MUSIC

UNIT 1

THE ORIGIN OF THE MUSIC AND THE MIDDLE AGES

The Origin of the Music, the Ancient World and Middle Ages.

Since remote, historical times, man has made music to express his feelings and to communicate with the force of nature.

The Ancient World

Since man’s first musical expression, music has developed greatly thanks to many civilizations that existed in the past. We know, for example, that the Ancient Egyptians sang and played instruments in their ceremonies and rituals. In Ancient Greece, the philosopher and mathematician Phytagorasdiscovered that music and mathematics are closely linked when he realized that the sounds on a musical scale are related arithmetically and he discovered the concept of harmony. The Romans also developed musical instruments for their large army soldiers.

The Middle Ages

Profane Music

In the Middle Ages, while religious music becoming more important in the monasteries and churches, a new kind of music was developing in villages, castles and palaces. This new music was not religious music, and people entertained themselves singing and dancing when minstrels and troubadoursbecame very popular.

The minstrels were not educated people, they sang by they didn’t know how to compose, so they interpreted the song that other people composed. They travelled from village to village and from castle to castle offering their repertoire and they were often accompanied by jesters and jugglers to make their representations more fun.

The troubadours were educated musicians from noble families that composed their own music. The 13th century Spanish king Alfonso X and the 12th century English Richard the Lionheart were also well-known troubadours.

Religious Music

People started writing in a very basic form in the Middle Ages. In monasteries the monks interpreted this music together and they all sang the same melody. This kind of music is known as Gregorian Chant which is a form of monophonic liturgical music named after Pope Gregory The Great. As the techniques for writing music improved, the monks organized their music on lines and created signs to represent the height of the sounds they had to sing. This way, the first stave was created by a monk called Hucbald. He wrote the first systematic work on western music. Another monk called Guido D’Arezzo gave each musical note a name.

Toward the 10th century, polyphonic singing, became popular. By the 12th century, composers were able to write their music with the same notes we know today.

Este video del grupo b-vocal pretende presentar de forma amena y divertida, a través de la voz, cómo ha sido la historia de la música a través de los tiempos.

UNIT 1 CONTENTS

Remember: 

·        Semibreve and semibreve rest last 4 beats

·        Minim and minim rest last 2 beats

·        Crotchet and crotchet rest last 1 beat

·        Quaver and quaver rest last ½ beat

·        Semiquaver and semiquaver rest last ¼ beat

The notes are symbols placed in the stave. The musical signs represent the length of the notes. The rest represent the pauses. A stave has five lines and four spaces. The treble clef is a sign placed at the beginning of a stave and shows us the position of the notes.

An anacrusa is the note or sequence of notes that precede the first downbeat in a bar. We can also call it the “pickup note”.

Music has been used for healing for centuries and it can help patients improve or keep themselves in good health. We call this Music Therapy because it combines all the elements of music: melody,harmony and rhythm.

Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep

KARAOKE 

Where's your momma gone

(where's your momma gone)
little baby Don
(little baby Don)
where's your momma gone
(where's your momma gone)
far far away far far awayayay...
Last night i heard my momma singing this song
ooh wee chirpy chirpy cheep cheep
woke up this morning and my momma was gone
ooh wee chirpy chirpy cheep cheep
chirpy chirpy cheep cheep chirp

UNIT 2

THE RENAISSANCE PERIOD

The Renaissance period was a cultural movement that spanned from the 15th century to the 16th century. It began in Italy and spread through Europe affecting European intellectual life. It got its name from the rediscovery of Greek and Roman literature and philosophy and the way they understood the world. At this time new social groups developed. Merchants and an upper middle class society grew in number and cities became larger and more populated. Thanks to their activities the aristocrats lost much of their importance in society.

Profane Music

During the Renaissance period, there were many new developments in music too. Polyphonic singing became popular an unlike the Middle Ages where music was confined to church, in the Renaissance period, kings, the noble class and anybody with enough money, often had their own music group to play and entertain them in their castles and homes. Families became rivals to see who had the best group of musicians. These small groups had a conductor, they classify their instruments together in families and they were the beginning of what would become known as an orchestra many years later.

One of the most popular musical forms in the Renaissance period was singing. People sang in many different ways, alone, in groups, accompanied by instruments or without a musical accompaniment which is known a capella.

Thanks to the invention of the printing press, these songs travelled all over Europe from hand to hand. This is what happened to the Madrigal form of singing. A Madrigal is a secular vocal music composition that originated in Italy during the 1520s and became popular amongst the young people. Polyphonic madrigals can be sung o capella or with a musical accompaniment.

Religious Music

Polyphonic religious music began at the end of the Middle Ages but singing techniques were developed and improved in the Renaissance period. Little by little, popular music influenced religious music and compositions were accompanied by instruments instead of being sung without a musical accompaniment. The organ and some wind instruments like the trumpet and the sackbut, which is a type of trombone, were the most common instruments in this period. Large choirs also became an important part of music in this period.

UNIT  2  CONTENTS

Remember:

The notes represent the pitch if a sound. We use music sings to represent how long a note is. Therest represent the pauses. A stave has five lines and four spaces. The treble clef is a sign placed at the beginning of a stave and shows us the position of the notes. We use an upright bar line to separate beats. The double bar line shows the end of a piece of music. The repetition marks tell us where we have to repeat a group of notes. Time signature is the indication at the beginning of the stave to regulate the beats and accents.

The musical scale is a fixed sequence of musical notes. They can be ascending (DO-RE-MI-FA-SOL-LA-SI) or descending (SI-LA-SOL-FA-MI-RE-DO)

The Ledger Lines or Additional Lines are small lines we write above or below the stave to situate the notes that are not written on it, because they are high or low ones. We also create spaces between additional lines when we write notes too.

Duration is the length of the long and short sounds. Rhythm and speed are related to this quality

Christmas Carol

Choreography

UNIT 3

THE BAROQUE PERIOD

The Baroque period gave us an artistic style that started in Italy in the 17th century and spread through most of Europe until the mille of the 18th century. During this time, unlike in the Renaissance period, the European population lost confident un many aspects of life, the fear or dead made people more religious and the clergy gained respect and importance once more.

Profane Music

We can say that modern music developed in the Baroque period. This is when monodic compositions were almost forgotten and the polyphonic forms took their place. Monody is a solo vocal style distinguished by having a single melody line and instrumental accompaniment.

Baroque music originated in Italy where heard the first operas at the beginning of the 17th century.

Opera is a musical genre that tells a story through action, scenery, singing and a musical accompaniment. The Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi wrote the first great operas. Orpheo was the first Opera and the first representation was in Venice .

The first Baroque operas, written for the nobles and influential members of society, told stories with tragic elements and were often based on mythological gods and heroes. Little by little, the general public became interested in this kind of music and special theatres were built to hold thousands of spectators. As time passed, a new kind of opera called Opera Bufa or Comic opera soon became popular.

In all the many different kinds of operas, the music had to be adapted to accompany the variety of situations that took place in each story. Music had to transmit sadness, anger, happiness, revenge and as a result, new musical techniques developed rapidly. The first orchestras appeared and the string instruments such as the violin, viola, cello and the double bass we organized into the group of bowed instruments we know today.

Religious Music

 During the baroque period polyphonic continued to be the most important musical form. However, due to the importance of opera, the clergy also decided to make changes and reform their music y creating the cantata and the oratory which consisted of vocal and instrumental parts to interpret religious texts. Some of the most important oratorios are the “Passions” that were composed for Holy Week and written by the most outstanding baroque composers Georg Friedrich Haendel and  Johann Sebastian Bach.

UNIT  3  CONTENTS

The repetition marks ( : )  or repetition dots are written at the end of a music score. It means that the piece or a part of it has to be repeated from the beginning. If they are written face to each other on the music score, you only have to repeat the passage between them.

The most common lengthen signs:

·        The DOT (.) is a sign that we write after a note to make it longer by half its value.

·        TIES (         ) are curved lines that join notes that are next to each other to make one continuous sound

·        PAUSE (   .   )  we can stop or lengthen a note. We can name it Fermata.

ETERNAL FLAME (BANGLES) with lyrics

UNIT 4

THE CLASSICAL PERIOD

The Classical Period appeared from the middle of 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century, between the Baroque and the Romantic period. During this period of time, the nobles and upper middle class achieved more power than in previous periods in history until finally, new political movements such as the French Revolution fought in favor of freedom and ended the absolutism where the monarch had the power to rule the country with no laws or legally organized opposition.

Profane Music

Music is this new period of freedom was also important. Composers created new musical forms and investigated new styles. The orchestra was consolidated as a musical group of forty musicians and a conductor. In the Classical Period, musicians developed a new musical form called “sonata” that consisted of three parts and was used in chamber music and music composed for orchestras.

One of the instrumental compositions written in the sonata form is the “symphony” witch also became popular in this period. A symphony is a composition for orchestra that is divided into four movements and where the first movement or introduction is always a sonata form. Also there were concerts for different instruments. here you can listen to some of them "Trumpet Concert Haydn", "Oboe concert Mozart", "Violin concert Mozart"

The Austrian Franz Joseph Haydn wrote as many as one hundred and four (104) symphonies which include “The Surprise”, “The Farewells”, “The Clock”, “ The Bear" or "The Hen”. Another Austrian composer, Wolfrang Amadeus Mozart is considered one of the most important in the history of music. Amongst his works we can find many of the best concerts, symphonies "Symphony nº 40" and operas "The magic flute". Beethoven is another composer from this period, but we are going to study he in the next period. Ludvig Van Beethoven first compositions were Classical Compositions, but at the end he was a Romantic Composer. He was between two periods, so we are going to talk about he in the Romantic Period.

Religious Music

In religious music, the composers in this period found their inspiration in the old oratorios and in the great Baroque composers such as Haendel. Both Haydn and Mozart, the two most important composers in the Classical period were inspired by his works. Mozart’s last composition “The Requiem Mass in D minor” was based on the Catholic text for funeral celebrations.

UNIT   4  CONTENTS

Intervals: An interval is the difference in pitch between two notes. They can be ascending (the second note is higher than the first one) or descending (the second note is lower than the first one) and are expressed as 2nd, 3rd, 4th and so on. We number them by counting them from the first to the last note.

The Do Major in Latin notation in known as the C Major in English notation. It is considered one of the most common and simplest keys because it has no sharps or flats. It is also called diatonic because it is formed of successive tone and semitone intervals. It is used as a reference for creating all scales. The distance in pitch or interval between any note3 and its closest neighbor is a tone or a semitone. (T-T-ST-T-T-T-ST).

UNIT 5

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD I

The period we know as the Romantic Period was a literary, artistic and intellectual movement that spanned from approximately 1820 to the end of the 19th century. It was a time or revolt against the aristocratic norms of the Classical Period and when people and their feelings became the significant par of the new artistic and expressive experiences.

Profane Music

The genius that opened the doors to the Romantic Period was the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, especially after composing the Symphony nº 3 also known as Eroica. Beethoven wrote this work when he was starting to go deaf and when he decided to describe his feelings as he wanted to and not follow the canonical forms or tastes of the time. With this work, Beethoven broke away from the characteristic sonata forms of the Classical period.

At this time in history there were already many different genres. For example, opera was very popular in Germany and Italy and these two countries, music changed in a different way. In Italy, they still based their music on Bel Canto with too many unnecessary vocal parts and a very simple orchestral accompaniment. In Germany however, the orchestra became more and more important in opera as we can see in the works composed by Richard Wagner.

Among the nobles and upper middle class, music played a very important part of life in the home. Musicians composed music for piano with and without a vocal accompaniment. The grand piano or upright piano was used at home to listen to music. A type of song called a Lied became popular. Normally lieder are composed for one single singer and a piano with a defined balance between the words and the music.

Franz Schubert was one of the most important composers of lid in this period.

Religious Music

Although in the early years of the Romantic Period, music for mass, the requiem or funeral compositions still existed, religious music began to lose its importance and at the end of this period, few musicians composed music for the church.

UNIT   5  CONTENTS

Remember

DYNAMICS: also called volume. Is one of the qualities of the sound, that differentiates the very loud sounds ( f) and the very soft sounds (p )

Dymanics marks or Performance Directions are indicators of the relative intensity or volume or a musical line. They tell us if a sound has to be played louder or softer. Look at the grid bellow and review the Italian words and their meaning.

Dynamic Abbreviations

The Italian Word

It means

pp

Pianissimo

Very Soft

p

Piano

Soft

mp

Mezzo Piano

Quite Soft

mf

Mezzo Forte

Quite Loud

f

Forte

Loud

ff

Fortissimo

Very Loud

ACCIDENTALS: Are musical signs that are written before the notes and they modify them by raising or lowering a note.

These signs are: Sharp (a) that higher a note a semitone, Flat (A ) that lower a note a semitone and Natural (N) that cancel previous accidentals.

ALL ABOUT THAT BASS - Megan Trainor with lyrics

UNIT 6

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD II

In the second half of the 19th century, many European countries were fighting for their independence and national cultural and political environment. As a result, most countries started to value and promote their own traditions and culture and this way, musical nationalism was developed.

Musical Nationalism

With musical nationalism, people started to appreciate the importance of their own traditional music and many composers started to include folklore melodies from their homeland in operas and instrumental pieces.  It is important to distinguish between the composers who created their compositions to their country’s characteristics and those who only occasionally included a traditional piece in their work. Amongst the composers we can call musical nationalists we can name Nicolai Rimski-Korsakov in Russia, Manuel de Falla in Spain. Both composers played an important part in the political developments for independence in their own country.

In this period, when great importance was given to a person’s freedom, music also changed and few people respected the barriers of the sonata form. In the same way as Beethoven has opened the doors to the Romantic Period, it was another German composer Richard Wagner who opened a new path in the classical music of the 20th century. Inspired by the legends and heroes of his own country, he became a pioneer in the development of the Language of Music and a master in using a Leitmotif is a musical term associated with a particular person, place or idea in the work.

This led to confrontations between two groups of composers and their followers; those you followedBeethoven’s romantic tradition and those who wanted to innovate and support Wagner’s new ideas.

The second half of the 19th century was also the golden age for classical ballet. This was thanks to the combination and work of great choreographers, dancers like Marius Petipá and composers such asPiotr Illich Tchaikovsky who composed “The Nutcracker Suite”

UNIT   6  CONTENTS

Remember:

The TEMPO: refers to the different speeds if the pieces we have to play. It is indicated by the Italian words that we write at the beginning or the piece.

MOVEMENT: is the degree of speed or slowness in an interpretation. We use Italian words to express these degrees of music as you can see in the grid below.

Very Slow and Slow

Walking Speed

Fast or Very Fast

Adagio

Andante

Allegro

Largo

Moderatto

Vivace

Lento

Allegreto

Presto – Prestissimo

The signs for changes in dynamic level show us the progressive change of a loud to a soft sound or viceversa. There are two types:

Crescendo:                     a steady increase in volume from soft to loud

Diminuendo:                 a steady decrease in sound from loud to soft

Copyright:  Feel the Music                        PEARSON                                         ALWAYS LEARNING

1 Uso de la flauta dulce.	2 Educación musical.	3 Proyecto PRIMARTIS.	4 Juego con los sonidos.
5 Sonidos mágicos 2.	6 Mágic Músic.	7 Diviértete con la música.	8 Canciones populares infantiles
9 La carabela musical.	10 Aprendo música.	11 La percusión escolar.	12 La orquesta, karoke...