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CHAPTER TWO - CRITICAL ANALYSIS 2.1 Exploration Of Tonality And The Pentatonic Scale Blossoms on a Moonlit River has been written in G major, and this is known from an author’s note written above the stave and the key signature (Fig 2a). It has been written with diatonic numerical notation using the numbers 1 to 7, and the number 0 represents a rest. The piece is tonal centred, and relies on a major pentatonic scale consisting of G, A, B, D and E (Fig 2b) and this is close to the western…

Song Analysis Essay: Sleep by Eric Whitacre Eric Whitacre 's famous composition “Sleep” exemplifies a wonderful spin on Robert Frost 's poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” Eric whitacre had originally wrote Robert Frost 's poem to music but couldn 't publish due to copyright claims so in a panic he changed the words in his iconic piece to create “Sleep”. Before "Sleep” was even a concept a Texas woman came to Eric asking him to write a piece in remembrance of her parents…

Introduction One of the most remarkable composers of the nineteenth century, Chopin composed exclusively for the piano and his music is innovative with a particular repertoire of technical and expressive devices. His musical style can be described as unique because of his variety and complexity of compositional techniques. The Piano Sonata Op.35 No.2 is an illustration of Chopin’s musical style where he explores several elements found in the nineteenth century music such as the “idea of…

Music is not music without reading and writing. I am not speaking of reading and writing English, rather I am speaking of reading and writing musical notation. The real importance of reading and writing in the context of music has to do with actually learning the language that is music. This might mean learning how notes relate to a staff, or possibly how an audio clip fits best in your garageband composition, or maybe even how a 7th chord can put a whole new twist on a Sara Bareilles song (if…

The nineteenth century, the Romantic era of music composition, saw the rise of programmatic music, or music designed to convey a specific story, theme, character, or idea—without any voices. Programmatic music was a stark departure from the prioritization of emfindsamkeit in the Classical era, which had in turn signified a break from the Doctrine of Affections of the Baroque era. While “emfindsamkeit” in classical music referred to the value of music for its own sake, rather than trying to…

Elements of Music: A Closer Look In our everyday life, sound surrounds us almost constantly. With a simple walk to the mailbox, our ears are exposed to a number of sounds. Such as birds chirping, car horns blaring, neighbors laughing, and leaves scrambling. What causes theses sounds, though? How do we interpret them? Espie Estrella, a music education expert, states that sound is created when an object vibrates. Estrella continues by explaining that our ears sense these vibrations and send them…

In the first part of Contrapunctus 1, the exposition, an organ introduces the main theme (subject) with the alto range. The theme’s melody starts low, rises to the highest pitch, then waivers around the first pitch of the theme. Performed in quadruple meter, the exposition’s main theme is mostly conjunct with one disjunct phrase in the middle. After the subject is introduced by the alto the soprano answers by repeating the subject at a higher pitch. Following the soprano’s answer the bass…

Two violins, one viola, and a cello played Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet, Op. 76, No.3 (Emperor), II in quadruple meter and in the form of one homophonic theme with four polyphonic variations. The theme is introduced by the entire quartet in an conjunct melody that has three unique phrases. The first phrase, “A”, is the first to be introduced and repeated a second time, “A-A”. Phrase “A” moves smoothly from mid to high in ascending and descending conjunct intervals and is repeated. A second…

Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, op.83, composed by Johannes Brahms. In order to analyze this piece properly it is best to know the rondo within the piece. It helps to determine repetition and the featured alternating episodes. For this piece you can hear ABABA, which makes it a dynamic piece to listen to.When listening to the First A and the Last A sections you can here how similar they are. When you pay close attention to the Middle A you notice more instruments in this area.…

For this paper, I listened the RadioLab episode on music language. I chose this one because, being a musician myself, I’ve always been interested in the psychology behind music, specifically why certain sounds can so drastically alter our emotion. After all, they’re all just vibrations. So what is it about some vibrations that make them so much more significant to us than others? This is one of the primary questions addressed in this podcast. In discussing how music affects us emotionally, the…