Musical epiphany

[kayre]

A musician told me, years ago, that a major distinguishing mark of pop music styles (including Christian) from 1950 forward is that it’s eighth-note driven, and it works as a rule of thumb. For example, most older hymns are quarter-note driven; think of the generally slow walking beat. Then listen to an updated version, like a rendition by a popular singer-- and you'll hear flowing 8th notes accompanying it, to update. (Note: "rule of thumb" isn't ironclad; please don't bother sending me counter-examples, I acknowledge that they exist.)

Today i realized that hip-hop and rap are 16th-note driven, but less complex harmonically. The 8th-note driven music uses a lot of passing tones; hip-hop, at least as much as I've experienced, tends to just jump straight from one chord to another.

And then i remembered how much Bach performance music is also 16th-note driven; now I'm contemplating a mashup of Bach with one of the hiphop songs my young prodigy loves!