American standards

The term standard is simply used to designate songs that have become essential to the performing musician's repertoire. Often suggested / requested at work, standards are the popular songs listeners often request when out enjoying music. Standards, regardless of style, are what we usually here on the radio, the newer top 40 lists containing songs that are perhaps on their way to becoming a standard. The lists of standards go on and on for we each have our faves yes?, and all of the American styles have their essentials, they in a sense help define the style. So, if you are on a folk gig and call "Blowin In The Wind" for example, chances are your golden. Maybe a bit dated, but you'd be delivering an important message for any era. On a blues date, "Stormy Monday" is a blues standard often called for, a bit tired you say? Could be, but that depends upon who is working the magic eh? "Johnny B. Goode" for the rockers. To much a 50's thing? Well, it does get folks up dancing just about every time the opening cliche lick gets sounded. Perhaps "Autumn Leaves" for the jazz artist? Too vanilla? Have you heard trumpeter Wynton Marsalis' arrangement of this standard?

Does each of these songs have something cool about it that makes it a standard? Absolutely. Maybe a nice melody, catchy riff, heartfelt poetry that tells an essential story of ourselves and the times in which we live. Emerging talent often play standard songs to learn their craft, get a feel for a style and generate their own ideas, using a standard's qualities of composition as a guide. So, how many tunes were written with Johnny B. Good changes? It's just a 12 blues anyway right? So, if we ever run short of what to play, we can always go to the list of standards right? Click the following styles to examine some titles of standard songs in each of the genres. Don't see a favorite standard? Write the author and we'll add it to the next edition. A thanks to you in advance, for I'm always looking for new material to read through.

Hip to the idea of quoting the melody of one song in another? A somewhat common occurrence in performance is for advanced players to use parts of melodies from one song in another. Player's call this quoting, and while it is mostly a jazz thing, advanced players in all of the styles do it. It seems that after years of playing and learning the melodies of say 50 or so standards, these melodies begin to organically merge with one another, creating a sort of "one giant melody" for the advanced artist, which in a sense becomes a library of titles, each with a story and flavor of it's own while being a part of the larger collection. In performance of the American styles, players will perhaps quote lines from humorous songs to lighten a passionate moment, add a bit of blue color to earthify a complex idea or simply to drive their point home. Whatever, we each develop our own favorites. The key idea here is the importance of learning tunes and how they together develop a body of literature we call American music, while retaining a sense of the common theoretical ground from which they spring. Other ideas on creating melodic lines within the American styles?

Here is a beginning list of standard tunes by each of the main American styles as broken down within this text. Most if not all of these titles can be found in the various fake books available at your local music store or of course out there somewhere in cyberville. The search is at least half the fun yes? At some point in future time, texts like these will have the music and a midi file to back them up, till then I guess were still a bit old fashioned. Also these lists are relatively short in terms of what's out there, learning every tune in any one list should give the emerging artist at least one solid set of material to perform. So are these titles basically a place for the emerging talent to start within a style? Exactly.

Folk songs. The following titles are standard folk songs, some of which go way, way back in our American history. All are worth learning I think, but then I feel that way about most tunes anyway.

Click the folk page for addition suggestions for songs to read through.

Blues. Here are a couple of titles for standard blues tunes to get you in the groove.

Click the blues page for additional literature.

Rock. Perhaps this listing is more classic rock than the more modern players, either way, a player has to start somewhere right? Most of these are cool for getting something under your fingers. Gets a bit more modern towards the bottom, yeh right, if your a dinosaur!

Click to the rock page for additional titles.

Jazz songs. The following titles of jazz composition are good entry level level tunes of varying complexity for the emerging jazz artist. Intersting as I review the titles, that in musical form, harmonic scheme and construction of melody, these titles are as "within the mold" so to speak as the music gets.

Need an extended list of jazz titles? Try jazz tunes.

Big band jazz tunes.

Need an extended list of jazz titles? Try jazz tunes.

Top 40 tunes. Here are a few of the titles designated as top 40 tunes. The list spans the last 100 years or so.

On and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on ... Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs .... What's wrong with that ...?

Remember, life is not always measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. Anonymous