Music Appreciation Ch 1 + 2

Music Appreciation Notes

8/15/24- Thursday

Ask about course schedule

Look over ch 1 again

Music is sound that’s organized by time (intentionally by a human)

Music is apart of every culture since the beginning

  • Pentatonic scale bone flute as evidence

Music lights the brain everywhere

Tested on what’s talked about in class

Music in Human Life:Ch 1 Notes

4:33 seconds concert guy- John Cage

There are animals that art but none that music

What makes the human brain different from animals for music

  • Conscious of our own identity
  • Arware of time, humor, experience/express love, anticipate death
  • An appreciation of beauty/compelled to make art
  • We use language

Music is uniquely human

Language is a means of transmitting understanding from one person to another concretely

Missionaries in a remote tribe watched a ceremony

The music was in minor-they carried the guy throughout the village dirge like

They assumed it was a funeral/he was dying

It was actually the equivalent of a bar mitzvah

Cultural associations with certain types of music and what they mean

Music is not a form of communication b/c it’s not concrete

The human brain and the way it’s functions sets us apart/the way it’s structured

Along with brain in proportion to our bodies

Language and the human brain

  • Specific areas of the brain process speech (isolated)
  • Even in the brain stem lights up when listening to instrumentals
  • Music therapy helped a congresswoman learn to speak again after a gunshot wound to the head

Forebrain- personality ,

Midbrain,

Hindbrain

Outermost layer is the cerebral cortex

Broca’s and Wernicke’s Areas

  • Heavily involved in the processing of music
  • They discovered patient with limits in speech and doing an examination in the brain after death

Broca’s Area

  • The physical production of speech
  • Discover by french neurologist Paul Broca

Wernicke’s Area

  • Understanding of language
  • Discovered by german neurologist Carl Wernicke
  • Meaning/understanding gets garbled

Animals do not possess these areas- they’re why we language

Language processing is isolated

Music whole brain goes haywire

Memory system/limbic system is tied to music if the memories are formed with music

With music therapy Altheizmer’s patients can be brought back with music

  • Studies have been done with it

Brain divided into 3 main parts: cerebrum, cerebellum, brain stem

What are the similarities between language and music processing and how are they different

Similarities; sounds, exclusive to humans, cause subjective emotions (?), both rely on elements of pitch and rhythm, typically employ syntax (orderly arrangements of sounds in a system)

Differences: music is more complex than language processing, music lights up more parts of the brain, language is more susceptible to being damaged or lost, music is subjective, music is passive listening,

The limbic system processes emotions

  • Music activates it
  • Limbic system also controls memory
  • This is why music can help you to both create and access memories

Language processing

  • Ear translates sound waves into electrical impulses that travel to different parts of the brain
  • First go to the auditory cortex, where it’s translated into neuronal representations
  • The representations are passed on to Werneike’s and/or Broca’s areas (depending on the specific language-based activity) and processed

Most songs are about love or sex

Cerebrum

  • is divided into left and right hemispheres:
  • separated by the corpus callosum, which transmitted messages from one side to the other
  • Each hemisphere is divided into four lobes, which can be divided even further into areas
  • No lobe or area functions in isolation

Music activates motor cortex

8/20/24

Post a quiz date a week in advance/ go over info for quiz

The thing that separates us from every other bio creature on earth is language and music

  • We speak and make music

*We are uniquely endowed to process sound

Biggest difference between language and music: music is much more complex in the brain perspective, communication: language communicate concretely with each other and the other understand it

Language has grammar, the set of rules that govern the system- music does not have grammar it has syntax

The tambar(?)

Why do you like a certain music

  • Personality ?
  • Personal experiences
  • Familiarity/predictable breeds likability

Research shows that if you expect something you’re more likely to like it

Be in evaluation mode

Music Therapy:

  • “The clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship”
  • A music teacher cna do music therapy practices but it’s not music therapy unless in a therapeutic situation
  • Music therapy can only be practices by a licensed music therapist
  • The brain, speech, motor skills, walking,
  • Music is the brain and the brain is music
  • Research-based is critical
  • Hold degrees in music and music therapy
  • They complete a clinical internship
  • They are certified by the board of the american music therapy association

Why does music therapy work:

  • Music lights up the whole brain
  • Used for physical rehabilitations/facilitating movement, promote improvement of mood and reduction of depression, reduce insomnia and the perception of pain, lessen the effects of dementia and alzheimer’s, can be used to restore speech following a stroke, offers benefits to most patients
  • Would not work if neuroplasticity was not a thing

Why we make music

  • We don’t know for sure
  • Create new brain growth and increase processing efficiency in all students
  • Strong correlation between studying music and higher grades in other subject areas
  • Arts education fosters creativity, initiative, and the ability to generate new solutions to problems
  • Workplaces want creativity, outside the box thinking, want to effectively communicate/write
  • Humans have engaged in music for all of documented history
  • The biblical authors wrote about people playing instruments, dancing, and singing
  • We don’t know what this music sounded like, but we know that it was important to people
  • Various theories as to why our ancestors made sound
  • Imitate natural sounds
  • Coordinate work
  • Simply brought them joy
  • Humans have an innate aptitude for music

Studies on the effect of singing with other humans (choir)

  • After an hour the stress hormone is significantly lower
  • The bonding hormone was much higher

Difference between aptitude and achievement

  • Aptitude: a bell curve, the ease and speed with which your brain processes certain kinds of information
  • Achievement: what an individual does with the aptitude they have

We tend to focus our time/energy on things we’re good at-instead do the opposite work on things that are harder for you

We have an innate aptitude for music: that’s why we dance/sing/do music

The Elements of Music:Ch 2 Notes

Vocab:

Rhythm is the temporal aspect of sound

Pulse is a sequence of regularly-spaced sounds

  • frequency of the pulses determines tempo

Tempo which can range from very slow to very fast

Meter When pulses are organized into groups containing strong and weak beats

Each metrical group is called a measure or bar

8/22/24

Knowing and being able articulating are important

Once you know the language it changes how you hear (active listening)

It changes how you think

All sound has certain characteristics

  • The difference between musical and non-musical sounds is usually one of organization
  • Noise that is regular and organized: trains, alarm clock, etc.
  • Musical example that is irregular or unorganized: can’t think of any
  • All sounds are characterized by the elements of rhythm, pitch, volume, articulation, and timbre
  • These are present in noise, music, and everything in between
  • These elements will combine in time to produce a sonic object( the sound) of a given texture that either exhibits or lacks form
  • These terms are usually applied only to musical examples

Rhythm is the temporal aspect of sound

  • It is the pattern of “on” and “off” states exhibited by an sound as time passes
  • Organizational time element

Beat is a steadily recurring pulse

  • It is not always audible but always there

Tempo is the speed of the beat

  • The frequency of the pulse determines the temp
  • Why might humans have developed music that has a pulse?
  • So people could have done things in sync

When pulse are organized into groups contain strong and weak beats, meter is established

  • Each metrical group is called a measure or bar
  • In notated music, these groups are physically separated by bar lines

Meter is something in the air and how it sounds in the air

Common pulse groupings

  • Duple meter: two pulse
  • Triple meter: three pulses
  • Quadruple meter: four pulses

The first pulse, termed the downbeat is usually the strongest

Sometimes composers subvert this

Often we are able to feel meter on more than one(?)

Pitch refers to the “highness” or “lowness” of sound

  • All sounds are produced by vibrating bodies, which in turn produce sound waves
  • A high pitch is produced by a high-frequency sound wave, while a low pitch is produced by a low-frequency sound wave
  • The frequency is determined by characteristics of the vibrating body
  • Anytime there is pitch something is vibrating
  • Pitched sounds and non-pitched sounds

Most systems recognized by octave equivalence

  • This is the consensus that you can havel or double the frequency of pitch without changing its essential identity
  • In the western system, we acknowledge this by using the same letter name to designate pitches in different octaves
  • All the same, specific frequencies are important to a melody, which might have a different character if sounded in a different octave
  • The same frequency by half
  • frequency=pitch

8/27/24

Octave: same pitch at a higher or lower frequency

Interval: distance between two pitches

Half-step: closest interval, smallest in our western system

Our music system is tertian (in thirds)

Consonant: pretty, heavy

Dissonant: crunchy, bad,

Chromatic: make crunchiness to be resolved

High pitch: high frequency

  • Higher in pitch tinier the wave pattern

Low pitch: low frequency

  • Lower in pitch the bigger the wave pattern

Major: happier, brighter, higher tones

Minor: sad, somber, lower tones

Melodic Range: distance between lowest and highest pitches in a melody

  • It can be small, medium, or large

Melody: the part of the song in your head/that you sing back/it makes up the song (the character)

Harmony enriches the music (is not the part you usually remember)

Review:

  • Interval: distance between pitches
  • Melodic Range: lowest sounding pitch to highest sounding pitch (also arranged numerically)
  • The greater the range the harder it is to sing well
  • Register: like the sweet spot on the tennis racket, the part of an instrument’s or singer’s range in which a melody is positioned

Ch 2

Harmony is the framing of the music

Harmony is tertian and a series of chords running underneath anything your playing

Three/four chords can make up like almost every single song

The melody is what makes the song fun and interesting

Harmony is just backup/support

  • How it’s played depends on the culture/musician

This words need to be used a bunch

Dynamics: the loud and soft of what you’re hearing/listening to

  • Fortissimo (very loud)
  • Forte ( loud)
  • Mezzo forte (medium loud)
  • Mezzo piano (medium soft)
  • Piano ( soft)
  • Pianissimo (very soft)
  • Crescendo: increase in volume
  • Decrescendo or diminuendo: decrease in volume

Dynamics refers to volume (loud/soft)

Articulation: how pitches are started, sustained, and released

Staccato: heavily punctuated, short attached, pointed

Legato: smoothly connected, continuous, conjoined

Timber (TAM-ber): quality of sound

The unique quality of sound regardless of pitch

  • Difference between a human voice and a piano producing the same pitch
  • They all have different timber
  • We’re all skilled at identifying minor variation in timbre-that it how we identify people based on their voice s

Timbre: Size and shape of the space the sound was bouncing around it (doesn’t have anything to do with the other things but makes everyone unique)

  • Nasal cavity, throat, mouth etc is what helps change everyone voice

Compare timbre to like piano timbre/flute timbre

Rich timbre, etc. or compare to famous singers

Monophony: Single melodic line no harmony (one melodic line) not dependent on the people performing it

Castration of young boys who were good singing was very common in the past (no balls)

Polyphonic: many melodic lines happening at the same time

Around or canon: simplest form of polyphony

Articulation: how it is produced and sustained

  • Staccato: Choppy, disconnected, short and detached
  • Legato: smooth, flowing, smooth and connect

timbre( tam-ber)

  • The element of sound that doesn’t have anything to do with pitch
  • Timbre is distinct from pitch

Monophony: no matter how many voices/instruments they’re all singing in harmony (one melodic line)

Homophony: a melody with harmony underneath it

Polyphony: many melodic lines happening at the same time

Form: big pieces are put together to form the whole thing (how music unfolds over time)

A a’ a a’’ b b’ a a

Ticks mean the music is fundamentally the same, but something is slightly different

Repetition: occurs when we hear the same thing twice (A A)

Variation: occurs when musical material returns, but with alterations (A A’)

Contrast: is produced with musical material that has not been heard before (A B)

All three are used to keep your attention (and part of form)

Music categories/genre

It takes listening and familiarity to find what characteristics certain songs share with certain genre

genre

  • A historical time piece to describe the era it came from ,a word for a characteristic that all those song share

Popular music: whatever is trending at the moment and a little back (contemporary and a little back)

Folk music

  • Written(not written down, orally passed down), performed, by people who are not classically/formally trained
  • Music of the people by the people not formally trained
  • Most Tells a story of the culture/history of the time or information

Country is the modern day version of early folk music or traditional country is

Genre are not finite

  • Cross genre (sub-genres)

They are not concrete

To be concrete, talk about form, instrumentation, etc.

Genre: Big broad to describe music of similar categories

Sub-genre: