Transcript Bell Ringer * 9/13

BELL RINGER – 9/13
 None today
 We will start bell ringers again on TUESDAY. I will not be here again on MONDAY
(presenting at a conference) so we’ll wait until Tuesday to get them going again.
 I will have your binder grades, and first Bell Ringers grades for you on Tuesday.
 You’ll get your TEST GRADES at the end of class today
 ANYONE WHO WASN’T HERE ON WEDNESDAY IS TAKING THE TEST TODAY!
 NEW TAB IN YOUR BINDERS!!!
 Everything will now go behind the RENAISSANCE TAB
A brief look at where Visual Art, Music, Dance, and Drama
were BEFORE the Renaissance
 Roman Christian paintings had
a practical intent and started on
coffins and tombs
 The Good Shepherd: on an
ancient tomb
 Early Christian paintings were
primitive
 Reflection
 Lack of technical ability
 Pictoralize the faith – artistic skill
not important
 Paintings depicted Christian
history
 New 2-dimensional art form: on the
beautifully illustrated pages of
scholarly Church manuscripts
• Inaccurate proportions
• Carelessly executed
details
• Bad perspective
• Few colors
 Moved to large tempera panels
 Tempera: a painting medium in which egg yolk acts as a binder for the pigment,
usually applied to panels that had been prepared with a coating of ground chalk or
plaster and glue
 An application of gold leaf and an under-painting in green or brown preceded the
application of the tempera paint
 Paintings were larger than anything that had ever been attempted
Giotto
Cimabue
Duccio
 Central focus is even more human,
warm, and 3-dimensional
 Sense of drama with lower viewpoint
 The throne encloses the Madonna
and cuts her off from the background
 Creates a texture in the colored
marble surfaces
 Minor role initially
 The Old Testament prohibited graven images
 Christian sculpture was not monumental, but rather funerary (used for burial) up to
this point
 The earliest examples are all on coffins
 The Gero Crucifix
 Realistic crucified Christ
 Downward and forward sagging body

•
•
•
pulls against the nails
Emotional
Expressive detail: muscles, bulging belly,
and rendering of cloth
Human form, but flesh, hair, and cloth do
not have expected soft texture
Face – agony!
• Sculpture was MUCH MORE technically
accurate than painting
 Decorative elements attached to Romanesque architecture
 Stone sculpture
 Became monumental
 Reemerged in the 11th century
 Sculpture applied to exteriors of buildings where the worshipper could see and
respond
 Illiterate masses could now read the message of the Church
 In the center, the figure of Christ
 Early architectural sculpture was subordinate to the overall design of the building
 Later work claimed attention on its own
 Didactic: designed to teach
 Straightforward lessons
 Gregorian Chant
 Also known as plainchant or plainsong
 Developed for use in Christian worship services
 Designed to carry the prayer to God
 Pope Gregory I supervised the selection of melodies and tests and compiled them for
Church services – that’s why they’re named after him
 Vocal
 In Latin
 Used notes relatively near each other on the musical scale
 Monophonic
 Having a single melodic line
 Only 1 vocal line
 Many people may be singing, but they’re all singing the exact same words, on the exact same
pitches, at the exact same time
 NO accompaniment
 Flexible tempo
 Unmeasured rhythms followed the natural accents of normal Latin speech
 You can’t really tap your foot
 Two types of Chant setting
 Syllabic: each syllable of the chant was given one note
 Melismatic: each syllable was spread over several notes
 Started with one note
 Would change note to represent the start or end of the chant
 Could change notes at “commas” in the text
 Eventually just meant one note per syllable
 One Note per Syllable Example: Sancte Michael
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=712QrVEkaAo
 Started to elaborate and decorate certain syllables
 Neume: group of notes on one syllable
 Could be 2, could be 15
 Example: Dominica in Albis - Alleluia, In die
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FUCZl9dytM&feature=BFa&list=PLA5694801C624D51
7
 Between the 10th and 13th centuries, churches began to add a second line
 Melodies became more and more independent of each other and differed rhythmically as
well as melodically
 Polyphony: having two independent melodies going on at once
 No melody was more important than another
 Example: Kyrie
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRQ3gu3g9OM&feature=bf_next&list=PL98EA6FDD17
D25FF7&lf=bf_next
 Music gradually became more formal in notation and in structure
 Musicians felt the need to write down compositions note by note
 They used to simply write down patterns – when to go up and down. Now they’re writing
down exactly which pitches to go to
 Originally, music was transmitted from performer to performer or from teacher to
student
 Standardized musical notation, however, made it possible for the composer to
transmit ideas directly to the performer
 The role of the performer changed
 The vehicle of transmission and interpretation in the process of musical communication
 In the 12th century, composers in Paris developed innovations in rhythm
 Measured rhythm: definite time values and precise meters
 Early Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
 Used vernacular texts in the language of the common people
 Medieval poems
 Subject: mostly love (similar to today)
 Strophic: composed of several stanzas that were sung to the same melody
 Today, each verse of a pop tune (different words, same melody)
 Example: Középkori világi zene / Medieval Secular Music
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1uBDX-
f2rM&playnext=1&list=PL2D85733E9B4A8C48
Lyre
Harp
 Vielle/Fiedel
(violin/fiddle)
Lute
•Flute
Shawm
 Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egifq8lEEu0
 Bagpipes
 Portable organs
 Eventually found its way into the
church