Essentially Modern Popular Music is a (d)evolved variation of the Classical Music Lieder, Art Song or likewise. A Lieder, as defined by Essentials of Music, is “German for ’song’; most commonly associated with the solo art song of the nineteenth century, usually accompanied by piano.” The obvious difference is that instead of piano, artists are using a number of instruments in addition or or in replace of the piano. Also the format of songs versus traditional lieder divided the two even further especially with the lack of variations in most modern music.

Although the piano is one of the most versatile instruments its mobility was problem and the sound seemed to be getting “old”. Thus in the place of the piano came other instruments including the trumpet, saxophone, guitar, etc. Ultimately this ended with the guitar being the primary instrument for modern popular musicians. It was extremely mobile, versatile and could be manipulated into creating countless different effects/sounds. The only part it truly lacked was the deep bass which was easily filled in by the Double Bass and later the Bass Guitar.

Some years before this percussion became a strong presence in Classical Music during the early 20th Century. With this came in the early development of the now Modern Drum Set. Since then the drum set has been the foundation to 90 percent of all Popular Music separating Classical Music and Popular Music even further. Although percussion instruments are used more frequently now than before it rarely has the hold on a piece that Popular Music does.