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Richard Rodgers was very involved in music since an early age, he actually started playing piano at age six. He had already written two popular songs before going to University, but his success was heightened after then. He wrote music for two amateur shows before he started working with Lorenz Hart in 1919, but they also wrote many shows. Rodgers and Hart won acclaim for a review in 1925. They wrote nine stage shows between 1935 and 1942, the most famous of these being Jumbo (1935) and On Your…

In the poem, “Player Piano”, John Updike demonstrates a lot of feeling and emotion of an unhuman piano. By having detailed imagery of sounds, figures of speech, and rhyme, he portrays the reader into the picture of a machine-like device that has its own natural music language. This 12-line poem recalls the life and achievements of a player piano. In the first and second line, there is a lot of assonance (the repetition of sound in a vowel) and consonance (reassurance of similar sound) that are…

Listening to this piece brings back many memories from a high school All state year that Dr. John Lynch was conducting the band. I remember seeing and hearing this piece for the first time, loving every moment of rehearsal and simply relishing in the moment. Throughout there is such beauty and richness reminding me of Russian Christmas Music by Alfred Reed. The opening idea is beautifully orchestrated and the bells chiming allows for my imagination to wander to depict a scene of a town amidst…

When I first started listening to this piece, Haydn’s String Quartet in D Major, Op. 64, “The Lark,” I was surprised by how familiar it sounded to me. I think it is well known, and has a distinct section that repeats multiple times throughout the piece, which is very well known. The strings often build up with one another to create a type of tension and anticipation throughout the movement. The piece appears to be written in ABA form, thus the listener has a clear idea of where the piece is…

J.S Bach, who born in 1686 and died in 1750, was the first one who deals with contrapuntal counterpoint. Today, I’m going to talk about the 1st movement & second movement of Brandenburg Concerto No.2. Brandenburg Concertos were written by Bach, while he worked at Cothen. Baroque Concerto is a small group of soloists pitted against a larger group of players called tutti, which consists mainly the string instruments, with a harpsichord as a basso continuo. 1st movement of this concerto is in…

Johann Christoph Denner created the clarinet soon after 1698 (Barrett, G. 1999) (Adullah, M et al. 2015). The clarinet is a woodwind instrument with a single reed. A clarinet has many different keys, and each of them helps produce a different note. “The keys were of brass, sometimes of silver and the springs were of brass.” (Barrett, G. 1999). It is an instrument that is somewhat quiet compared to others, but it can be played loudly if the player desires. “While almost every other woodwind…

Whether we are opera singers or shower-wailers, ballet dancers or awkward shufflers, we all understand how music makes us feel, and more importantly, makes us move. Moving to music is so much a part of the human experience that it seems innate to us as a species. A recent study supports this, showing that fetuses react to music with increased motion, and in some cases, open their mouths as if to sing. Once out of the womb, this response only grows: a catchy tune makes hips swing and toes tap,…

i. Grip – Slatkin often uses a light grip with the handle of the baton between his thumb and index finger. However, he has held the handle in the palm of his hand, while his thumb and index finger gripped the baton. Occasionally, his pinky finger pops out during cues and powerful sections of the movement. ii. Wrist motion – Slatkin has a natural wrist motion as he conducts and he uses his wrist the most when cuing big entrances. In addition, Slatkin stresses his wrist motion whenever he…

This article is a book review of the book “Digeridoo: A Complete Guide to this Ancient Aboriginal Instrument,” written by John Bowden. The book is a step-by-step guide on how to play one of the oldest wind instruments called the digeridoo. This book can be used by music educators to help lead their students to a better understanding of the instrument and the Australian Aboriginal culture. However, the best part about this book review was the several links at the end that allowed the reader to…

When you read music, you read it off what is called a staff. A staff consists of four spaces and five lines. On the four spaces and five lines are notes. At the beginning of the staff you will always see either a Treble Clef or a Bass cleft. Each indicates what and where the starting note will be when you are reading your music. On a Treble clef, the line that it wraps around will always be G. When you look at a note that’s anywhere along that line, it’s always a G. Now, with the Base cleft it’s…