Feel free to modify as needed....
- Published Sheet Music Pre-1800
- Fading of Classical >>>Growth of Big Bands
- The Phonograph Late 1800’s
- Radio Early 1900’s
- Growth of Music Labels
- Music Amplification ~1930
- Fading of Big Bands>>>Growth of R&R/Soul
- Television ~1950
- Musical Synthesis ~1970’s
- Proliferation of Cassette Late 1970’S
- Video Music ~1980’s
- Fading of Vinyl
- Music Digitzation (CD) ~1980’s
- The Internet WWW ~1990’s
- File Sharing and Streaming ~2000’s
- Fading of CD
- Smart Phone and Tablets ~2000’s
- Social Media ~2010’s
I wouldn’t say that the individual trajectories of classical and ‘big band’ have anything to do with each other, or are even sequential. There was
jazz(as an African American derived dance music)in the form of Dixieland way before that, preceeded by Ragtime, with urban blues(the Bessie Smith variety, not the Charlie Patton country style, although influential)running a parallel path. Big bands were severely impacted by WW II, and there was the rise of the more cerebral ‘bop’ played by smaller ensembles, with ‘jump’ and the subsequently derived rock’n’roll taking up the slack in dance music. ‘Classical’ remained a sit-down/listen-to art music.
The first profound technological breakthrough of the 20th century was the move from acoustic recording to electronic in the 20’s, right after the establishment of radio in the earliest part of the decade, the first mass media beyond newspapers and movies(which didn’t have sound yet). With electronic recording, the use of microphones (and the tubes that powered them)changed how singers sang, and increased the fidelity. As this equipment became more portable, and the record companies realized that there was a market for a wide variety of localized folk musics, more of that got recorded and distributed, to home playback units and by radio...people in Chicago could be exposed to cajun music, people in New York could hear southern hillbilly or western cowboy, and so on, and stylistic cross-pollinations like Western Swing could occur. Hawaiian music became all the rage in the ‘20 for example, introducing the ukelele and steel guitar to the mainland and the world.
The other major game changer not on that list was the discovery of magnetic tape recording when the US invaded Germany at the end of WWII. Than in turn changed the concept of recording in real time, plus improving audio fidelity, and led to multi-track and stereo.
You should should pick up on this...
American Epic - Wikipedia
