From Motown To Hip Hop

From Motown To Hip Hop

Growing up in the City of Detroit during the early sixties was a memorable era for music. It was a period of time whereby the unique sounding records of Motown were being played and heard throughout the streets, nightclubs, house parties and radio stations everywhere. It was common to have the soulful R and B records playing on the jukeboxes while folks were dancing in the streets or singing in the barber shops and beauty parlors to the love songs that eventually captivated the hearts of millions of people throughout the world. Music cds and rap music were not heard of during that period, it was all about the vinyl records and rhythm and blues soul.

The songs that were written by Motown songwriters during the 60’s & 70’s had so much meaning. They were songs that spoke about true love, current events and the heartache and pains of life experiences. Oh yes, Motown had it going on! Their music became universal music. Many of the soulful tunes crossed over into other markets such as pop, jazz, blues, etc… But just like George Benson said in one of his recordings “Everything Must Change”, and sure enough, he was right about the music.

After giving so many years service and great music to the City of Detroit, Motown moved out and Rap/Hip Hop moved in. Instead of hearing someone singing My Baby Loves Me or My Girl, you began to hear new sounding lyrics of street experience expressed in rhythms with the mouth, chest, hands and feet as such had never been heard before.

This new sound called Rap evolved in the early 80’s and took off as a sky rocket in the late 90’s and New Millennium as Hip Hop/Rap. Even today Rap/Hip Hop music is still a multi billion dollar genre. Millions of cds, videos and dvd’s are sold each year in the Hip Hop genre of music. And there is no sign that Hip Hop will be slowing down or taking a back seat to anyone anytime soon.

So what happened to the Motown sound…. did it die out? No! The Motown sound will never die out. It will always play a significant part in the hearts of millions who embraced it’s sound back in the early 60’s, and continued to pass that sound on to their children throughout the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.

Sometimes you just have to move over and let the new kids on the block have a turn in expressing their musical talents, songs and ideas. That’s what Motown did…moved over-not out. And now the Hip Hop artists are not the new kids on the block anymore, for they have taken their position to express themselves musically, just like the rhythm and blues artists took their position to express themselves in the Motown era.

That’s how we’ve gone from Motown to Hip Hop!

Written by: Michael Bell

©2006 Michael Bell

http://www.buymusicfromus.com

BONUS : Future Of Music Therapy

Music therapy is applied by a qualified practitioner whereby music is used in a systematic manner to achieve therapeutic goals or purposes. These purposes or goals may include self awareness, social development, cognitive development and spiritual enhancement. Therefore, music therapy helps in the fulfillment of physical, psychological, communicative and social needs of the individuals. The future of music therapy is quite promising because the level of effectiveness gained in the therapeutic use of music is high.

Music therapy helps a lot in the growth of people of all backgrounds and abilities. It is very useful as a treatment to children with special needs and promotes progress in communication, physical, cognitive, daily and social life. In a hospital, music therapy is used to improve motor and neurological functioning or to relax patients, reduce pain and promote rehabilitation. Music therapy in a psychiatric facility is used by patients to identify and resolve conflicts, improve their self esteem, explore and express their emotions, practice how to solve problems, making or coping important decisions, improving inter personal skills, increased motivation and decreased inappropriate behavior. It helps geriatric clients to improve physical functions, improved social skills, and physical functions in areas like memory, reality awareness etc.

Music therapy utilizes music as a therapeutic stimulus to achieve non-musical goals. Some of the long terms goals of music therapy includes the following:

Physical goals such as improving motor functioning skills like coordination, muscle control, coordination of eye and hand, balance, locomotion, laterality and directionality. Increasing general stamina and endurance, improving functioning of sensory organs, decrease sensitivity of the sense organs, relieve in pain by distracting from pain and discomfort, stimulation of natural pain killers, improving autonomic nervous system response, stress reduction, improving identification of body part, improving physical speech skills.

Cognitive goals comprise of improved learning abilities such as memory, impulse control, recognize, learning, perception, improved communication, alertness, environmental awareness, integration experiences.

Psychological goals includes improved emotional awareness, expressing appropriate behavior, elevated mood, reduction in stress, trauma, fear of illness, enhanced self assessment and environment, improved motivation, increased impulse control, frustration control, improved decision making skills, problem solving skills, supporting a sense of hope, developing personal insight, promoting acceptance, healing and forgiveness, improving self direction and independence, promoting a sense of control over life, sense of accomplishment and promoting spiritual exploration.

Social goals fulfill needs such as establishing relationships, increasing social involvement, peer interaction, eye contact, increasing response to verbal and non verbal cues, maintaining and strengthening interpersonal skills and improving group behaviors.

For more information visit our recommended website music-future.com