Transcript Lec1
Music 1000A Dr. Anthony Radford Syllabus Please read the syllabus It can be found in your email and online What are you going to learn? 1. How to Listen. Listening is the primary tool for understanding and enjoying music. Repeated listening to a single piece enables one to hear more and more, enhancing understanding and enjoyment. 2. Musical Concepts and Terms. Concepts and terms aid in the process of learning to listen attentively. Important terms you might have heard before . . . Pitch, Rhythm, Timbre, Decrescendo, Cadence etc. 3. How to enjoy a new musical experience. A musical experience is the cumulative result of several factors, elements of music working together (rhythm, pitch, dynamics tone colour etc,); the effect of these sounds and associated words and images on the listener; and the listener’s interpretation of this effect based on past experiences and understanding. Why is this relevant to your life? Because knowledge is power. Because music is part of everything we do. How many of you have seen an . . . Heard an. . . Preliminaries A great deal of music of all kinds begins not with the main “song” or “tune”, or other main material, but with preliminaries to establish a background, usually some kind of pulse, in preparation for the material to come. Metallica. Describe in one word the MOOD of the piece Ave Maria Stella by Dufay CD 1 TR 7 written about 700 years ago. Brandenberg Concerto by Bach written 300 years ago. CD 2 TR 1 Tristan and Isolde an opera by Wagner written 130 years ago. CD 4 TR 17 Black Angels by George Crumb written recently. CD 6 TR 18 Means and effect MEANS are tools . . . or put another way musical elements which have a certain EFFECT on us. MEANS When you approach a piece of music, evaluate the means (musical elements) by which the composer achieves a certain effect. Hard work? Or just different? The A,B, C’s of Means A. Vibration High and low frequency. Known in music as pitch. Some voices/instruments have high or low pitch. B. Dynamics Dynamics is another word for the scientific term amplitude. Simply put it is how loud or soft something is. In music we use Italian terms to describe loud and soft. Forte, piano, mezzo piano etc. Dynamic terms Forte=loud Piano=soft Mezzo=medium Pianissimo=very soft Fortissimo=very loud più forte=more loud meno forte=less loud Subito=suddenly Crescendo=getting louder Decrescendo=getting softer Diminuendo=getting C. Tone Colour and Timbre Sounds, whatever the pitch, or dynamic have a certain quality. We call this quality “tone colour” or “timbre”. D. Duration and Rhythm A way of keeping time. The main driving force in all music.