Music

Melody • Melody: The tune, voice, or line of a music work, with pitches performed one at a time. Melody is almost always performed with rhythm and at times, distinct rhythm. Melodies can vary greatly in length from a short motivic statement to a long lyrical statement. • Phrase: Like complete sentences in spoken language, smaller phrases in music often combine to form longer, complete melodies. Example: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star • Theme (or subject): is the main melody of a music composition, which often unifies sections of the entire work. A theme typically repeats and reappears many times throughout a composition, often in contrasting contexts. • Motivic melody or motive: A very short melodic fragment, which can establish a unified character for an entire music composition, for example, in Beethoven’s Symphony no. 5. • Leitmotif: Used in opera, a leitmotif is a short, recurring melodic phrase connected to an opera’s character, place, or idea. Composer Richard Wagner is credited with the idea and establishment of leitmotifs, especially in his operas. • Ostinato: A defined melody that is repeated persistently in immediate succession throughout a musical composition or a section .

• Lyrical melody: a longer melodic statement comprised of connected phrases that often convey emotion. Lyrical melodies are a part of many Romantic works from the 1800s. • Conjunct melody: is a melody that moves mostly by smaller stepwise intervals, for example, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” toward the end of his Symphony no. 9. • Disjunct melody: moves mostly by wider intervals, wider than a whole step, for example, The Star-Spangled Banner. • Interval: The distance between two pitches. Intervals have numerical names, for example, a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and octave. • Half step (also called minor second or semi-tone): The smallest musical interval used in Western tonal music. When the two pitches are played together, a minor second sounds highly dissonant. • Whole step (also called a major second or tone): The distance of two half-steps. A whole step is also the distance between the first two notes of major and minor scales. • Scale: a collection of intervals that ascend upward and downward. Scales are the source material for creating melodies and harmonies. ii. Harmony • Harmony: is the sound of two or more pitches performed at the same time, compared with melody, which has pitches performed one at a time. Harmony’s most common function is to support and contextualize a melody. • Chord: harmony that has three or more pitches performed at the same time. • Key: The “key” of a work is practically synonymous with tonality. The “main key” centers around the tonic triad, which is built on scale degree I. • Modulation: is the change of key to another key within a tonal music work. • Consonant harmony: gives the impression of stability. Consonant interval examples include perfect 4ths, 5ths, and octaves. • Dissonant harmony: gives the impression of instability. Dissonant interval examples include 2nds or 7ths. • Atonal music: First composed in the early 20th Century, atonal music does not center around a stable tonic triad. Atonal chords are not usually formed as triads and often sound dissonant. With atonal music, dissonant chords tend to resolve to more dissonant chords.

Beat or Pulse: A fixed measurement of time that is recurring. • We can observe recurring beats both within music and outside of music. Common beat examples outside of music include a heartbeat, breathing, walking, and running. • Rhythm: Durations of sound that are written and performed in relation to the beat. • Rhythms can: • Match the beat (and therefore sound the same length of time as the length of the beat) • Subdivide the beat (and therefore sound faster than the beat) • Be longer than the beat (and therefore sound slower than the beat) • “Free rhythm” can also happen occasionally in music, where the lengths of sounds are intentionally not performed in relation to a beat. • Tempo: The speed of the beat, ranging from very slow to very fast. • Meter: The pattern or grouping of beats. • In written music, one cycle of a meter is called a measure or a bar. • Meter Examples: Duple, Triple, Quadruple, Quintuple • Mixed meter: meter changes frequently with each new measure. • Syncopation: Rhythms performed between the beats (not performed with the beat). • Polyrhythm: The performance of two or more rhythms at the same time, which can give the effect two meters performed simultaneously. • Accent: The emphasis of one note or chord by performing it louder or longer. • Adding accents to a rhythm can alter the sound and effect of that rhythm. iv. Texture • Music texture: Musical layer. there are three main types: • Monophonic texture or monophony: One melody performed without harmony. Example of monophony: if one or many people sing the national anthem melody together without chords,

Homophonic texture or homophony: One melody performed with chords, with the melody standing out prominently from accompanying chords. Examples of homophonic texture are often heard in popular songs, opera arias, and music from the Classical period. Homophonic texture is the most common texture. • Polyphonic texture or polyphony: happens when two or more melodies are played at the same time, which produces harmony but not with chords. Each melody has equal importance, so no one melody dominates. Examples of polyphony are heard in New Orleans jazz and in much music from the Baroque period. Polyphony is the most complex type of music texture.

• Timbre: is the unique quality of sound of an instrument or voice. Timbre can also be referred to as “tone color” or “tone quality.” • Instrument group/ Voice types • Strings/Woodwinds/Brass/Keyboard/Percussion • Soprano/Alto/Tenor/Bariton • Instrumentation: Refers to a listing of what instruments are involved in a music composition. • Orchestration: A composer’s choices for combining timbres (or tone colors) in a music composition. The way a composer mixes tone colors is analogous to the way a painter mixes colors on a palette. • Range: the lowest to highest pitch of an instrumentalist or singer. • Register: A segment of range of an instrumentalist or singer. vi. Form • Form- Musical Form refers to the organization and design of a piece of music. • Strophic Form - Consecutive stanzas set to the same section of music. (AAAA) • Through-Composed- The opposite of strophic form, with new music written for every stanza, is called through-composed. • Through-composed form is relatively continuous, non-sectional, or non-repetitive music • Ternary- Ternary form is a 3-part musical form consisting of an opening section (A), a following section (B), and then a repetition of the first section (A). It is usually labeled as: ABA • Theme and Variations- Variation Form: A A’ A’’ A’’’

Rondo- In rondo form, a principal theme (sometimes called the refrain) alternates with one or more contrasting themes, generally called episodes. Possible patterns of a Rondo form in the Classical era include: ABACA, or ABACABA or ABACADA • Sonata Allegro Form- Sonata form (also sonata-allegro form or first movement form) is a musical structure consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation.

Classical Era 1750-1830 • Romantic Era 19th century • Modern 20th century i. Classical Era 1750-1820 • Famous Classical Era composers: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven • Absolute music: no prescribed story or text to hold the music together • Lighter, clearer homophonic texture • The Classical period is characterized by a near-obsession with structural clarity. • Balance, symmetry, refinement • Style Galant: it emphasizes light elegance in place of the Baroque's dignified seriousness and impressive grandeur. • Rapid changes in mood, texture, color, and dynamics heightened the drama • An energetic theme could be followed immediately by a slow and tender one. • Textures change quickly from light to dense, monophonic to homophonic. • Composers now begin to specify crescendos and diminuendos

Romantic Era 19th century • Romanticism – Defined as a revolt against the Classical adherence to reason and tradition. • Love of emotions and feeling, nature and nostalgia, literature and art, occasional excess, and sometimes a bit of lunacy • Emphasis on intense emotional experience “Feeling is all” • No more is order, unity, and balance strictly adhered to, more interest in selfexpression, striving to communicate with passion • the expansion of forms, lengths, size of the ensembles, and harmonic exploration • Love was a feeling that permeated the Romantic era • Nature too was an overwhelming mood or picture frequently depicted • Musician as the Artist and the Music is the Art • Romantic Era melodies Become longer, rhythmically more flexible, and asymmetrical in shape. Often more singable or lyrical • Richer Harmonies allow for more dissonance • The music itself became longer in the Romantic era. • Romantic Orchestra: new instruments, big size • Program music – a piece of instrumental music that seeks to re-create in sound the events and emotions portrayed in: a story, a play, a historical event, an encounter with nature, or even a painting.

Lied - Art Song- Lied is the German word for song iii. Modern Era -20th Century • Composers and songwriters of the 20th century explored new forms and sounds that challenged the previously accepted rules of music of earlier periods: Impressionism, Modernism, Expressionism, and Avant-Garde techniques • Modernism - modernism is a historical style known for its anti-Romantic focus. The expectation of a good melody, pleasing harmony and regular meter are abandoned. Emotions of anxiety, disjunction, despair, and hysteria were valid artistic sentiments. • Impressionism in music was a conscious break from the past/ Romanticism. French composers found a middle ground between the Romantic era and Modernism. Composer: Ravel, Debussy • Melody becomes more fragmented, angular. Avoidance of step-wise melody, more leaps • Favored Octave Displacement • Heavy use of chromaticism • New chords: 7th, 9th, and 11th chords • Atonal music • Neo-Classicism: a twentieth-century trend, particularly current in the interwar period, in which composers sought to return to aesthetic precepts associated with the broadly defined concept of "classicism,” namely order, balance, clarity, economy, and emotional restraint

Neo-Romanticism- a style that starts with the musical elements of Romantic music but reimagines them with an awareness of Modernist musical processes.

Beethoven 9th symphony IV. Ode to Joy (1822-24) • Beethoven (1770-1827) : A transitional Figure from the Classic to Romantic era • Beethoven’s music is grounded in the Classical tradition but pushes its limits in a way that helped define the emerging romantic sensibilities. • His 9th symphony, Beethoven rearranged the formal structure of the Classical symphony and incorporated a choral finale: Beethoven was the first composer to combine vocal and instrumental music in a symphony. Orchestra+ Choir + 4 solo voices (Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Tenor, Baritone) • Ode to joy: The melody form is 4 bar phrases. • Every pitch is adjacent to the next, or stepwise, making it easy for everyone to sing. This is what Beethoven wanted. • Ode to Joy melody is the centerpiece of the movement. • Movement IV is a set of variations based on the Ode to Joy melody. • A symphony within a symphony (4 sections)

Schubert Erlkonig (1815) • Also transitional figure from classical to romantic • Lied(Lieder): German Art song for solo voice and piano accompaniment • Lied combines music and literature for solo voice and piano • Continuous triplets (three notes played evenly over two beats) illustrate a horse galloping through the night. • 4 different characters in this piece: Narrator, Father, Son and Elf king. • Schubert also used synesthesia (the color of certain musical keys) to create a definite atmosphere. • used the dramatic G minor for Der Erlkönig

Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique IV. March to the Scaffold (1830) • A radical example of musical romanticism • The form and orchestration are progressive • Programmatic content • This recurring theme is Berlioz’s idee fixe – meaning a fixed idea, more specifically, an obsessive music theme as first used in Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique • The March music you hear, is the sound of the soldier’s marching the ‘Artist’ to his execution. iv. Bizet “Habanera” from Carmen (1875) • French romantic opera • But it shares characteristics of Verismo Opera (Italian operas of the 19th and early 20th centuries that deal with everyday, gritty subjects such as poverty, abuse, industrial exploitation, crime, and afflictions of the lower class rarely have a happy ending.) • Melody: Chromatic descending, no tonal center- it depicts Carmen’s noncommittal, evasive actions. • Ostinato-like dotted rhythm in the accompaniment (Flamenco) • Strophic form: Verse + Refrain • Carmen Aria: Mezzo soprano(alto) + Chorus • Harmony: Minor to major

. Stravinsky The Rite of Spring “The Sacrificial Dance” (1913) • Ballet music • Pagan rite: a virgin dances herself to death as a sacrifice • This music shows a lot of characteristics of the modernism era • Timbre: Percussive Orchestra • Dissonant Polychords- stacking of 1 triad or a 7th chord on top of another so they sound simultaneously • Irregular Accent and explosive syncopations, irregular groups of notes: destroys ordinary meter, groupings of 4,5,2,6,3,4,5. Polymeter, polyrhythm • Ostinato Figures- repetition of the same motive repeatedly at the same pitch level. Incessant motorized quality, extensive use of an ostinato

Holst Mars, The Bringer of War from the Planets suite (1914) • Holst’s musical style is more commonly associated with the 20th-century modernist movement. • The Planets is a programmatic work, music with an intended meaning. • Form: lose ternary form ABA for I. Mars, the Bringer of War • The piece is inspired astrologically – rather than astronomically. • Harmonic dissonances often result from clashes between moving chords and static pedal-points, creating a tense musical atmosphere. • Notice this music's emotional intensity and rawness. • The title would indicate that the work has a programmatic meaning. • The opening two harps, strings playing with the wood of the bow (Col legno), timpani using very hard-headed sticks, and the gong. There’s also a solo from the euphonium. • Quintuple meter (5 beat per measure)Sondheim, Sweeney Todd (1975) • Differences between musicals and operas • Ratio of Singing and speaking • Singing style • Language • Dance • He utilizes Dies Irae in different ways and employs them throughout the musical • Harmony: highly dissonant