Preliminaries
Most people have the prerequisites to developing an appreciation of music, though they may not be aware of it.- Short sequence recognition: Ability to recognise a melody i.e. a short progression of notes
- Long recognition: Ability to relate what happens in a section of music to what happened before and what happens after
How we listen to music
There are different ways in which one may attempt to listen to music:- Sensuous plane:Listening without thinking, a diversion.
- Expressive plane: The feeling that the composer is striving to express, or the feeling that the listener feels. The meaning of the music. A controversial topic because of the difficulty in identifying what a musical work expresses.
- Musical plane: The manipulation of the notes: sequences, combinations, speeds, patterns. This book deals with this plane
The creative process
Music works are composed using different methods. Types of composers include:- Spontaneously inspired: Composers begin with a composition that is close to completion. E.g Schubert
- Constructive: Continuously refinement of themes. E.g. Beethoven, as deduced from his notes.
- Traditionalist: Starts with a pattern, rather than a theme. The pattern may be, e.g. the music style of the age/place. E.g. Bach
- Pioneer: Opposite of traditionalist. Is experimental, adds new harmonies, new principles
Elements of music
4 essential elements:
- Rhythm
- Melody
- Harmonic
- Tone color
Rhythm
Measured music system:
- Rhythmic units are divided into measures separated by bar lines
- The bar line generally has 4 instants.
- Number of notes between the bars is used to define the system: E.g. 2/4, 3/4, 5/4, 6/4
- Stress/Accent: Some notes are stressed/accented (down beat)
- Meter vs. Rhythm: The stressing of note defines the meter
History:
- Measured music system started around 1100 AD. Prior to that most music had rhythm that was based on words (Gregorian chants).
- End of nineteenth century was when newer features started:
- Combination meters (2/4 + 3/4) were used e.g. Tchaikovsky
- Grouping of notes within a bars (2-3-2/8)
- outside the bar
- Polyrhythms Two simultaneous different rhythms, e..g 2/4 coincides with 3/4
- Sometimes with non coinciding first beats (length of musical unit is different?). E.g one rhythm is 2/4, which overlaps with 3/4
- Frequently used in Chinese, Hindustani, African music, madrigals (rhythms from words)
Melody
- Progression of notes in time, has a skeletal frame
- Exists within a scale system
- Scale: Set of notes between a tone and its octave
- Octave: 12 equal semitones,
- CC#DD#EFF#GG#AA#BC
- Chromatic scale
- 12 semitones, i.e. all notes
- CC#DD#EFF#GG#AA#BC
- Diatonic scale
- 7 semitones from the 12: 2 whole tones, half tone, 3 whole tones, half tone
- 12 possibilities,starting with each semitone
- Starting tone is called the key or tonic
- Key may be major or minor mode (?): 12 scales in major mode, 12 in minor mode
- CDEFGABC
- Four scale systems:
- Oriental, Greek, Eccelesiatical, Modern
- Scales center around the tonic, dominant order is 5th, 4th, 7th degree is the leading tone (leads to tonic)
Harmony
Started in the ninth century- Organum: Same melody repeated at a 4th or 5th interval above or below
- Interval: Distance between two notes
- Descant: Two independent melodies moving in opposite directions
- Faux bourdon: Intervals of 3rd and 6th
- All chords are built from the tonic, upwards in a series of intervals of a 3rd
- Triad chord: 1-3-5, 7th chord: 1-3-5-7, 9th (1-3-5-7-9), 11th (1-3-5-7-9-11), 13th (1-3-5-7-9-11-13)
- Return to the tonic is a principle in all early harmonic work
- More recent developments:
- Atonality: Feeling of central tone lost (Wagner), Abandoning tonality (Schoenberg, Debussy). Opens questions of consonance, dissonance
- Polytonality: Use of multiple tones (right hand plays in one key, left hand in the other)
- Most work today is diatonic and tonal
Tone color (or timbre)
- Quality of sound from the medium e.g. musical instrument, or voice
- There is a characteristic way of writing for each instrument
- Single tone colors: Sections of an orchestra
- Strings: Violin. viola, cello, bass
- Woodwind: Flute, oboe, clarinet, basoon
- Brass: Horn, Trumpet, Trombone, Tuba
- Percussion: Drums
- Mixed tone colors:
- Combination of single tone instruments
- Sting quartet: 2 violins, viola, cello
- Melodic line passes from one section to another in an orchestra
- Jazz: Some instruments provide rhythm (piano, bass, percussion), other harmonic texture, one solo instrument plays the melody
Music Texture
- Monophonic: Single melodic line, No harmony. E.g Chinese, Hindustani, Gregorian chants
- Homophonic: Principal melodic line + Chordal accompaniment
- Contrapuntal view: Two separate melodies progressing in time
- Polyphonic: Separate and independent voices in the chordal progressions
- 2-3 polyphonic voices can be perceived independently
- E.g. Choral prelude (Bach), Jesu
Music structure
- Structural background of a lengthy piece of music. Various structures (sonata, fugue) have evolved over years.
- Sections have a hierarchy.
- Large sections denoted by upper cases (A-B-C etc) called movements or sections
- Smaller sections denoted by lower case (a-b-c..). Analogous to sections and chapters in a book. The classification is made based on how repetition happens
Larger sections:
- Exact repetition
- Sectional (Symmetrical ) repetition: 2, 3 part, rondo ,free sectional
- Variation: Basso ostinato, passacaglia, chacome, theme
- Fugal: Fugue, Concerto grosso, Chorale prelude, Motets & madrigals
- Development: Sonata
- Free
- Exact: a-a-a-a
- Minor alterations: a-a'-a''-a'''
- Repetition after digression: a-b-a, a-b-a'
- Non repetition:a-b-c-d
Fundamental forms I: Sectional form
Work is divided into distinct sections- 2 part form: A-B-A-B. E.g. Scarlatti's sonata, No 413 (Dminor), 104 ( C major), 338 (G minor)
- 3 part form: A-B-A, B is sometime called the trio, A is the minuet. Nocturne, ballad, elegy, waltz, intermezzo, are likely to be 3 part forms E.g. Minuets of Haydn (String quartet, Op 17, No 5) and Mozart. Beethoven's Scherzo (Piano Sonata Op 27 No 2)
- Rondo: A-B-A-C-A-D-A-.... i.e. sections separated by return to A. E.g. Haydn's Piano Sonata No 7 in D Major
- Free sectional form: Any arrangement, e.g. A-B-B, A-B-C-A Chopin's Prelude in C Minor, No 20
Fundamental forms II: Variation form
Piece is composed as a set of variations on a theme:- Basso ostinato: Short phrase repeated over and over in the bass section, while upper parts proceed, E.g. Soldier's violin form Stravinsky's The Story of a Soldier
- Passacaglia: Repeated bass part, but the bass part is a melodic phrase, not a figure, with some variation in each section, the work starts with unaccompanied bass theme. E.g. Bach's organ Passacaglia in C minor
- Chaccone: Very similar to Passacaglia, no starting unaccompanied bass theme, so sounds like the first variation of a Passcaglia. E.g. last movement of Brahm;s Fourth symphony
- Theme and variations: Variation of a simple, direct theme. Theme is usually a 2 or 3 part form. Five types of variation: Harmonic, Melodic, Rhythmic, Contrapuntal (Combination). E.g. Mozart's A major Piano Sonata: Theme and six variations. Variation 1 s a florid melodic variation, Variation 4 is a skeletonizing of the harmony, Variation 3 is major key to minor key harmony change
Fundamental forms III: Fugal form
- Polyphonic/Contrapuntal in texture: Separate strands of melody concurrently. Needs repeated listening to be able to acquire the skill to differentiate the strands. Types of contrapuntal devices:
- Imitation: Voices follow a leader, may enter at a different note. Only one melody, but spaced in time.
- Canon: Imitation from beginning to end of piece
- Inversion: Melody inverted, one voice follows the melody in the opposite direction. E.g. when the original moves one octave forward, the inverted one, moves an octave downward
- Augmentation: Double time value of notes, slowing it down
- Diminution: Halves the time values of notes
- Cancrizans: Melody read backward
- Inverted cancrizans: Melody backward, then inverted
- Types:
- Fugue proper: 3-4 voices
- First voice enters, Second voice enters, First voice adds a counter melody,, then starts a free voice,
- Exposition, Subject, Subject, ...Stretto, Cadence
- E.g. Bach, Well Tempered Clavichord
- Concerto Grosso:
- Two groups of instruments: Large (Tutti) and smaller (Concertino) E.g. Bach's Brandenberg Concerti (6 each having a different concertino)
- Chorale prelude: Originated in choral works in Churches. Melody is kept intact, harmonies are made complexer. Bach's Orgelbuchlein
- Motets/madrigals: Choral forms, Vocal fugal form. Motet is based on scared words, madrigal on secular works
Fundamental forms IV: Sonata form
- 3 or 4 movements (fast-slow-fast, fast-slow, moderately fast, very fast)
- Created by Karl Bach (JS Bach's son) (Prior to Bach, a sonata was a instrumental work, contrasting with the vocal cantata)
- 1st movement: Sonata Allegro:
- 3 parts (ABA):
- Exposition (abc): First theme is in tonic, dramatic, second theme is feminine, in dominant, closing them in in dominant
- Development: Free section, combines material in the exposition, new and foreign keys
- Recapitulation: Repeats exposition but in dominant key
- 2nd movement: Slow movement, may be a slow Rondo
- 3rd movement: Minuet or scherzo, A-B-A, three part form
- 4th movement: Extended rondo or in sonata allegro
- Sometimes preceded by introduction and followed by a coda. E.g. Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata
- Symphony: Sonata for orchestra: E.g. Beethoven's 9 symphonies
- String quartet: Sonata for 4 strings
- Concerto: Sonata for solo instrument + Symphony
- Overtures: First movements of a sonata
Fundamental forms IV: Free forms
Does not belong to above structures
- E.g. Preludes (for Piano). E.g. Bach's prelude, fugue
- Clear progression of chordal harmonies from beginning to end without repetition of any themes. E.g Bach's B minor Prelude in Well Tempered Clavichord
- E.g. Symphonic poems: Program music (as opposed to absolute music)
