Music is just a mirror of culture at the time

Music is a safe zone for me to have the freedom where I can accept my feelings as they are.

tnafoo

You can use this digital piano to play your scale or notes.

Middle ages

Music in the middle ages is mostly inspired by mathematics and religious symbolism.

Procedamus in Pace has these key things you can hear:

  • Solo – monophonic
  • Church – Sung in mass, Latin and Gregorian Chant
  • Mode – It has 8 modes. Different from music nowadays we use major or minor scale. Some folks music now still uses modes, but most music is in scale.

There was experiments to move away from monophonic sound e.g. polyphonic sound like Organum.

Catholic church standardise music sung in churches by using Nuemes. It’s an early form of sheet music.

Baroque

Music during this period, music and art must express a feeling.

  • Bach (1685-1750), Mass in B Minor, BWV 232 – Conveys the feeling of love and longing.
  • Haydn (1732-1809), Mass No. 10 in C Major, Paukenmess – Hadyn wrote ‘Mass in times of war’ composed during European war after the French Revolution.
  • Beethoven (1770-1827), Mass in C Major, Op. 86 – One word stood out ‘Us, Nobis’ in this music. He’s a socialist who believes in French Revolution and humanitarians values.
  • Schubert (1797 – 1828), Mass in G Major, D. 167 – One word stood out as the highest note ‘Us, Nobis’. In the romantic era, us and me is important, Me is important in the personal sense as well as in the national sense. The romantic era was dominated by an emphasis on individualism. In the larger sense, we can find Nationalism that influenced the arts.
  • Kodaly (1882-1967), Missa Brevis, Agnus Dei – ‘Pecata Mundi’ is the word which stood out as the highest note. It means ‘sins of the world’. He was hiding in the basement of the church, running away from the Nazis.

Beethoven’s 5th Symphony only has 2 notes in the beginning. And then Beethoven uses repetitions on the same 2 notes. 5 procedures you can do differently with the 2 notes:

  1. Real sequence
  2. Tonal sequence
  3. Variations
  4. Derivative material

Repetition

For a good example of repetition, listen to Bach’s Overture (Suite) No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068, Gavotte.

Ancient Greece

The Greeks group their notes by the pitch, high or low. And they organize their sound in a scale of 4 notes, tetrachords.

In modern music, we organize it in scale of 8 notes e.g. C major etc.

An overtone is any pitch higher than the fundamental tone. And the overtones are responsible for the timbre of different instruments – every instrument emphasizes a different set of overtones, and thus has a different timbre.

Canon

Canon (aka technique of imitation) was used since the Renaissance or middle ages. First voice continues on but repeat it with a second voice.

Read and write

Notes – a note is a symbol representing a musical sound. The shape of the note indicates the duration in which the note should be played. For example, a whole note divided to two is a half note, and a half note divided to two is a quarter note ect. Four quarter notes equals a whole note. 

The staff – The staff is where we draw the notes on. The staff consists of five horizontal lines and four identical spaces between them. We can draw the notes on the lines or in the spaces.

Measures (bars) – The staff is divided into equal segments of time called ‘measures’ or ‘bars’. Each measure corresponds to the same number of beats. The bars are marked by vertical bar lines. 

Beat – The basic unit of time in music. You use it while clapping or tapping your foot along with a song.

Meter – The meter is the organization of the beats in equal units- measures (bars). Each measure (bar) consists of the same number of beats. The meter is represented similarly to a mathematical fraction, with a top number and a bottom number. We call it the “time signature” of the music sheet. The top number tells you how many beats are in a measure, and the bottom number tells you the note value (the length) of each beat. In the example below, the time signature is 3/4, meaning there are three beats per bar and that the note value is a quarter note:

The Motet

The main literary and cultural model of the Renaissance: Poetry. There are 2 musical textures:

  • Homophonic – All the voices are moving more or less in the same rhythm. 
  • Polyphonic – Each voice moves independently.

Word painting aka Madrigal means the music imitates the meaning of the lyrics e.g. The Silver Swan by Orlando Gibbons.

Both Motet and the Madrigal e.g. Cruda Amarilli by Claudio Monteverdi are based on imitation of vocal phrases.

In ancient Greece, the recitative is a good example from the Renaissance in which time has no meaning at all e.g. L’Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi.

Instrumental music

Singing and dancing was mostly associated with music in ancient time. Many times composers did not write specific instrumentation. Slowly, instruments became more and more popular. Playing music instrument, singing and dancing – can be found in the Bible.

Fugue

Ricercar e.g. Andrea Gabrieli’s Riciercar del duodecimo tuono and Fantasia forms were later developed into the fugue.

Ricercar – An instrumental musical form used mostly in the late Renaissance and early Baroque. The Italian term ricercar means to “seek out” or “explore”. The form explores different permutations of one subject, using the technique of melodic imitation.

Fantasia – An instrumental musical form similar to the Ricercar, used in the Renaissance and the Baroque. The Fantasia has no strict musical form rules.

Canzona – An Italian instrumental musical form structured on small contrasting sections (each section has a different subject, and can be homophonic or polyphonic), similar to the madrigal only without text. The instrumental canzona derived its form from the French polyphonic Chanson. The Canzona was mostly used in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Classical Periods

Our music history is split into 2 types of periods:

  • Classical periods – During this period, people developed new forms e.g. Renaissance.
  • Romantic Periods – During this period people developed existing forms. e.g. Baroque because it was developing ideas of arts and music from the Renaissance era.

Connection between music and other art forms

Music reflects the cultural climate of its era. We also mention the connection between music and other arts forms: visual arts, literary arts, performing arts etc.

There is music in every building – Tom McGlynn. Watch this to see the breakdown of the music I want to create.

Opera as drama

The first great opera composer was also the last great Madrigalist – Claudio Monteverdi. During the Baroque period, composers began to place a much greater emphasis on music’s dramatic power to express different passions and elicit feelings from audience.

The basis of music is sound; its aim is to please and to arouse various emotions in us.

Rene Descartes

Joy is an expansion of our vital spirits, it follows sensibly and naturally that this affect is best expressed by large and expanded intervals.”9 Thus, Mattheson observed that joyful music was marked by wider intervals, and subsequently, he states that to convey sadness, “the narrowest intervals are the most suitable.

Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons

Classical era or the Enlightenment or Romanticism

During Renaissance period, it followed the literary model of poetry. In the Baroque era, it was all about the unity of affect and the literary model of rhetoric. Going into the Classical era, we have a new literary model called drama.

During period of enlightenment, the first encyclopaedia and first dictionary were printed. According to Blume, classical music is universal, as it focuses on elements and traits that are common to all human cultures, worldwide.

Mozart expressed ideas of speaking in unison as symbol of unity of nations. Enlightenment thinkers talk about peace between nations (avoid conflicts and confrontations). This unison could be the underlying form of all human cultures.

Interesting fact – The Masonic idea matched with the rationalistic view of the enlightenment. Mozart was also a Freemason himself.

Romanticism

Beethoven and then Schubert made emphasis on ‘Nobis’ which means me. This could hint the start of the transition from classical period to romantic period. The universal of ‘us’ is replaced by an individual ‘me’.

Science and rational thinking became irrelevant, human’s desire to belong became more and more important in the romantic period. Upon this follows the definite renunciation of rationalism and of encyclopaedist, who had required of music ‘imitation’ and the realistic rendering of feelings…

music sublimates what has been perceived, contemplated, felt, into a language of truth entirely private, mysterious, but deeply moving and understandable to all.

Fridrich Blume

Can you relate to Blume’s quote above by listening to the first movement of Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90

Miniatures are very popular and romantic period, they are usually played in salons and included both vocal and instrumental music. Think of miniatures as cycles of songs or cycles of instrumental pieces.

The idea of belonging is demonstrated in Franz Schubert’s Agnus Dei, which could be viewed as ‘me’. Frederic Chopin is known for introducing polish musical elements.

Another intimate example is in the form of the lead, song, which became with very popular with composers like Schubert, Schumann and Brahms. A good example is Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe, Op. 48, the text is by Heinrich Heine.

We can conclude the Renaissance and the Classical period are similar and many ways, just as the Baroque era and the Romantic era have their similarities. It is very difficult to draw a line to say whether Claudio Monteverdi stopped being a Renaissance composer and became a Baroque composer. Or when Beethoven stopped being a Classical composer and became a Romantic composer.

Conflict is part of creativity and expression,
and conflicting ideas can be valid and co-existing.

Johann Gottfried Herder

Harmony

Adjacent notes are dissodants. One note apart or consonant can work well to form chord. Scale from C to C:

  • CEG
  • DFA
  • FAC
  • EGB
  • GBD
  • ACE
  • BDF

Sonata form

The Sonata form is not so much about the melodies. It’s more about the harmonic environments.

In classical period, you start with a home key aka Tonic. And then you can go up to the Dominant key. The Tonic goes to the keys that are 5 steps up e.g. Symphony No. 34 by Mozart, the Tonic key is F and the Dominant key is C or Symphony No. 104 by Hadyn, the Tonic key is C and the Dominant key is A.

In romantic period, the sonata form can go anywhere from 5 steps up.

The 5 composition principles:

  • Exposition:
    • 1st theme
    • Bridge
    • 2nd theme
    • Cordetta
  • Development
  • Recapulation:
    • 1st theme
    • Bridge
    • 2nd theme
    • Cordetta

Beethoven

We learn about Beethoven from the book “BEETHOVEN” by the French Nobel prize-winning novelist and art historian Romain Rolland. The book was written originally in French, and we will read from the English translation by Berta Constance Hull.

Beethoven was for the French Revolution when it reached Vienna. Napolean was Prometheus or a hero to Beethoven’s eyes. He saw that Napolean brought freedom and equality to men.