Perc ...

s at the end of

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

songs allowing improvisation and a rise in energy, short ostinatos of

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...

which spread that intensity throughout the song, samples in

rap Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...

, the last of which cuts on two levels, the repetition of the sample itself and its intertexual repetition. The cuts of African American music are not to be confused with those of

traditional Irish music Irish traditional music (also known as Irish trad, Irish folk music, and other variants) is a genre of folk music that developed in Ireland. In ''A History of Irish Music'' (1905), W. H. Grattan Flood wrote that, in Gaelic Ireland, there w ...

, especially on the instrument of the

tin whistle The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteria. ...

"Cuts and rolls" are used as a form of

ornamentation An ornament is something used for decoration. Ornament may also refer to: Decoration *Ornament (art), any purely decorative element in architecture and the decorative arts *Biological ornament, a characteristic of animals that appear to serve on ...

in Irish traditional, and sometimes Scottish tunes.

Sources

*Brackett, David (1995/2000). ''Interpreting Popular Music''. . *Snead (1984). "Repetition as a Figure of Black Culture", in: ''Black Literature and Literary Theory'', ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. London: Routledge, p. 59-80. *Chernoff, John (1979). ''African Rhythm and African Sensibility: Aesthetics and Social Action in African Musical Idioms''. {{DJing DJing

See also

Sources