Music 401:

What is Music:

  • Organization of sound and silence; Remember, silence is very powerful too

Listening Skills:

  • Active vs Passive: Active Listening: (you can only really absorb one thing at a time) 

  • Passive Listening: (you hear it and absorb it, but it doesn't stick) (it’s there but not there)

Main Category of Listening:

  • Pitch: (how high or low sound is) “Relative highness or lowness”

  • Think of the sign wave of how loud or soft the sound is 

  • Determined by frequency of waves

  • A 440 (tuning A) (the sign wave goes 440 times a second)

  • Size Pitch Relationship: (in general, the bigger the instrument, the lower the sound) (the smaller the instrument, the higher the sound)

  • There is also different ranges

  • Musical Alphabet: ABCDEFG [natural note names] (as we get to each end, we repeat it)

  • Octave: 8 spaces in between two notes (use A to A for example)

  • Intervals: distance between pitches (space) [moving step wise/leap]

  • Leaps can help us create melodies 

  • Range: Distance between lowest and highest notes an instrument/voice can produce

What about Volume?

  • How loud of soft something is - dynamics come into play with a wide range

  • Try and figure out how wide a range is

DYNAMICS:

  • Traditional volume markings

  • Forte - loud (f)

  • Piano - soft (p)

  • Mezzo - medium (m) MP (medium soft)

  • Fortissimo - very loud (ff)

  • Pianissimo - very soft (pp)

(PP- P - MP - M - F - FF)

Timbre: (tamber):

  • The color of sound

(it can help you distinct what type of musical instrument is) (it determines what we can hear)

  • Every instrument could play the same note for example (and the tamber would be different for each)

  • SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, base)

  • Everyone has their own unique tamber (even with the same criteria)

More instrument families:

  • String

(Violin, viola, cello, base)

How sound is produced: vibrating air column (the air goes through the vocal chords)

You can see it through the instrument

The Bow: essentially a stick that allows you to see the vibrating air column; the other way you can see the vibration is by plucking the string (Pizzicato)

  • Brass 

(made of a few simple materials)

  • Every family comes down to the tamber

  • The way they create sound is by buzzing lips (also use a mouth piece)

All brass instruments have seven positions (combinations of using 1, 2, 3)

  • By changing every valve combination, you change the “length” of the tube (of sound)

(Trumpet, French Horn, Trombone, Tuba)

  • Woodwind 

(3 main categories)

( => single reed: clarinet and saxophone)

  • the vibrating is coming through the buzzing lips, the only difference is that it is going through a piece of wood

( => double reed: oboe and bassoon) (reeds vibrating against each other and the column goes right in between to make the sound)

Flute (originally made of wood/makes pitch using tone hole)

  • Percussion

Pitched vs Unpitched

For Pitched: when you strike it, it makes a definite pitch (sounds of particular pitch)

Example: (xylophone, steel drums)

For Unpitched: same sound with all strikes (the volume just increases after strike) 

Example: (triangle, bass drum)

  • The Conductor (uses baton)

Keyboard Family:

  • Piano, Organ, Harpsichord, 

Harpsichord: 

  • Precursor for the piano; very compact

  • More narrow range than piano

  • Doesn't have the ability to sustain

Organ:

  • Sustains indefinitely

  • The bigger the pipe, the lower the sound; the smaller the pipe, the higher the sound

Video example: 5 layers of keyboards + foot keys

  • The bellows of the organ push the air through the pipes

Piano:

  • Wide range of sound

  • Pedals help sustain, dampen the sound, etc

Marimba: looks like a keyboard; 2 levels; made out of wood; uses mallets to control the sound

Electronic Instruments: sounds that are generated electronically

  • 1980s were apparently “great synthesizing” years

  • Electronic music can also be considered as sounds that are taped/re recorded

Meter:

  • Divides music notation into measures

  • Duple

  • Triple

  • Quadruple

Beat/Pulse:

  • TEMPO: defines the speed of the beat

  • 60 beats per minute example (1x a second)

  • Metronome: divides the tempo into the number of beats per minute

Traditional terms for centuries:

  • Andante: slow

  • Moderato: moderate

  • Allegro: fast

Beat/Pulse:

  • Accelerando: (think of it like driving: some ramps go quicker than others; the pulse refers to how fast it goes)

  • Ritardono: a gradual decrease in speed

Rhythm:

  • Tells us when to play a note/have silence

Clef:

  • Lets us know what type of note we are perceiving (treble/bass)

Back in the day, people found ways to annotate music (written)

Melody vs harmony? What's the difference

  • Melody: Easier to recognize than strictly define 

  • A series of single tones that add up to create a recognizable hole

Harmony:

  • All of that other “stuff” underneath…sort of

  • Harmony adds a sense of direction into what you're doing

 Melody:

  • Phrases (like a sentence)

  • Symmetrical  (first is 8/second is 8)

  • Asymmetrical (one is longer than the other/unbalanced)

  • Combination of steps and leaps (essentially what melody is)

Ostinato:

  • A rhythmic figure that is repeated throughout the piece (repeats with the same pitch/voice) [it gives the piece narrative drive - it may get gradually louder]

  • An ostinato can be very creative

Octatonic Scale: goes from hole step to half step (w, h, w, h, w, h)

Syncopation: emphasizing notes unexpectedly (usually not on the beat)

Melodic Contour:

  • Overall shape of a melody (no sudden huge shifts/jumps)

  • Conjunct: refers to melody that is smooth with no huge jumps of unequalness

  • Disjunct: all over the places/jagged referring to a lot of jumps in music; becomes very hard to tell where the melody is