Monophony

Eric Whitacre is a world renown composer and conductor with numerous composition awards such as being the youngest person to be awarded the Raymond C. Brock commission. In many ways he is a new age classic, already composing many works held in high esteem academically and professionally. The piece Sleep by Eric Whitacre is no exception, it is a melting pot of musical textures and word painting, put together by a choir of two thousand members. As it 's name implies it is about sleep and this constant theme is reflected in how music slowly flows along dream like and peaceful yet at times much like a restless night it gets louder suddenly and eases back down. The piece is quite relaxing and seems to transcend being just music to the point that the words are not just words. With all of the aspects that help to convey the meaning and imagery of Sleep it is like phonetic poetry. Even though there are words in English that are easily understood, and even though it is a poem being sung by a choir, you have so many things working together to get across the meaning when it says something like “The evening hangs beneath the moon, A silver thread on darkened dune”. You get more than just those words, you get how they slowly sing those lines, almost dreamlike. You don 't just register the meaning because you know what it means to close your eyes and rest your head but you hear it in the music and it strikes a deeper understanding. It makes you feel instead of just understand. Also it…

Harry Styles’ “Sign of the Times” is written in 4/4 time with 60 beats per minute and the key signature is F Major (Styles et al. 2017). Sign of the Times follows a verse-chorus format. What is unique about this song, is the near minute long outro including dynamic instrumentals and vocals. Monophony is tied in at the beginning and end of the song through the use of the piano. The beginning of the song’s monophony sets the tone for the chord progression the listener will hear throughout the rest…

classical music has many different dynamics ranging from crescendos and decrescendos. Unlike on the classical station was also a little choppy, and the singers voice would change dynamics quite often. The symphony also had more chances of being choppier because the results of many different instruments playing. All music changes its dynamics the symphony has the most different types with dynamics. The dynamics in a symphony went loud to soft, and also the went from choppy and smooth. Monophony,…

We see an example of this in “Gagaku” (youtube) from 0:05-0:55. We can hear a Ryuteki playing a melody with entrances and exits from the Kakko and a San-no-tsuzumi. The Ryuteki introduces us to the melody used throughout the remainder of the piece. These moments of monophony are seen throughout the piece. An example of monophony from Gregorian Chant can be found in “Alleluia Vidimus Stellam”(1). This clip begins with a male soloist singing sacred text, who is later joined by a choir of men. The…

they sound together. Harmony is when two people simultaneously combine sounds. Harmony is beautiful when it is performed in the correct way. Harmony added more depth into music, almost like a whole new dimension of music. In chapter four and five, we discuss the organization of musical scales and musical texture. There are many different scaled in music like the chromatic scale, a diatonic scale, major, and minor scales. Scales are how music is organized for us to read. In chapter five, we…

appropriately. McJagger's vocals definitely add an unique accent. Harmony- The chords are in major during the whole lapse of the song. McJagger's vocals are also in major. Timbre- First and foremost, McJagger's voice strikes me at the end of the song. It's comical how he can create an authentic McJaccer monkey esque noise. The guitar rift is fun, I can see how people can groove to this. The guitar solo reinforces that feeling. More over, the whammy bar resonating adds a nice touch. The bass…

The rate of speed of the composition. A tempo can be notated in two ways, by a metronome marking or descriptive terminology in Italian. MELODY- Melody comprises a succession of sounds with rhythmic and tonal organization that can be conjunct or disjunct. It is the arrangement of pitches by a composer to create a tune HARMONY- When two or more tones sound at the same time creating a vertical arrangement, in contrast with a horizontal arrangement with a melody. TONALITY- A system of…

The first movement was a March, “Seventeen come Sunday”, and it was in a major mode and had a duple meter. It had a binary form and the repeated A part brought on a sense of resolution as it was a softer sound after the loud portions involving percussion. The movement alternated between woodwind portions with monophonic texture, which offered calming light sound; and more forte triumphant sounding portions that involved the entire band. The movement sounded like people marching along in triumph…

1 in D major, “Titan,” was performed next. It was much longer in duration than the first piece. It showed uniqueness in that it incorporated everyday sounds into the music, such as bulge calls, bird songs, and dance tunes, which provided for a very wide variety of tone colors. The symphony began with a thick-textured undertone in the strings and a two-note “hunting call” in the woodwinds, which persisted throughout the piece. Also present was a bright fanfare in the trumpets, followed by a light…

sounds sometime may seem difficult, but really it can be really simple. Using octave notes are established. An octave is the interval spanning across eight notes of a scale. An octave is divided into twelve half steps, making two halves one whole. There are four major scales chromatic, diatonic, and major and minor scales. The chromatic scale is made up of all twelve steps, but the diatonic scale contains seven whole and half steps, with the melody and harmony rooted in the key. The key as…