When, in musical history, did actual “song titles” become a standard thing? So much old music, “classical” in particular, seems to have been either completely untitled, assigned a simple descriptive identifier (“Piano Concerto in B-flat Minor”), or titled after the fact by somebody who was not the original composer (a huge number of Christian church hymns have “titles” that are simply the first line (or a part thereof) of the first verse.
Would we remember the Beatles’ song so fondly if McCartney had just called it “Love ballad for solo vocal, guitar, and string quartet, in F” instead of “Yesterday”?
I think we need to distinguish between things that are “songs” in the sense that someone’s singing them (like an aria or chorus from an opera or cantata, or a Lied (art song)), and purely instrumental compositions. It’s a lot less natural to give a title in words to a composition that doesn’t involve words and isn’t really “about” anything.
I think this is going to be a losing battle, but sure, you can try.
Anyway, folk songs seem to typically have titles in the way we recognize them, and the various folk song traditions are closer to the heart of modern popular music than the Western Art Music Tradition (WAMT) which is usually indifferently referred to as “Classical Music” by the untrained. (Of course, the ultimate origin of some of the WAMT is religious choral music, and those pieces have titles as well, at least if you count an incipit as a title.)
So the answer is “time out of mind, but for a different kind of music than the OP’s thinking of”, if that makes sense.
We don’t know. It’s been pointed out that up to 95% of the music ever composed has been lost forever, mostly by being composed before the advent of readily interpretable annotation.
We have no idea what the Romans might have called that catchy tune everyone was whistling in 105 CE.
As Peter Schickele pointed out, in the introduction to one of the P.D.Q. Bach albums, these names, like Eroica or Titan were often not given by the composers, but bestowed upon them by friends.
This explains Schickele’s own “Pathetic Symphony.”
The question shouldn’t be “when,” but “what kind” of music. Popular music has always been titled, at least going back to the 12th century. So-called “classical” music has traditionally been given an “opus number,” provided by the publisher, relieving the composer of coming up with a name of his own. And the opus number and key were there so that musicians, professional or amateur, could identify the piece and play it properly. But the consumers of most popular music of the time didn’t care in what order or in which key it was composed or published. So rather than Stephen Foster calling a new song “Song #53 in E-flat major,” it became “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.” The publishers went along with this reasoning.
Ease up! The thread said “composers” and “their work.” Do you seriously imagine that I don’t know that difference? Act polite.
ETA: It’s far from “musically illiterate” not to know the works of Beethoven and Mahler. I’d wager that a quarter of the SDMB membership haven’t heard any of Mahler’s symphonies.
Sorry to be rude! That comment wasn’t aimed at you, BTW, just a general scream into the void, directed at the types who say “I sure like that song of Beethoven’s, that ‘Fifth Symphony’ song!”
Your money is probably safe; I’d say at least a quarter of the members don’t listen to this kind of music at ALL.
I find this a little hard to believe, but I’m not sure what number would sound right, either. Like other products of industry, music is churned out at a mind boggling pace. Something like 90-100k albums per year. And that probably doesn’t include music for TV shows, movies, commercials, and video games. Who knows how many songs are written by dudes in their garage. Or fan music on the internet. The OC Remix has nearly 14k songs and is just one fansite.
People are rich and have lots of free time nowadays, or aspire to become involved in the music industry. There’s plenty of music software, classes, and tutorials. Whereas in the past people had to work sunup to sundown and instruments and the knowledge of song writing were rare and expensive, most likely performed by a tiny percentage of the population. But I’m no music historian, maybe ancient civilizations produced a lot more music than I think. Tribes probably had a lot of songs in those tens of thousands of years of pre-history, too. But how many songs would a tribe actually make?