Chapter 1,2,3 - Lecture notes 1-3 PDF

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Professor Ted Gordon...

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Rhythm, Meter, Tempo Accuracy - describing something that you are trying to match with -temperature is warm Precision - describing something exactly -today is 96 degrees outside -

The rhythm of the “september” by earth wind and air, is moderately fast - that is an accurate description -When we describe music (is/ought problem) we make descriptive statements -we say music is this, when music doesn't HAVE to be that it SHOULD be it - Music is described in terms of……. -We should be saying music should have all of these terms Rhythm - Pattern of sound in time ● May or may not repeat ● May have strong and weak beats ● May define a musical style ● May have unique beats and compositions Accented beat - beats with a rhythm that you perceive as important ● ONE two THREE four ● One TWO three FOUR ● ONE two ONE two -Rhythm can be generic -Rhythm often happens within a meter

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Duple meter - feeling of “two”-ness (Yankee doodle) ○ ONE two I ONe two I ONE two Triple meter - Feeling of “three” - ness ○ ONE two three I ONE two three There can be more than duple and triple - like a quintuple meter

Simple meter - subdivided into two Complex meter - subdivided into three ○ How do I determine what meter I'm hearing? ■ Move your body!!!!!! ■ Count ■ Count some more and feel how they are subdivided

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Rhythmic possibilities within meter ○ Meter is like a grid that gives rhythm contect ○ Meter allows for the possibility of complexity Tempo - the overall pace of music (italian terminology) ○ Half time - halving the perceived tempo (making it feel half as past) ○ Double time - doubling the perceived tempo (making it feel twice as fast)

Rhythm: the enture time aspect of music, while a rhythm refers to a specific arrangement of long and short notes; driving force behind music; musical element that relates to the duration of sound in time Rhythms do not have to coincide with the regular beats of the meter; sometimes they correspond and sometimes they depart from the beats Nonmetrical music: rhythms have no patterns of strong and weak beats Syncopation: moving “the accents in a foreground rhythm away from their normal position on the beats of the background meter”; Syncopation occurs when a musical accent is in an unexpected place in a meter. ○ oneTWO I oneTWO (weakSTRONG I weakSTRONG) as opposed to the normal ONE two I ONE two (STRONG weak I STRONG weak) ○ Syncopation can also happen when an accent is found in between beats ○ African American music uses syncopation consistently Tempo: “the rate at which the baic, regular beats of the meter follow one another”; speed of the beat Metronome: device that ticks beats at any given speen; it measures the tempo ○ Refer to textbook for terminology

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Important to remember the terminology for “common tempo indications” because composers often use them as headings for sections of their music ■ Common Tempo Indications (Italian): ● Adagio: slow ● Andante: on the slow side, but not too slow ● Moderato: moderate ● Allegretto: on the fast side, but not too fast ● Allegro: fast ● Presto: very fast

Class 2 Notes - chapters 2 and 3 pgs 10-29 Tracking Pitch: Tone (pitch, dynamics, timbre), Scales and Melody -music in space ●

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Unit 1 is all about critical listening - giving us the ability to listen, describe using our new terminology. Melody, rhythm, complex, climax, duple, triple Pitch When we speak, our voices have a certain pitch, either high or low ○ Some sounds have a quality called pitch ○ Pitch is something you perceive as higher or lower in tonal space ○ We generally distinguish between pitched and unpitched sounds ○ Most musical instruments can make both, but are often better at making pitched sounds Octave ○ an interval where the fundamental frequency of one pitch doubles the other pitch ○ A pitch that sounds “the same” but higher or lower ○ Called “octave” (8) because of the 8 steps of the Diatonic Scale ■ Do re mi fa so la ti do ■ 1 2 3 4 5 67 8 Tone Color- Timbre ○ Timbre - elusive concept - the quality of a sound ○ Different instruments and what we think about them ■ Melodica sounded thin when it was played quietly, and had a very sharp sound when played loudly ■ Viola - when it is quiet it is warm and mellow and blends in between cello and violin, when it’s played loudly its harsh and brassica and sounds like a ship horn and kind of somber ■ Types of instruments ● Strings - piano, violin, etc. ● Woodwinds - clarinet, flute, recorder etc. (sound kind of nasal)

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Brass - french horn, saxophone, trumpet - (brassy bold and in your face, very loud) Percussion - snare drum, chimes, xylophone, tabeurine

● ● Dynamics - loudness ○ Pp, p, f, ff - pianissimo, piano, forte, fortissimo - very quiet, quiet, loud, very loud ■ Pianissimo (pp) = very soft Piano (p) = soft Forte (f) = loud Fortissimo (ff) = very loud ○ Nowadays, most recordings are so much louder than they were years ago because people want their music to be heard. ■ Years ago, before the era of recording, we used a wider range of dynamics and we may not be hearing them as well as we do nowadays. Scales - a collection of pitches that divides an octave ● Diatonic - “through tones” ○ Comprises of the main degrees of the scale (white keys on the piano) do re mi fa sol la ti do, or CDEFGABC ■ An octave on a piano with no minors or majors ■ Depending on what instrument it can be using black keys also - not always white ○ Often comprises whole steps between notes (with exception of two half steps) ● Chromatic ○ Chroma = color ○ Comprises of all twelve half steps in between diatonic scale degrees ○ Sharps and flats (# and b) raise or lower diatonic pitches ○ Every key between c and c - an octave with all of its minor and major keys ● Why are scales important? Most Melodies occur within a scale ○ Melody is a linear ordered set of pitches in time using the notes of a scale ○ The main melody of a longer piece of music is called a theme ○ Melody is made up of phases, which in turn can be made up of “motives” - little repeating bits that are recognizable ○ Phrases often end in a cadence (ending gesture) ● Example of a melody - listen for if it is chromatic or diatonic ○ What makes you beautiful - diatonic - in e major - uses blac keys but when you play out the notes it sounds like an octave ● How do we describe melodies?? ○ The phrases repeat over and over ○ Phrase A - some WHERE over the RAIN bow WAY up HIGH ○ Phrase B - contrasting line to phrase A ○ Motive is a little short unit that repeats that makes up a melodic phrase ● How do we describe somewhere over the rainbow ○ Theme - diatonic, tried to crescendo but never reached a climax, dynamics are mainly calm and soft, tone color was deeper and not so bright except for when there’s certain annunciation on words, the tempo is slow and the pitch ranges from low to high very quickly

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Phrase - the phrase goes

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Star Wars theme song is chromatic, kind of daunting and scary The phrases don't end really on a note where you think it would stop These phrases sound like a military march kind of - this is a walking tempo (andante)`

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