Positional notation

John Cage was an American composer that experimented with the very nature of sound and developed new ways of notating music. Cage’s ideas on composition influenced many artists such as painters, musicians, and chorographers. Cage questioned the musical preconceptions that was left from the 19th century. Arnold Schoenberg, a teacher of John Cage, called Cage “not a composer, but an inventor of genius” (Hicks, 1990). Many musicians, and to much of the public, thought Cage’s compositions…

The Infant Prodigy, written by Thomas Mann, is a story of Bibi Saccellaphylaccas, a young prodigal artist. He plays piano for an audience of ridiculers. Through this story, readers are given a real look at the art of music, also the thoughts from the audience when observing Bibi’s performance. Thomas Mann describes a complete picture of Bibi, the audience and the relationship between them and culture through the all-knowing point of view. When we get into the story firstly, it is the time also…

American Overture for Band is a level six, wind band, piece that has been played and enjoyed by advanced high school and university bands. The scoring is dense and somewhat atypical, however. Jenkins includes a sting bass, a cello, three baritone parts, three flute parts, and four clarinet and trombone parts. Jenkins includes the string bass part because is important to the texture of the piece. The tuba cues, like all the cues in the piece, are “safety doublings” and “should be played only…

There is a tight relationship that still exists between instrumental music and the influence of vocal behaviour on musical expression. Music notation helps you to judge the landscape of a particular song by using various dynamics and expressive techniques directed in the musical notation and this may help to specify with what kind of voice you should be using, what particular pitch you should be singing in and also provides you with the tempo. Early, intensive,…

Pop songs today are laid out in similar ways: verse, chorus, verse 2, chorus, verse 3, chorus. Because of their repetition, choruses usually make up what we see as the “core” of a song. When one thinks of “Rude” by Magic, do they think of the chorus or the verses? What about “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire? We generally think of songs like these as having a “normal” song structure. In fact, very few pop songs go against this grain, with most of the few examples of this not actually being pop songs.…

The courante (“running” or “flowing”) was a French dance whose choreography included bending the knee on the upbeat or offbeat and rising on the beat, often followed by a step or glide. The music is in moderate triple or compound meter and always begins with an upbeat. In many courantes, including the two in this suite, the meter shifts back and forth between 3/2 and 6/4, sometimes with different voices simultaneously implying different meters. Although the composer included two courantes in…

A choice has been made to pick this delicate instrument, a weapon of my choice—the violin. Carefully, one removes the seals from the case it has been resting in—it made a soft clicking sound like the locks from a prisoner’s cage. The case opens slowly revealing what was inside of it. The instrument patiently waits for its master as it lays on its furry navy blue bed. Silence filled the room as each one stare at each other and talk with their amazed eyes. The violin was glistening with beauty;…

I, Randy Rivas, attended a performance with two separate chamber groups and a soloist. One of the chamber groups was Christine S. Lopez and Sung Ae Lee both performing on piano, the other was Paul Da Silva playing piano and Manon Robertshaw on cello, and lastly Sung Ae Lee doing a solo performance. This was performed at Cerritos College in the music building at BC-51. It began at eleven in the morning on February twenty sixth. First musical performance was the piece of Muzio Clementi’s sonata in…

When watching the video of John Cage's 4 "33", I was first confused on what William Marx was doing. I watched the video several times, to gain my focus on what he was doing. Finally, I understood why he was just sitting there and not playing the piano. Truthfully others probably have thought the same thing that I did when I watched the composition. William Marx sat down and opened the top cover of piano and set a timer, he never struck a key on the keyboard through three different movements.…

No.1 Lonesome Town There are only three elements in this music: vocal, acoustic guitar, and the chorus. Because of there are only three elements, the stereo image builds on how wide and narrow the sound is instead of placing to the right or left location. However, I feel that the acoustic guitar is a little off to the left, and I hope that is not the problem of my hearing. The chorus is the widest sound that spread all over the left to right, and the distance of the sound is the farthest.…