Lesson 3 Music in the 14th Century

Lesson 3 - Music in the 14^th Century

Part I France: The Ars Nova

"Ars Nova" translates to "New Art"  Meaning that composers consciously knew the music they were composing was completely different than what had been happening prior.  There was a devotion particularly to the following:

• An increased use of the minim and semiminim
• The legitimization of duple meter as fully equal to triple
• Imperfection by notes of more remote values instead of notes of the next shorter value.
• the use of red ink. (for example, a note in red ink was understood as having two-thirds  the duration of a note of the same value written in black ink

Part II - Polyphonic settings of the Mass Ordinary

There was a shift in the 14^th Century from composing full settings of the Mass Ordinary to composing only single movements, or pairs of movements.

Part III - Secular song

By the middle of the 14^th Century, the Formes Fixes--Literally "fixed formes," or structural patterns had established themselves as the most important varieties of secular song in France.  These forms are:

• The Ballade
• The Virelai
• The Rondeau

First the Ballade consists of seven or eight strophes (or lines) of text, the last of which is a refrain.

Second, the Virelai follows this pattern: abbaA. The refrain is sung at the beginning and at the end of each line.  

Lastly, the rondeau consists of eight lines of text set to the following scheme: ABaAabAB

Part IV - Secular song in Italy

The Trecento was the Italian equivalent of the French Ars Nova.  All of the same song styles manifested in Italy as did in France.  

•The Ballata is equivalent to the French virelai (Structurally these two forms are exactly the same)

•The Ritornello is a form that consists of two strophes each of three lines with a two line ritornello at the end of each line.  Meaning that the same two lines appeared ad the end of each stroph of text.  A refrain, if you will.

•The caccia takes its name from its root word meaning chase.  This form deals with hunting, running, chasing, and the like.

Lesson 2 Polyphony to 1300

Part I - Organum

The earliest known examples of polyphonic compositions were based on existing plainchant.  Organum is the addition of one or two more voices to the original chant line.  These added voices run in parallel motion to the original voice.  There are several manifestations of organum.  The first is parallel organum, in that the added voice sings the same line as the original voice at the interval of a fourth or fifth above or below.

Notice how the added line (the lower voice) stays away from the principal line at the interval of a fifth throughout the passage.  This is called parallel organum.  

Here is an example of our part organum.  Notice how the voices all sing in parallel motion to the principal line:

Part II - Innovations in organum

More elaborate organum eventually became more popular once people discovered that the second voice did not have to imitate the principal voice exactly.  This is an example of four part organum where the added voices do not imitate the principal voice exactly.

After the invent of organum, composers began to mix the two types of composition (plainchant and organum).

The Clausula is an excerpt of organum at the end of a section of plainchant. These were usually placed on the end of a text to give certain text more importance.

Part III - Innovations in notation

By the middle of the 13th century, the notation systems needed to take into account note durations as well as pitches.  Thus several new notation styles were devised.  The first we will discuss is Franconian Notation.  This notation style devised the Long (equivalent to a dotted half note), the Breve (equivalent to a quarter note) and the semibreve (equivalent to an eighth note) Among others:

Lesson 1 Plainchant and monophony

Plainchant and Secular Monophony

Part I -  The Emergence of Plainchant

Often called Gregorian chant by its supposed creator, Pope Gregory I (590-604).  Plainchant continued to develop long after his death.  Plainchant is heavily linked to the Mass and the texts of the Christian worship services.  

Plainchant notation looked very different from what we know as standard notation today.  As evidenced in this excerpt:

Notation of plainchant varied greatly from region to region.  As seen here, there was no standard notation practice. 

Part II - The Elements of Plainchant

Plainchant is pure melody with no harmony, accompaniment, or added voices.  In other words, all voices sing the same one line in unison.  

There are five key elements to understand plainchant:

• Liturgical function
• The relationship of words and music
• Mode
• Melodic Structure
• Rhythm

First of all, All chants were sung during the Christian Mass, there are five main chants that are sung during every Mass, They are:

1. Kyrie
2. Gloria
3. Credo
4. Sanctus
5. Agnus Dei

These five Mass parts make up every service and are found in every Mass.  Every other part, such as the Sequence, Offertory Psalm, and Lord's Prayer, are only sung during special services, such as Easter or Christmas Mass.

The relationship of words and music, is inseparable.  Back in the early days of music, it was believed that all of the parts of the Mass were to be sung in order for the prayers to be heard by God.  

There are  three basic types of plainchant, Syllabic, Neumatic, and Melismatic.  These three types served three very different functions as well.  Syllabic plainchant is that were each syllable would have a separate note.  Notice how every syllable is on a seperate note in the chant.  This is for punctuating and articulating the importance of a text.

 Here is a neumatic chant, where some syllables are punctuates with seperate notes and others are drawn out for effect

Finally, here is a Melismatic chant, where each syllable would be drawn out over several notes.

 Part III - Secular music

With all of the Music of the day being sung only during the mass and only in Latin, people began to take the melodies of the chants they heard during Mass and set their own words to them. These songs were not sung in Latin, but in the tongue of the people.  Whereas all of the songs for the Mass regardless of in what country they were sung were in latin, a secular song would be in the tongue of the people, but used the same melodies as the chants from the Church.

Lesson 47 Avant-Garde and Electronic music

Lesson 47 - Avant-Garde and electronic music

Part I - The Avant-Garde Period

Avant-Garde composers sought to redefine the parameters of music in bold new ways.  The Avant-Garde period pieces contained a large element of chance.  At about this time, electronic means of producing sound became possible.  Composers sought to use these new means of creating sound in bold new ways.

Part II - Aleatoric Music

Pieces in this style would almost guarantee never having a repeat performance.  The most famous Aleatoric piece would be John Cage's "4:33"  Where all of the windows in the concert hall were opened and the piece consisted of the atmospheric sounds of every day life that happened during those four minutes and thirty-three seconds of the piece.  

here is the score for 4'33"

"Tacet" is an instruction for performers to remain silent for a section of music.

As can be seen, there are actually movements.  

Another famous Aleatoric piece is Terry Riley's "In C."  This piece consists of fifty-three snippets of music.  Each member of an ensemble would pitch which snippet they wanted to play, and would repeat that figure for however long they desire.  Then the performer would choose another figure and repeat that for however long they choose.  The piece is over once the conductor chooses.   The best part of the piece is that there is a very slim chance of a repeat performance given all of the liberties the performers have with the performance of the piece.

Part III - A Brief History of Electronic instruments.

The use of electronics as a means of composition has been around since the early 1900s, however the first music producing computer, caled the Telharmonium was the first synthesizer.  It was however, not exactly portable.  It weighed two hundred tons, and had to be transported by thirty railroad cars! Fortunately, as technology improved, the electronics got smaller and smaller.  The Moog modular synthesizer gave composers a chance to create their own sounds for pieces.

The Moog modular synthesizer.

Minimoog synthesizer.

Part IV - Electroacoustic Music

Electronic and electroacoustic music is defined as music that uses electronics to create sounds and music.  Once sounds are created, they are often mixed together using programs such as ProTools.  

Often, instruments play an excerpt and a computer records that sound then plays it back distorted in some way (time, register, etc.)

Lesson 46 Minimalism and Rhythmic techniques

Lesson 46 - Minimalism and Rhythmic Techniques

Part I - Minimalism

Minimalism is a technique inspired by the techniques of Indian music.  Composers if the latter half of the twentieth century developed a style of music that uses a very limited rhythmic source material. Minimalist music takes a brief melodic motif.  Often only three or four measures in length as its starting point.  Over time, the composition takes this brief rhythmic motif and gradually evolves and modulates it over time.

Part II - Twentieth Century Rhythmic Techniques

Composers of the Twentieth Century developed a wide variety of techniques dealing with the element of rhythm.  They did so by using irregular meters, multiple simultaneous meters, frequent changing meters, or even use of no meter at all.

Part III - Metric Modulation

This process creates the illusion of tempo changes through the use of meter change, or which subdivision of the beat gets the  downbeat.

New lessons!

Being as we're almost at the end of the Music Theory lessons, and I have all of the Form and analysis lessons finished. I would like to start on Counterpoint again, and also undertake Music History.  Although the history of music is Dense and I am unsure if I would be able to fit everything in two pages or less (like I've been trying to do with all of the other lessons).

Once I'm done with Theory, I'll also finish the Audio engineering lessons and start on Synthesis of sound again as well.

Thank you all for reading!

Lesson 45 Serialism

Lesson 45 - Serialism

Part I Twelve-Tone Technique

The goal of Twelve-tone compositions is to give each pitch Equal importance.  In other words to destroy the Dominant-Tonic relationship.
In order to compose a twelve-tone piece, one must first make a series of compositional choices.  Prior to writing a piece, a composer creates a specific order in which the twelve pitch classes will be used (C-B chromatic scale).

Part II - The Tone Row

In order to compose a Serial piece, the composer must first construct a tone row.  The tone row must use all pitches in a chromatic scale, but they may occur in any order.  Here is a row from Schoenberg's Op.25 "Intermezzo." 

 The pitches in the preceding figure are numbered in the order that they appear in the piece.

Part III - the Matrix

THe original version of the matrix is known as the prime row, Shown here is an example of a prime row:

 Of course, the pitches can occur in any order
To build the Inverted row (The vertical rows), there are two methods.
1.  Invert the intervals from pitch to pitch (E to G is a m3 up: a m3rd down from E is C#)
2.  Invert the intervals as such: F to G is a M2nd up: a M2nd down from E flat is D flat)
Here is the completed prime inverted row:

                                         RI⁰
1. The Rows from left to right are called the Prime rows
2. The Rows from right to left are called the Retrograde (backwards) rows
3. The Columns from top to bottom are called the Inversion rows
4. The Columns from bottom to top are called the retrograde inversion rows.
The Vertical rows (from bottom to top are called the retrograde inversion rows (meaning the Backwards inverted prime rows)


The next step is to assign names to all of the rows.

Before analyzing Twelve-tone music, you must first complete a matrix as I have done above.  This is the matrix for Schoenberg's Op.25.

Part IV - Analyzing Twelve-tone Music.

After determining the tone row and completing the matrix for a composition, you can analyze the composition.Simply determine what row is being used and write the name of that row.  For example, R⁷, or P³. Once all rows are represented, a piece is complete.

Part V - Total Serialization

This technique involves creating a second matrix for the duration and dynamics of the notes as well as a matrix for the order of the notes.  

A total Serialization matrix would look similar to this:

The idea of serializing the pitch component of a piece led to later composers serializing other elements of their music, such as duration of notes and manner of attack.