Dena Register (see below for her 2016 article) sees our advocacy styles as falling into three different categories. Renaissance music (c. 1400 to 1600) was more focused on secular (non-religious) themes, such as courtly love Around 1450, the printing press was invented, which made printed sheet music much less expensive and easier to mass-produce (prior to the invention of the printing press, all notated music was hand-copied).
Songwriters and electronic music producers (as they are typically both writer and performer) are predisposed to be good at it. And it’s a breath of fresh air, according to my artists, whom see it as inspirational and a break from their typical music making routine.
Even when the performer him-self does not invent, or improvise (as was the case in the past and in most present-day performances of music by preliterate peoples), but more or less freely reproduces the music invented by others (learned by ear in folk music and in Oriental music), or accurately performs music written by others (res facia, in the Middle Ages), an inter-personal process takes place.
This Is Reggae Music (titled Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King outside the U.S.) is Bradley’s deep history of Jamaican popular music, from its roots in mento, calypso, and the R&B-pumping sound systems of Kingston, through ska, rocksteady, roots, dub and dancehall.
In the South and West, however, the democratic, easy-to-learn shape-note notation continued to flourish, aided by the 1835 publication of William Walker’s shape-note songbook The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, which sold six hundred thousand copies in the nineteenth century.