+1 862 207 3288 “The Nature of Music” &” Early Music through the Baroque Period”
Project description
the total 6 post and 8 Reflect on my classmate posts ( use easy words
First assignment
“The Nature of Music”
1. Please click here to read a commentary about the Nature of Music. You will learn why music is so unique to people and how it is constructed.
“The Nature of Music”
Who does not like music? A very reasonable question, and at a very basic level something about the essence of music reaches deep into the core of every human being. This is a complex phenomena of our human species since the beginning of mankind. Indeed, the whole academic discipline of music is rooted in this phenomena. Philosophers, scientists, writers, and musicians have pondered this question, both in their theories, and in their practice. Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Dewey, Langer, and countless others have much to say about music and how it is related to the “aesthetic experience” – a phrase that more easily can be defined as “thoughtful feeling, and feelingful thought”. This is a simple explanation, but well worth reflecting.
While most music can involve thoughtful feeling, much of time we don’t treat it that way. Music has many different uses — soundtracks for films, lively music to jog or exercise to, music to encourage worship, music for social dancing, and so on, which are not particularly thoughtful activities. The matter of thoughtful feeling is also made more complicated by the fact that in many parts of the world, especially the United States, music is heard is so many places and situations that people encounter a superabundance of music. For this reason, they acquire the habit of not paying attention to it. They don’t treat it carefully or thoughtfully. Instead, they treat it like the patterns or designs in wallpaper. The patterns are there, but people really don’t pay attention to them. Actually, that’s all right, because wallpaper is not intended to be considered thoughtfully.
There is, however, a body of music that was created for careful, thoughtful attention, and that’s the music this course focuses on. It’s music that deserves and requires careful consideration if one is going to benefit from the rich emotional and intellectual experiences it can provide.
Two things are required for you to enjoy the enriching properties of this type of music:
1. You must listen to it with very careful and focused attention. You can’t treat it like wallpaper and still enjoy its benefits.
2. It helps a great deal when you can apply useful information to what you are hearing.
One can get through life by hopping about on one leg, but walking on two legs is so much better! Careful listening + applying useful information = success in this course ? and a life enriched by music.
2. A) Click on each of the composers/works below. First, read the instructor’s comments, and then listen to the music.
Rimsky-Korsakov: “Capriccio Espagnol”
The first work examined in this course is ?Capriccio Espagnol” by Rimsky-Korsakov. Translated the title means ?Spanish Caprice,? a happy, playful work that is full of energy, especially the final six minutes of it. Featured at one point or another, are most of the instruments of the symphony orchestra. The French horns introduce a warm, passionate melody about 1:30, during which several instruments are given solos, including the less-familiar English horn at about 3:10. About 6:45 a more lively melody is introduced. At about 8:00 the snare drum and trumpets introduce a new section which is interrupted by solos by the violin, flute, clarinet, and harp. At 10:10 the work begins a closing section that slowly gains energy leading its dazzling conclusion.
Bizet: “Farandole”
The French composer, Georges Bizet, wrote this piece in the mid 19th century. It features a driving rhythm in 4/4 or ‘common time.’ The harmonies are rich with alternation between both minor and major tonalities.
?Bizet’s ?Farandole? is an interesting piece of music for a number of reasons. To begin with, it contains a clear example of the beat in rhythm. Beat and rhythm are not the same thing. ?Rhythm? refers to the movement of music in terms of time. ?Beat? is the steady pulse that is found in almost all the music we experience in Western civilization.
Not only does Western music contain a beat, the beats are organized into patterns, with two and three being the most common. The pattern of the beats (not the notes) is called ?meter.? You can sense the
strong two-beat pattern in Farandole. In fact, one version is sung at Christmastime with the title ?March of the Three Kings.? If you try counting 1-2-3 as you listen to ?Farandole,? you will find that it’s not easy to do. Counting to 1-2 or 1-2-3-4 is much easier.
Then there is matter of the speed of the beats. (Again, not the notes.) The term for that is ?tempo,? which happens to be the Italian word for ?time.? It is usually rather steady from the beginning to the end of relatively short pieces and sections of musical works.
Another interesting thing about ?Farandole? is the fact that it contains a clear example of imitation, or what children learn in elementary school as a ?round.? Notice that the melody begins alone, but then at 0:16 the instruments play the melody in follow-the-leader fashion.
Finally, ?Farandole? contains sections in both minor and major. The difference between these two patterns of notes is impossible to describe in words. You simply have to hear the differences. In any case, major is not “happy? and minor is ?sad,? as they are sometimes described.
Rodrigo: “Concierto de Aranjuez”
Start
Born in Spain, Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999) is a well known composer and particularly for his work for guitar and orchestra. The guitar is rarely featured in a ‘concerto’ setting with full orchestra also that features the guitar as a virtuoso ‘solo’ instrument. The instrument played is a ‘classical acoustic guitar’ that has nylon strings in contrast to the pop guitar that uses both nylon and metal strings.
Several points are worth knowing about Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez:
1. It is a concerto, which means that it features a soloist or small group in contrast to an orchestra or larger ensemble.
2. It has three large independent sections, or what are termed ?movements.? The movement that is featured in this course is the second movement. This movement usually has a rather slow tempo and features beautiful melodies. The first movement is usually longer, has a moderately fast tempo, and contains more complex music. The third movement is faster and less complex.
3. The solo instrument is an acoustic guitar, which is the traditional guitar, not the version that produces electronically amplified sounds.
4. The second movement features a dazzling cadenza for the guitar. The orchestra stops playing, and the soloist plays technically demanding, free sounding paraphrases of the melodies presented in that movement. The cadenza begins just short of six minutes into the movement, which is about ten minutes long.
5. Heard prominently in the main melody and the cadenza is a short melodic figure consisting of two quick notes and a longer third note. Such short figures in music are known as ?motives? or ?motifs.? They appear often at points in the movement, and they provide a sense of unity to the music.
6. The movement opens with the English horn playing a tender, almost sad melody. (The English horn is neither a horn nor is it English. It’s an oversized oboe that produces a haunting beautiful sound.) The guitar then plays a slightly more elaborate version of the main melody, or what is termed a ?theme.? The English horn then plays the theme again at a higher pitch level, and the guitar follows playing an even more elaborate version of the theme. The motive is heard several times in each of the four appearances of the theme .
7. The second movement of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez could a be a ?poster piece? for the concept of ?thoughtful feeling? in music.
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