Music Composition Brief 2
Brief I will compose a minimalist piece (Area of Study 2) for two violins which will be performed at a school concert. This will be played during the interval and should demonstrate the abilities of the violin in a short amount of time through minimalist music. Compositional Process To start off with, I decided on the tempo of the piece. I chose to use Allegro at crotchet = 120bpm as the piece would feature short and simple loops and I felt that a reasonably fast tempo would be suitable, as the rhythm and the notes played were not too complicated. For the first section, only three notes are used in both violin parts for the first 8 bars: G and F in the first violin; and D in the second violin. The first violin played crotchets and the second violin played a semibreve tied over four bars. I decided to use a minimal range of notes for this section to keep everything simple to start of with. I decided to make the first violin play pizzicato as this thin texture contrasts with some of the later sections which are played arco. The next 4 bars consist of the first violin playing two sets of quaver loops: G, A, D and C; and F, G, A and B. I decided to use them with every second bar having the order of the loops reversed, (i.e.: GADC, FGAB, FGAB, GADC) as it would be more interesting than having the loops played continuously one after the other (i.e. GADC, FGAB, GADC, FGAB) whilst
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Indian Musical Instruments Tabla: a pair of finger-played kettledrums, the main accompanying instruments in the classical music of the northern Indian sub-continent, with an extremely elaborate technique. The right-hand drum, tabla, a cylindrical kettledrum made of hollowed wood, is tuned to the tonic of the raga; the left-hand drum, baya, a metal or occasionally pottery bowl, is untuned, the pitch being controlled by pressure with the heel of the hand in performance. Both have a patch of tuning paste on the drumhead to eliminate the out-of-tune overtones so audible on European drums. Sitar: one of the most important musical instruments of the classical music of the northern Indian sub-continent, a long-necked lute with four main plucked strings and three plucked as a rhythmic drone; twelve sympathetic strings are plucked occasionally. The strings can be pulled sideways along the curved metal frets, varying the pitch up to a fifth. The strings vibrate on a flat area of the bridge, which enriches the sound. A bass sitar, the surbahar, is also often used. The sitar was created as a conflation of the Persian setar and the Indian vina. Sarangi: a musical instrument, the principal fiddle of north Indian classical music. The body, carved from a block of wood, has a skin belly. The three bowed gut strings are stopped with a fingernail from the side, often with a glissando from
Beauty of music
Music is one of the most amazing things that human beings create in their world. The ability to facilitate an emotional awakening in another human being without them even understanding the language a song is sung in, whether it is an aria sung in Italian or Latin or Spanish, a beautiful polyryhtmic swarm by Fela Kuti, soft sung velvety French or Japanese pop music, or classic rock from America or the United Kingdom, music has reached millions of people and is often connected to many memories. Music definitely, as much as a painting, is the universal language among humans. Also, unlike a paintings, the financial barrier or the fine art world does not separate the average working class person from his multimillionaire or multi-billionaire counterpart. Whether a person is rich or poor or whether a person is from the eastern or western hemisphere, music can reach across the globe and touch the hearts of strangers everywhere. Music has a way of reaching a person across stretches of time, crosses political realities, religious realities, and racial realities. Music has a way of bringing together large disparate groups of people who have nothing in common but the music itself, and can bridge gaps across several generations of people regardless of age groups. From two to one hundred, a band or a group or a composer can unify people through different eras and epochs, regardless
music folk music research
Folk music, in the most basic sense of the term, is music by and for the common people. The Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary defines it as "music of the common people that has been passed on by memorization or repetition rather than by writing, and has deep roots in its own culture. It is still being passed on in this way today. The folk music of Ireland (also known as Irish traditional music, Irish trad, Irish folk music, and other variants) is the generic term for music that has been created in various genres on the entire island of Ireland, North and South of the Border. Irish traditional music has survived more strongly against the forces of cinema, radio and the mass media than the indigenous folk music of most European countries. This was partly due to the fact that the country was not a battleground in either of the two world wars. Another significant factor was that the economy was largely agricultural, where oral tradition usually thrives. From the end of the second world war until the late fifties folk music was held in low regard. Following the success of The Clancy Brothers in the USA in 1959, Irish folk music became fashionable again. The lush sentimental syle of Delia Murphy was replaced by guitar-driven male groups such as The Dubliners. Irish showbands presented a mixture of pop music and folk dance tunes, though these died out during the seventies. The
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Running head: Development of Music as a Therapy Development of Music as a Therapy Lorie Ceal Grand Canyon University Intro to Human Communication Theory June 21, 2009 Development of Music as a Therapy The development of music as a therapy spans a vast amount of time. On the History of Music Therapy website we discover that music has always been used for therapeutic reasons. The evidence lies in; "cathartic and hypnotic uses of music in primitive tribes, Apollo - who was the god of music and medicine, drumming healers of India at Delphi, and cave drawings of musical shamans". (History of Music Therapy, n.d.) There seems to have always been a connection between music and emotion. It has a history of influence on both the emotional and physical aspects of one's health. "Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle all wrote about how music affects health and behavior." (United Health Services, 2009) Plato stated that musical training was important because "rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful". (History of Music Therapy, n.d.)Even though music was thought of as a healing agent for body, mind and soul in ancient times, according to the History of Music Therapy, It is a "fairly recent phenomenon in Western culture". (History of Music Therapy, n.d.) Dr Richard Brown wrote the
Minimalism Compositions
My Minimalism composition: I will do my minimalism piece in the key of D minor and base the notes around this sequence but also use the chords of A, F C and E change key, but not to a major key. I will base the piece on arpeggios and broken chords, I will also use phase shifting to give it a more effective feeling to it. I will be changing the pattern and the rhythm of the music several times in the piece so it doesn't seem to repetitive. My piece is approximately 2 minutes long and at the end I will repeat the beginning again. Dynamics are important in my piece of music so I will be changing the tone by using staccato and legato notes. I will also change the tempo of it when I think it is necessary. I am going to record it in the music studio instead of using a computer program. I think this a good choice for me because as I will do it on the piano I can use the pedal and create better dynamics. How ever I will have to make sure I can learn it well as I will not have many chances to re-record it. There will be four beats in the bar and the average speed will be about 120 beats per minute, but as I said before the tempo will purposely change slightly during the piece to make the atmosphere of it become more
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Coursework: composition of musical I have been given a task to compose a musical, with lyrics. My composition is for a musical. It has been written to fit to one of Shakespeare's, most famous sonnets. The basic story behind my composition is, a tale of two lovers, who cannot be together because of their roles in society, the musical is basically a modern version of Romeo and Juliet. I started my composition by finding the chords/ ground base. I started with the chords A, C, E, then moved on to the chords G, B, D and F, A, C. In the chord A, C, E I used a C sharp to offer a happier/brighter feel to the piece. This would have made the piece in to a major chord. I changed my original chord without the C sharp; because it did not offer the right feeling to the effect I was trying to put across. To begin my melody again I used what I had for the chords but played them separately, my idea was to stick with as many of the same notes as possible, so the music had a sweet blend or harmony all the way through. This basically meant that I had to use simple chord structures, and a basic melody. I have added a few sharp notes throughout the piece and one or two flat notes, this gave my piece a sweeter feel, and tied it more to the romantic feeling I was trying to get across, through the use of the lyrics in the sonnet. The romance in the piece offered my musical the effect I had
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Blues Blues is a genre of Afro-American folk music which originated from slaves working on plantations in the southern states of the USA. Blues music reflected the status of Black Americans after slavery was abolished; there were over 4 million Black people in the country, a power that could not be denied. The slaves developed field hollers in a "call and response" style which served as the basis of all blues music. Blues kept the "call and response" form of expression but it differed in that the "call" was not answered by another participant but by the singer themselves. Early instruments used in Blues include the guitar, banjo and harmonica, these usually accompanied a solo singer. Blues players developed new instrumental styles, using typical banjo picking styles on the guitar and combining both chords and single notes by picking the melody on the bass strings and brushing the higher strings. In the 1920s the slide style was introduced, this used a glass or metal tube on the fretting hand to produce a glissando like effect. The slide effect was also used on the banjo. Later when Blues became more popular and moved north singers were accompanied by jazz instruments like the trumpet, trombone, clarinet, piano and contrabass. With the increased popularity of blues and the variety of instruments that played in the blues orchestra some instrumental problems were encountered
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Manisha Chohan Baroque Music The Baroque period came from roughly from the 1600 – 1750. It came from Italy. Baroque music was orchestral music. Baroque music is characterised by the contrast between loud and soft music, and solo and ensemble music. Baroque music has a polyphonic texture. This means the music has many voices playing different things all at the same time. It can also take other textures such as monophonic which is a single melody with no accompaniment. Also there is a homophonic texture which is melody and accompanied, so this means there will be one voice and the rest would be backing. Baroque has also a characteristic of tonality which are replaced by major or minor scales. In baroque music imitation and motifs are used. Melodies often had a lot of ornamentation for example there would have been a lot of trills in the music. It also had the use of the harpsichord continuo. The 2 main dynamic levels were loud and soft; this was known as terraced dynamics. An orchestra has a large instrumental ensemble with sections of strings, brass, woodwind, and occasionally persuasion instruments. A baroque orchestra was sometimes directed from a harpsichord. The continuo was a part which was normally played by harpsichord or an organ. This would be filling in the harmonies and holding the whole ensemble place together. A harpsichord is a keyboard instrument where the
