Tonality

Throughout the timeline of Music, There has been many different genres and styles created by Musicians, throughout this timeline we received the 20th Century genre of Impressionism. The genre focuses on conveying emotions and moods behind a pacific event or a reflection on how the composer is feeling, an example of Impressionism genre that gives the audience the feel of emotion is Krzytof Penderecki’s Impressionism piece Thernody for the Victims of Hiroshima, which he has transformed the…

Gamelan Music (Gam-a-lawn) is the traditional ensemble music of the islands of Java and Bali in Indonesia. These ensembles consist largely of percussive instruments. With different variations of gongs, mallet instruments, and drums, each instrument is struck with a mallet to produce a metallic/percussive sound. Each Gamelan Ensemble has a different style and can incorporate different percussive instruments, string instruments, and voice. This gives each Gamelan a unique texture. Gamelans…

In life President John Adams was a man of revolving dichotomies, often revered for his statue of part of the ‘trinity’ that were the founding father, while also reviled for his hard nosed opinions and his practices in his single term as president (1797-1801). However, John Adams holds one of the most important places in the history of the United States. As one of the authors of the Declaration of Independence - he was the delegate who introduced it to the other colonial representative -he…

Romantic music, starting in the 1800s, goes into a thematic transformation. Composers like Chopin and Schubert are popular during this time, and new forms such as cyclic and strophic arise. The Baroque music period focused mainly on the idea of tonality. Composers began to use new instrumentation techniques and established such genres as opera, oratorio, concerto and sonata. Polyphony was the most popular texture, and the chromatic scale was used. The harpsichord was the dominating instrument of…

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…

Immigration in America was at full force in the early twentieth century, and Zangwill’s play “The Melting Pot” (1908) along with Kallen’s essay (1915), present two different views and perspectives on the matter. These two important pieces support two different theories for American immigration, “the melting pot”, supported and made popular by Zangwill’s play, and cultural pluralism, promoted by Kallen. “The Melting Pot” supports a sense of assimilation and Americanization by European immigrants.…

Theory and harmony In order to play your music, jazz performer needs to have a series of theoretical and harmonic knowledge that is often the result of a long period of self-whether training in schools is a jazz or practical experience in jam sessions. The basic theory in jazz theory begins with the formation of intervals and triads that derives from it, and their inputs. The major scale and its seven modes-the Ionic, Doric, Phrygian, Lydian , Mixolydian, wind and locrio- are also part of the…

displayed through the urgency of repetition of the motif, which also uses thematic unity. The tempo and dynamics in the piece change rapidly continuous use of accented notes. The use of chromaticism in woodwind sustained chords suggests ambiguous tonality which reflects the sturm and drang quality. Also, tremolando relates to the tempo change, extremes of register ascending and descending sequences the cello and double bass therefore, creating syncopated rhythms. Overall the rhythm is driving…

Through various viewpoints, overlapping timelines and embellishments manifested by the author, Maxine Hong-Kingston is able to examine female roles and their assimilation into Chinese/Chinese-American society and culture; an extensive projection of Kingston’s intimate past and selfhood. Within this memoir, Kingston attempts to resolve the complexity of her own identity, being a Chinese-American, as she continuously discovers her cultural roots and sorts their placement within her own life. In…

-Tuckman’s cycle In 1965, Bruce Tuckman, an educational psychologist, suggested that most groups go through four stages in group interactionas and described them as Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. He did this after he had observed many small groups in various environments and concluded that all groups went through certain "stages" before they became optimally effective. Name of stage | Description of stage and scenario | Forming | The first stage is forming; this is an…