Music

The Golden Definition: “sound organized in time”

Amplitude - determines decibel level (loudness)

Pitch - highness/lowness of sound (multiple frequencies per pitch)

Timbre - unique sound of instruments based on strength of overtones, resonance, and material

Range - the highest and lowest notes possible

Modern Pop Music - intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, and chorus, with an optional outro

Dynamics:

Instruments:

Aspects of sound:

Pitch:

• Enharmonic Pitch - 2 notes of different notations that sound identical

• in musical notaton:

  

• interval = distance between 2 pitches

• smallest → largest

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Scale:

• 12 pitches

• Tonic - “resting note”, “do”

• Dominant - pulls melody away from the tonic, the second most important pitch

• Unstable leading note - half step below the tonic, “resolves’ to the more stable tonic

• Major Scale:

  • 7 different pitches

  • May start with any note; 12 different scales

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• Minor Scale:

  • 3 types -

    • Natural

    • Harmonic

    • Melodic

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• Blue Scale - both major and minor characteristics

• Relate major and minor scales have the same intervals but different tonics

• Parallel scales start and end with the same pitch

Melody and Harmony:

• Harmonic - same pitches same time

  

• Melody: sounds in succession

  • Transposed Melody - starts and ends on different notes but the intervals are the same

  • Contour - a Melody’s shape or profile

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• Rhythm

  • set of durations

    

• Texture

  • layers of music

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• Time Signatures

  • meter of each measure

    • meter: organizes beats into groups

  • top number : beats per measure

  • bottom number : length of beat

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  • compound meter (ex. 6/8) - divdes the meter into 3

    • top number - subdivisions per measure

    • bottom number - length of subdivisions

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• Tempo

  • speed of beat

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• Articulation

  • starting and ending sound

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• Chord

  • 3+ simultaneous pitches

  • inverted chord = smoother voice

  • Traids

    • 3 notes, 2 intervals

    • triad:

      

    • inverted triad:

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    • 4 types of triads in Western music

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  • chord progression = series of triads

• The Circle of Life Fifths

  • relationship between major keys

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Roman Numerals:

• capital numeral (I V, etc.) - major

• lowercase numeral (i, iii) - minor

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Form:

• overall organization of musical piece + theme representation

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• Cadences - musical resting piece

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Fake-out - technique using imitation

Sonata Form

• sonata cycle -

  • Fast Sonata > slow ternary > fast sonata/ rondo

20th Century Developments:

• 12-tone method to differentiate pitches (Schoeburg)

• classify noises (russulo)

• polytonality

• electric instruments

Music highlighting bodies of water

National Monuments and Landmarks:

Ferde Gorfe

Grand Canyon’s Suite by Grofe:

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• “On The Trail”:

  • program - explanation of stoy

    • story: a traveler and his burro traveling along Bright Angel Trail

  • “hee-haw” sound -

    • disjunt major seventh interval

    • concerto genre: soloist + orchestra

      • soloist - Kurk Dieterle

    • cadenza: soloist begins to play as orchestra stops

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  • Timpan - drumroll; striking strongly

  • Arpeggio - playing a code 1 note as a time; harp

  • Entre Ensemble -

    • Fermata - sustaining pitch for extra time

    • Rondo form - ABACA pattern

  • Percussions -

    • coconut shells - leather to muffle sounds

    • imitate hooves

  • Celesta -

    • small percussion by keyboard

    • bell-like sounds

Stormy Weather

• Baroque era - operas

• Classical era - symphonies (multiple instruments)

• Romantic - depictions of storms

• Beethoven -

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  • Thunderstorm

    • dissonant D-F

    • tremolo - trembling pitch for cello/string basses

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  • inspired Cloudworks and Fantasia

Nature

• Toru Takemitsu

  • Western and Asian influences

  • sawari - japanese technique to mimic nature sounds

  • Water-scape Cycle

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  • Ame no ki (Rain Tree)

    • trio - 2 marimbas + 1 vibraphone

    • Vibrato - pulsating pitches

    • Crotales (“antique symbols”) - brass plate bell sounds

    • Call-and-respond - 2 performers mimick each other

Insects

• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

  • Mily Balakirev - mentor and renowned composer

  • Russian classic music

  • The Tale of Tsar Saltan - opera

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    • Flight of the Bumblebee

      • swan becomes bumblebee

      • ternary form with rapid rising and falling

      • con sordino (with mute)

        

      • 2 Leitmotifs - recurrent themes

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• Francois Schubert

  • L’Abelle (The Bee)

    • character work

  • Bird related works:

    

• Amy Cheney Beach

  • transcribing music - writing down what you hear

  • perfect pitch

  • transcribed bird song

  • Hermit Thrush at Eve and Hermit Thrush at morn

    

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Seasons

• vocal composers:

  

• musical notation

  • Beginning: (Middle Ages)

    • Sacred Music: religious, chants (monophonic)

    • Secular Music: non-religious, not well recorded, transferred by ear

      • Sumer is icumen - arrival of summer; preserved in square notation

        • large red cross - indicates singing

        • rondellus - polyphony with alternating motifs, a and b; used as foundation

        • round/rota - imitative polyphony

        • sampled the sacred chant Regina caeli laetaerei

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Jazz

• Louis Armstrong

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    • “What a Wonderful World”

      • appreciate the world; calm political tensions (1960s)

      • initial success outside of the US, then US

      • F-major

      • instruments - violins, cellos, and a rhythm section

      • bridge

      • harmonic shifts

      • Form - 32 bar, AABA

        

• Micheal Abels

  • mixed heritage

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  • Global Warmings

    • genre: overture (short orchestral work)

    • commisioned by: Smith and the Phoenix Company Guild

    • Performed by:

      

    • celebrates the fall of the Berlin Wall/end of Cold War

    • gurio - spanish percussion

      

    • Dorian mode: (whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half-whole notes)

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    • Mixolydian Mode: (whole-whole-half-whole-whole-half-whole)

    • herniola - shifts between triple and duple meters

  • Jordan Peele

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Ecologists

• Greek Philosophers

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• Gov Action (for environment)

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• Writing - 19th century

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Hippy/Folk Music

• Joni Mitchell (early 1960s)

  • founded Sicucumb Publishing

  • Joni Mitchell (song to seagull)

  • Clouds

  • Ladies of the Canyon

    • Big Yellow Taxi

    • features harmonic shifts

      

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  • 7 mixes of Big Yellow Taxi

    

R & B (Rhythm & Blues)

• late 1950s

• Founded by: Motown Records

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• Marvin Gaye

  • religious upbringings

  • son of a preacher; grew up with church music

  • shot and killed his father??

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  • originally: love songs

  • later: political messages (ex. What’s going on) → disagreements with Motown Records

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    • Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)

      • tackled air and oil pollution, radiation, and overcrowding

      • strophic form - AAA

      • unique

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/something about the radio but it’s upside down

Paul McCartney (The Beatles)

• never learned sheet music, concepts> formal theory

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• The Beatles break up -1969

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• new styles - progressive/symphonic rock (Egyptian Station)

  • climate change and public inaction

  • shifts between ballad, blue rock, etc.

  • chromatic mediant (altered submediant triad)

21th Century Renaissance

• Donald Glover (Childish Gambino) - actor, singer, writer, rapper, director, comedian, and more

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• Summer Pack features

  
  

Campaigns

• Tempo Project - Dr. Lucy

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  • Climate-Music Project - Stephan Crawford

    • unite science, music, and action

    • raise awareness through musical showcases

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Ludovico Einaudi

• music reflected diverse perspectives

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• Greenpeace

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  • 2016 - OSPAR (European delegation address oceanic protection)

    

• worked with Greenpeace to produce Elegy for the Arctic

  • elegy = sorrowful song

    

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  • 2 additional sections