Stop time Aunt Dinah's Wedding Dance break down B

Stop time Aunt Dinah's Wedding Dance break down A

tap dancing Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely perf ...

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 majo ...

, and blues, stop-time is an

accompaniment Accompaniment is the musical part which provides the rhythmic and/or harmonic support for the melody or main themes of a song or instrumental piece. There are many different styles and types of accompaniment in different genres and styles ...

pattern interrupting, or stopping, the normal time and featuring regular accented attacks on the first beat of each or every other measure, alternating with

silence Silence is the absence of ambient audible sound, the emission of sounds of such low intensity that they do not draw attention to themselves, or the state of having ceased to produce sounds; this latter sense can be extended to apply to the c ...

or instrumental solos. Stop-time occasionally appears in

ragtime Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott ...

music. The characteristics of stop-time are heavy accents, frequent rests, and a stereotyped

cadential In Western musical theory, a cadence (Latin ''cadentia'', "a falling") is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards. Don Michael Randel (19 ...

pattern. Stop-timing may create the impression that the

tempo In musical terminology, tempo ( Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (ofte ...

has changed, though it has not, as the soloist continues without accompaniment. Stop-time is common in

African-American popular 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 slavery ...

including R&B,

soul music Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues. Soul music became pop ...

, and led to the development of the break in hip hop.Ramsey, Guthrie Jr.
Stop-Time!
(Fall 1998), ''Colum.edu''. Stop-time is, according to Samuel A. Floyd Jr., "a musical device in which the forward flow of the music stops, or seems to stop, suspended in a

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed ...

unison In music, unison is two or more musical parts that sound either the same pitch or pitches separated by intervals of one or more octaves, usually at the same time. ''Rhythmic unison'' is another term for homorhythm. Definition Unison or pe ...

, while in some cases an improvising instrumentalist or singer continues solo with the forward flow of the

meter The metre ( British spelling) or meter ( American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pr ...

and

. Such stop-time moments are sometimes repeated, creating an illusion of starting and stopping, as, for example, in

Scott Joplin Scott Joplin ( 1868 – April 1, 1917) was an American composer and pianist. Because of the fame achieved for his ragtime compositions, he was dubbed the "King of Ragtime." During his career, he wrote over 40 original ragtime pieces, one r ...

's " The Ragtime Dance" and

Jelly Roll Morton Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (later Morton; c. September 20, 1890 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a ge ...

's " King Porter Stomp"." Joplin's "Stoptime Rag" (1910) employs stop-time throughout; it even lacks his characteristic four-bar introduction. Stop-time in Joplin's rags is characterized by directions in the music for performers to stomp their foot to the beat. The sheet music for Joplin's "Ragtime Dance" contains the direction, "Notice: to get the desired effect of 'stop time', that the pianist will please ''stamp'' the heel of one foot heavily upon the floor at the word 'stamp'. Do not raise the toe from the floor while stamping." In his copyright submission for "Cornet Chop Suey," Louis Armstrong includes a written stop-time chorus. Allusions to the stop-time chorus of "Cornet Chop Suey" occurs in "Oriental Strut" and "Potato Head Blues." Thomas Brothers cites Armstrong's exposure to the tap-dancing of Bubbles, who improvised dance steps during stop-time choruses, at the Sunset Café as further inspiration for stop-time choruses in his repertoire. In ''Signifyin(g), Sanctifyin', and Slam Dunking'', Gena Dagel Caponi writes:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stop-Timere Accompaniment Musical techniques Rhythm and meter

See also

References