Home 1930's Introduction
Cole Porter Billie Holiday Ella
Fitzgerald
The 1930's
When somebody mentions the 1930’s the first thing that comes to your mind is naturally “ The Great Depression ” but the people's music was important, too. The depression was a time when many people were without jobs. Money and food were scarce, so people looked to music for inspiration. The music of the 1930's wasn’t sad, and depressing like some we have now, it was jazzy, and happy, so it gave people inspiration, and something to cheer them up. The popular kind of music was jazz. The main instruments were piano, clarinet, saxophone, and trumpet. The musicians used improvisation and mutes to make their music happy and exciting.
Music in the 1930’s was very different from our music now. One interesting fact was that in 1936 President Herbert Hoover signed a contract that officially made the “ The Star Spangled Banner ” our national anthem, which you all know was written in 1814 by a man named Francis Scott Key. You can learn more about music, artists, and instruments of the 1930’s in the following sections.
1930's Introduction Cole Porter Billie Holiday Ella Fitzgerald
