TOEFL閱讀背景知識(shí)精選篇2020

TOEFL閱讀背景知識(shí)精選篇

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新托福閱讀背景知識(shí)：Early jazz

Early jazz.

Fully developed jazz music probably originated in New Orleans at the beginning of the 1900's. New Orleans style jazz emerged from the city's own musical traditions of band music for black funeral processions and street parades. Today, this type of jazz is sometimes called classic jazz, traditional jazz, or Dixieland jazz. New Orleans was the musical home of the first notable players and composers of jazz, including contests Buddy Bolden and King Oliver, cornets and trumpeter Louis Armstrong, saxophonist and clarinetist Sidney Bechtel, and pianist Jelly Roll Morton.

Jazz soon spread from New Orleans to other parts of the country. Fate Marble led a New Orleans band that played on riverboats traveling up and down the Mississippi River. King Oliver migrated to Chicago, and Jelly Roll Morton performed throughout the United States. Five white musicians formed a band in New Orleans, played in Chicago, and traveled to New York City, calling them the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (the spelling was soon changed to "Jazz"). This group made the earliest jazz phonograph recordings in 1917. Mamie Smith recorded "Crazy Blues" in 1920, and recordings of ragtime, blues, and jazz of various kinds soon popularized the music to a large and eager public.

The 1920's

The 1920's have been called the golden age of jazz or the jazz age. Commercial radio stations, which first appeared in the 1920's, featured live performances by the growing number of jazz musicians. New Orleans; Memphis; St. Louis; Kansas City, Missouri; Chicago; Detroit; and New York City were all important centers of jazz.

A group of Midwest youths, many from Chicago's Austin High School, developed a type of improvisation and arrangement that became known as "Chicago style" jazz. These musicians included trumpeters Jimmy McFarland and Muggy Spinier; cornets Box Beiderbecke; clarinetists Frank Tastemaker, Pee Wee Russell, Mezzo, and Benny Goodman; saxophonists Frankie Rombauer and Bud Freeman; drummers Dave Tough, George Wetting, and Gene Krupp; and guitarist Eddie Condon. They played harmonically inventive music, and the technical ability of some of the players, especially Goodman, was at a higher level than that of many earlier performers.

In New York City, James P. Johnson popularized a new musical style from ragtime called stride piano. In stride piano, the left hand plays alternating single notes and chords that move up and down the scale while the right hand plays solo melodies, accompanying rhythms, and interesting choral passages. Johnson strongly influenced other jazz pianists, notably Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Fats Waller, and Teddy Wilson.

Fletcher Henderson was the first major figure in big band jazz. In 1923, he became the first leader to organize a jazz band into sections of brass, reed, and rhythm instruments. His arranger, Don Redman, was the first to master the technique of scoring music for big bands. Various Henderson bands of the 1920's and 1930's included such great jazz instrumentalists as Louis Armstrong and saxophonists Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins.

Armstrong made some of his most famous recordings with his own Hot Five and Hot Seven combos from 1925 to 1928. These recordings rank among the masterpieces of jazz, along with his duo recordings of the same period with pianist Earl "Fatah" Hines. Armstrong also became the first well-known male jazz singer, and popularized scat singing-that is, wordless syllables sung in an instrumental manner.

During the late 1920's and early 1930's, jazz advanced from relatively simple music played by performers who often could not read music to a more complex and sophisticated form. Among the musicians who brought about this change were saxophonists Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins, and Johnny Hodges; the team of violinist Joe Venetia and guitarist Eddie Lang; and pianist Art Tatum. Many people consider Tatum the most inspired and technically gifted improviser in jazz history.

The swing era flourished from the mid-1930's to the mid-1940. In 1932, Duke Ellington recorded his composition "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Isn’t Got That Swing." "Swing" was soon adopted as the name of the newest style of jazz. Swing emphasizes four beats to the bar. Big bands dominated the swing era, especially those of Count Basie, Benny Goodman, and Duke Ellington.

Benny Goodman became known as the "King of Swing." Starting in 1934, Goodman's bands and combos brought swing to nationwide audiences through ballroom performances, recordings, and radio broadcasts. Goodman was the first white bandleader to feature black and white musicians playing together in public performances. In 1936, he introduced two great black soloists-pianist Teddy Wilson and vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. Until then, racial segregation had held back the progress of jazz and of black musicians in particular. In 1938, Goodman and his band, and several guest musicians, performed a famous concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Their performance was one of the first by jazz musicians in a concert hall setting.

Other major bands of the swing era included those led by Benny Carter, Bob Crosby, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Earl Hines, Andy Kirk, Jimmie Lunsford, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Chick Webb, and, toward the end of the period, Stan Kenton. The bands in Kansas City, Missouri, especially the Count Basie band, had a distinctive swing style. These bands relied on the 12-bar blues form and riff backgrounds, which consisted of repeated simple melodies. They depended less heavily on written arrangements, allowing more leeway for rhythmic drive and for extended solo improvisations.

新托福閱讀背景知識(shí)：Boogie-woogie

Boogie-woogie

Boogie-woogie was another jazz form that became popular during the 1930's. Chiefly a piano style, it used eight beats to the bar instead of four. Boogie-woogie featured the traditional blues pattern for most themes. The music had an intense quality that created excitement through the repetition of a single phrase. Albert Ammos, Pete Johnson, Meade Lox Lewis, and Pinetop Smith were among its most important artists.

Jazz vocalists came into prominence during the swing era, many singing with big bands. Many fine jazz singers emphasized popular songs. These singers included Mildred Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Nat "King" Cole, Carmen McRae, and Sarah Vaughan. Blues singing at its best can be heard in recordings by Jimmy Rushing, Jack Teagarden, Joe Turner, and Dinah Washington. In addition to singing, Nat "King" Cole was a superb jazz pianist and Jack Teagarden was a great jazz trombonist. See also Special Reports: Ella Fitzgerald: First Lady of Song.

新托福閱讀背景知識(shí)：爵士樂的根源

The roots of jazz

The folk songs and plantation dance music of black Americans contributed much to early jazz. These forms of music occurred throughout the Southern United States during the late 1800's.

Ragtime, a musical style that influenced early jazz, emerged from the St. Louis, Mo., area in the late 1890's. It quickly became the most popular music style in the United States. Ragtime was an energetic and syncopated variety of music, primarily for the piano, that emphasized formal composition.

The blues is a form of music that has always been an important part of jazz. The blues was especially widespread in the American South. Its mournful scale and simple repeated harmonies helped shape the character of jazz. Jazz instrumentalists have long exploited the blues as a vehicle for improvisation.

新托福閱讀背景知識(shí)：吉他的歷史

吉他的history

根據(jù)格羅夫(Grove)音樂辭典記載，古典吉他為魯特琴族(Lute family)中具有琴格的撥弦樂器。關(guān)于吉他起源及其形成之研究，可說是眾說紛紜﹔這些理論包括了：

1.從古希臘齊特琴(Kithara)及吉他之語源學(xué)說(Etymology)中研究得來。

2.部分學(xué)者推論認(rèn)為吉他是從美索不達(dá)米亞(Mesopotamia)， 及安娜多利亞(Anatolia)發(fā)現(xiàn)的長(zhǎng)頸魯特琴(Lute)所演變而來。

3. 另一部分學(xué)者研究發(fā)現(xiàn)吉他是由阿拉伯傳入歐洲，因?yàn)樵诎＜鞍l(fā)現(xiàn)平扁琴背之哥普魯特琴(Coptic Lute)，或可認(rèn)為是吉他的前身。由于以上大部分均為推論，且早期音樂文獻(xiàn)多半失散，以至于在缺乏直接證據(jù)的狀況下，目前對(duì)于吉他真正的起源尚未形成定論，只能從非古典吉他及其他音樂歷史文獻(xiàn)中尋找可靠而相關(guān)的蛛絲馬跡。

在中世紀(jì)文學(xué)中出現(xiàn)和吉他有關(guān)的樂器名稱，法國(guó)稱之為Interne，英國(guó)則是gesturer。法國(guó)諾曼底公爵(Duke of Normandy)所擁有樂師名單中，有赫特馬(Jean Haut mar)彈奏Gutierrez Latina及拉貝(Richard Labe)彈奏Gutierrez Porsche等古吉他琴族樂器之記載。馬肅(Guillaume de Mac haut)亦列出Moriches et Gutierrez為魯特琴族之一。由于當(dāng)時(shí)古吉他琴族中的拉丁吉他Guitars Latina，吉他Gutierrez及摩爾吉他uiterreMoresche等音量不能和魯特琴相抗衡，因此在歐洲大陸吉他無法廣為流傳，直到文藝復(fù)興時(shí)期西班牙出現(xiàn)了比維拉琴(Visual)及四弦吉他(Four-Course Guitar)之后，吉他的地位才開始奠定了雛形。

一般稱古典吉他為西班牙吉他，因?yàn)閺?6世紀(jì)以后，比維拉琴及四弦吉他首先在伊比利半島上萌芽發(fā)展，隨后才發(fā)展成巴羅克時(shí)期五弦吉他，六弦吉他，最后六弦吉他亦在西班牙境內(nèi)孕育出吉他第一黃金時(shí)期，到了現(xiàn)代古典吉他大師塞戈維亞(Andres Segovia)手中，更進(jìn)一步將古典吉他藝朮推廣到歐洲之外的亞洲及美洲，形成古典吉他史上的第二黃金期。在古典吉他的演變時(shí)期中，雖然也正是音樂史上巴羅克、古典、浪漫時(shí)期，器樂己成為主流﹔然而當(dāng)時(shí)吉他卻因?yàn)闊o法和交響樂團(tuán)整體音量匹敵，加上其本身之特殊風(fēng)格，與樂團(tuán)樂器之配置有所隔閡，因此成為一獨(dú)奏樂器。

至于六弦吉他的出現(xiàn)，雖然大部分學(xué)者均相信是在法國(guó)以及義大利所開始，但卻沒有任何當(dāng)代文獻(xiàn)證明是由誰最早開始制作。反而有一位德國(guó)的小提琴與吉他制琴家雅寇﹒奧古斯特。奧圖(Jacob Augustus Otto)自稱是他在接受了德勒司登的樂團(tuán)指揮紐曼先生(Herr Neumann)的一張六弦吉他訂單之后，特別為他所設(shè)計(jì)制造的。這似乎表示六弦吉他是在德國(guó)首先出現(xiàn)的，但是有件事絕對(duì)不能忽略，這位制琴師奧圖早年均在義大利學(xué)習(xí)制琴，很有可能當(dāng)時(shí)他就已經(jīng)在學(xué)習(xí)過程中見過這種吉他的雛形了。至于西班牙采用六弦吉他的起源，雖然沒有書面的記載，但一般相信大約在1820年左右，因?yàn)橹奈靼嘌兰髑壹嫜葑嗉野⒐隙?Dionysius Agued)為六弦吉他所寫的教本于1825年在馬德里出版，足以證明在此之前，六弦吉他已經(jīng)有部分人開始使用，所以才會(huì)需要這樣的教本。 在18世紀(jì)末至19世紀(jì)初，六弦吉他的發(fā)展也逐漸產(chǎn)生一些較為常見的特征，例如由于琴身上下較寬部分又加寬了些，使得曲線更為明顯﹔琴橋固定琴弦的方式是將弦纏在本制插梢上，再插入琴橋上預(yù)先挖好的六個(gè)小孔中加以固定，取代了這之前直接纏繞在琴橋上的設(shè)計(jì)﹔到了19世紀(jì)早期，在琴橋又加上了狹長(zhǎng)的骨片或象牙片，作為下弦枕。此外，指板也繼續(xù)延伸到音孔旁。雖然無法查證何時(shí)開始采用這種設(shè)計(jì)，但可以將其歸功于一位德籍制琴家喬治﹒史道弗(George Stauffer)，值得注意的是，他也是后來移民至美國(guó)紐約，并成為美國(guó)制琴工業(yè)先驅(qū)的著名制琴師馬汀(Christian Friedrich Martin)的老師。馬汀后來在美國(guó)研究發(fā)展出本土的鋼弦吉他，也就是現(xiàn)在流行音樂界所廣為使用的民謠吉他鼻祖，有別于當(dāng)時(shí)在歐洲仍采用的羊腸弦吉他。

19世紀(jì)早期，吉他形狀漸漸改變發(fā)展成接近現(xiàn)代吉他的外觀：金屬弦紐取代木制紐頭﹔挖空的音孔取代玫瑰紋飾的音孔﹔琴橋提高了﹔扁平的背板變成標(biāo)準(zhǔn)形式﹔第十二琴格對(duì)準(zhǔn)琴頸和音箱聯(lián)結(jié)處，此外，華麗的裝飾也幾乎完全消失了。在這名家輩出的時(shí)代，必須提到這位被稱為近代吉他制作之父的著名人物，西班牙制琴師安東尼奧﹒托雷斯(Antonio de Torres Jordon, 1817～1892)。他所設(shè)計(jì)出的吉他新形式，可說是凌駕于在這之前所有形態(tài)的吉他。他將弦長(zhǎng)定為65公分，琴身內(nèi)部構(gòu)造以響孔為起點(diǎn)，在音箱內(nèi)部配置有七根扇形力木，并將原本較為窄小的琴身擴(kuò)大，這種設(shè)計(jì)大大地提高吉他的音響效果，引起各著名制琴師的仿效，成為現(xiàn)代古典吉他的制作典范。