Module 9 Music Terms

polytonality

Some composers wrote music in 2 or more keys at the same time

Swing

Swing was a type of popular music with jazz influences that was arranged for big bands. Duke Ellington was a popular figure in swing music. His "Take the A Train" is a good example of swing music.

Duke Ellington

was a popular figure in swing music. His "Take the A Train" is a good example of swing music.

Alban Berg (1885-1935)

Alban Berg, who was a student of Arnold Schoenberg, was born in Vienna. His father died when he was 15, leaving their family in financial crisis. But, with the help of his aunt, Berg was able to stay in school. Berg saw a newspaper ad placed by Schoenberg about taking composition lessons. Since Schoenberg knew that Berg was poor, he taught him for free for over a year. Berg did not compose many works during his lifetime. He is best-known for his opera Wozzeck.

Elements of Jazz

Melody, Rhythm, Improvisation

20th Century Characteristics

Rhythm, Melody, Harmony and Counterpoint, Timbre

Chance Music

Chance music, also called aleatory music, is music in which the sounds are partly or entirely the result of chance. In chance music, composers choose pitches, tone colors, and rhythms by random methods. They may ask the performers to choose the order of the musical material, or even to choose much of the material itself. For example, a composer might write out brief passages of a composition but ask the performer to play them in any desired order. Or a composer might indicate a group of pitches but direct the performer to invent rhythmic patterns.

Impressionism and Post-Romanticism

Composers were looking for ways to change the typical romantic music that existed. Two styles that were used at the end of the Romantic period going into the 20th century were Impressionism and Post-Romanticism.

Electronic Music

Electronic music started becoming popular in the 60's, when electronics themselves came down in price enough that people could actually start affording them. There are two kinds of electronic music. The first is called musique concrete, which is where music is created through sound effects, like human speech, the buzzing of an insect, the soothing sound of water running, etc. These sounds are recorded by the composer and then spliced together in different orders. The other type of electronic music consists of sounds produced on electronic equipment such as synthesizers and computers.

Characteristics of Impressionistic Music:

Lighter timbre and tone than the previous German Romantic music of Brahms and Wagner. The orchestra was smaller and the harp and flute are very prominent in Impressionistic music. Blurred rhythms. Metrical patterns in Impressionistic music is not easily felt. Non-traditional chords. Composers often added outside notes to a chord to give a particular tone color. Parallel motion of chords. (play example) Weaker tonal center. Although these works are not really considered atonal, it is often hard to tell what the key center is in certain passages. Composers often used whole tone scales instead of traditional scales (play: C D E F# G# A# C)

Louis Armstrong

One famous example of Dixieland music was "Come back, Sweet Papa." This original tune was played and recorded by many different people, which means that it might sound 50 different ways depending on how the musician improvised with it. Louis Armstrong recorded this tune with his Hot Five in Chicago on Feb. 22, 1926. Armstrong plays the cornet

John Adams (b. 1947

One of the American composers of Minimalist music was John Adams (b. 1947). One of his more famous minimalist works is Short Ride in a Fast Machine, written in 1986 for orchestra and 2 synthesizers. The work is characterized by the repetition of rhythmic motives, which mutate as the music moves along.

Prokofiev's Classical Symphony

One of the composers that wrote Neoclassical music was Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. He composed his Classical Symphony Op. 25 based on the styles of Haydn and Mozart. Unlike romantic works of the previous era, he sought to compose a symphony which was short in length (like Classical symphonies), for small orchestra (not like the orchestras from the romantic period on), he used the types of themes found in Classical music, and the music followed traditional classical forms.

Post-Romanticism

Post-Romanticism was the belief that what came before it was not big enough and things needed to be even bigger and more grandiose.

Dixieland

The predominate type of jazz in the 1920's was called Dixieland or New Orleans jazz. As the name suggests, it was developed in New Orleans. The bands usually consisted of 4 to 7 players and the music was usually in 2 beats per measure with a strong emphasis on the upbeat. Dixieland music was known for being loud and busy, with several musicians improvising at the same time

Rhythm

The rhythmic vocabulary of music expanded during the 20th century, with increased emphasis on irregularity and unpredictability. Composers broke away from regular metrical patterns. They felt free to mix meters, either by changing the time signature or by displacing the accents in the measure to make it feel like it is in a different time signature. Composers often used frequent meter changes within one piece or one movement. There is one place in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (which we will listen to in a later chapter) where the meter changes each measure. Not only were composers frequently changing meter, but they also used different kinds of time signatures that were not used, or at least not used much at all, before. There was much use of unequal meters such as 5/8, 7/8, and 8/8.

blue notes

which are notes in a major scales - usually third, fifth, or seventh - that are lowered one half step while the harmony remains in major. The result of the harmony keeping the "regular" notes and the melody changing the pitch down a half step results in a dissonance.

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

Benjamin Britten was an English composer. He was the son of a dental surgeon. He studied at the Royal College of Music and by the age of 22 he was earning a living as a composer. He immigrated to the US in 1939 for 3 years and then returned back to England.

Musical Styles in the first half of 20th century

The range of musical styles during the first half of the 20th century was vast. During the 20th century, differences among styles became so great that composers seemed to be using different musical languages, not just different dialects of the same language. Radical changes of style occurred even within the works of individual composers. This great variety of musical styles reflected the diversity of life during the early 20th century. More people were free to choose where to live, how to earn a living, and how to spend their time. The automobile, airplane, telephone, phonograph, movies, and radio all made the world more accessible and expanded the range of experiences. Just as a side note, remember that during the 20th century 2 world wars went on as well as other smaller conflicts. As you will come to see later, this will have a major effect on composers from this era. A wider range of music became available during this time. Composers drew inspiration from an enormous variety of sources, including folk and popular music, the music of Asia and Africa, and European art music from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. Elements of folk and popular music were often incorporated within personal styles. Composers were especially attracted to unconventional rhythms, sounds, and melodic patterns which deviated from traditional western music. Folk music was studied more systematically than before, partly because people could actually record the folk music from different cultures. One of the greatest 20th century composers, Bela Bartok, was also a leading scholar of the peasant music of his native Hungary and other parts of Eastern Europe. He used folk tunes from Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania for the basis of many of his pieces. Also, Stravinsky used folk songs from Russia in his music and Charles Ives (American composer) used American revival hymns, ragtime, and patriotic songs in his music. During the early 20th century, non-European music, such as Asia and African music, had a deep influence on the music of the Western culture. Before, romantic composers were not interested in this music. American jazz was another non-European influence on 20th century composers. Musicians were fascinated by its syncopated rhythms and improvisational quality, as well as by the unique tone colors of jazz bands. Unlike a string-dominated symphony orchestra, a jazz band emphasizes woodwinds, brass, and percussion. Many "classical" composers incorporated these jazz elements into their works. Composers were also influenced by musical styles of the past that were only revealed in the 20th century. There was a rediscovery of earlier masters such as Perotin and Machaut from the medieval period, Josquin DesPrez and Gesualdo from the Renaissance, and Purcell and Vivaldi from the baroque period. Some modern composers were inspired by this older music and used it as a basis for some of their music, but incorporated modern techniques to them.

total serialism

Composers began to take this idea of predetermination of pitches and apply them to other aspects of the music like rhythm, articulations, and dynamic levels.

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Aaron Copland was a leading American composers who was born in Brooklyn. His parents were Russian-Jewish immigrants. He composed nationalistic music and was a big part of the increase in concert music in America. Copland was commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra to compose a fanfare for the 1942-43 season. A fanfare is a short piece featuring brass instruments, usually associated with royalty. Copland wanted to compose a fanfare for the common people; people who struggled daily to lead useful, productive lives. From this came his Fanfare for the Common Man.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

Another important Mainstream composer was Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975). He was a Russian composer who spent most of is life in Russia during the control of the Communist regime. He was constantly getting in trouble with the Communist party for his compositions. In order to keep from getting sent to jail, he composed his 5th symphony to please the Communists. This has become one of his most famous works. He wrote a total of 15 symphonies, which is the most symphonies a composer has written since the Classical period.

Primitivism

Another movement that happened during the 20th century was primitivism which was music which evoked primitive power through insistent rhythms and percussive sounds. It was a fascination with the art and music of non-Western and non-literate societies. Primitivism did not really have a lasting impact on 20th century music, but one very famous piece of music came out of this movement: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

Eclecticism

Another type of music being composed was known as Eclecticism, which was the practice of combining the best features of several different styles of music.

Bela Bartok (1881-1945)

Bela Bartok was a Hungarian composer whose music was infused with the spirit of the east European folk song. His mother gave him his first lessons on the piano, an instrument which was important in his career; he taught piano at his alma mater, the Budapest Academy of Music from 1907-1934 and gave recitals throughout Europe. During the early 1900's, Bartok was influenced by the Hungarian nationalist movement and spent most of his free time in small villages recording peasant folk songs. He became an authority on peasant music, and his own music was profoundly influenced by it. Bartok was very much anti-Nazi and as a result immigrated to the US in 1940. He spent the last 5 years of his life in the US.

Harmony and Counterpoint

During the 20th century, composers began to use much more dissonant chords freely. By the early 20th century, the distinction between consonant and dissonant chords was abandoned. Chords were often written in 4ths, 5ths, and 2nds (play examples). Some composers wrote music in 2 or more keys at the same time, called polytonality. Charles Ives is a good example of this. A lot of his music uses familiar tunes, such as folk songs or hymns, where he plays the tune in two or more different keys simultaneously. In fact, when he began to learn how to play the piano, his father taught him how to play twinkle, twinkle, little star in two different keys a step apart at the same time. (play example). As stated before, composers were no longer confined to writing music in major or minor keys. Composers often used older church modes, used no tonal center at all, or used 12-tone technique for their pieces. Since less attention was given to harmony during this time, the amount of counterpoint increased (review).

Neoclassicism

From about 1920 to 1950, the music of many composers, including Igor Stravinsky and Paul Hindemith, reflected an artistic movement known as neoclassicism. Neoclassicism was a movement where composers sought to emulate techniques and flavor of those created in the Classical period. It was a reaction against romanticism and impressionism. Many composers modeled their music after Bach's music (although still called neoclassicism). Even though composers were using the forms and styles of the Classical period, many composers used these forms along with the new harmonic languages of the 20th century.

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Igor Stravinsky, a Russian composer, was a legendary figure. He influenced three generations of composers and other artists. He was friends with Picasso and T.S. Elliot and President John F. Kennedy honored him at a White House dinner in his 80th year. Stravinsky was born in Russia near St. Petersburg. He studied with Rimsky-Korsakov. In 1909, a director of Russian ballet named Sergei Diaghilev heard his music and then asked Stravinsky to orchestrate some piano pieces by Chopin as ballet music. In 1910, Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky to write an original balled called The Firebird which was very successful. A year later he wrote another ballet called Petrushka which was also an immediate success. When his third ballet, The Rite of Spring, premiered in Paris in 1913, a riot erupted in the audience - spectators were shocked and outraged by its pagan primitivism, harsh dissonance, percussiveness, and pounding rhythms - but it too was still recognized (later) as a masterpiece and influenced composers all over the world.

Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra

In 1943, while in a hospital in New York, Bartok received a commission for this work by Serge Koussevitsky, the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He finished the work in 6 weeks. This work is one of Bartok's biggest successes. It was premiered in 1944 and was an instant success. Though the melodies were created by Bartok himself, they have a distinct folk flavor. The intervals of 4ths and 5ths are frequently used in this work. He also employs use of frequent meter changes. The second movement, which we will listen to, is entitled Game of Pairs because it uses pairs of instruments playing melodic lines in parallel motion. For example, each set of instruments is paired off at specific intervals - the bassoons play a sixth apart, the flutes play in fifths, etc. The fourth movement uses a melody that has a Hungarian folk-like character, with use of a pentatonic scale (play example). The second melody sounds like a waltz, with an unbalanced character. This movement also uses frequent meter changes with unequal meters.

John Cage's HPSCHD

In 1969, John Cage, along with electronic composer Lejaren Hiller, composed a piece for harpsichord and computer called HPSCHD. Listen to the sounds produced by the combination of computer programming and splices of harpsichord music.

Melody

Jazz melodies are characterized by blue notes, which are notes in a major scales - usually third, fifth, or seventh - that are lowered one half step while the harmony remains in major. The result of the harmony keeping the "regular" notes and the melody changing the pitch down a half step results in a dissonance.

Minimalism

Minimalism is a reaction against the technical complexities and highly charged emotional works of the previous eras and movements (reactions against the complexity of twelve-tone music and the randomness of chance music). It was developed in the 1960's. The intent of minimalist composers was to see how little they could do in their music and yet create something satisfying to listen to. Minimalist music is characterized by steady pulse, clear tonality, and insistent repetition of short melodic patterns. Its dynamic level, texture, and harmony tended to stay constant for fairly long periods of time, creating a trancelike or hypnotic effect.

Expressionism

Much of the music from the 20th century reflects a movement called expressionism which emphasized subjected and disturbing emotion. This movement was largely centered in Germany and Austria from 1905 to 1925. Expressionist painters and composers explored inner feelings rather than depicting outward appearances. They used deliberate distortions to assault and shock their audience, to communicate the tensions and anguish of the human psyche. German expressionism painting was in part a reaction against French Impressionism, with its pleasant subjects, delicate pastel colors, and shimmering surfaces. The expressionist rejected conventional prettiness. Their works may seem "ugly" in their preoccupation with madness and death. They often used jarring colors and grotesquely distorted shapes. Expressionistic art also tends to be concerned with social protest. It often conveyed the anguish felt by the poor and oppressed. Many expressionists opposed World War I and used art to depict their horror of bloodshed.

Rhythm

Syncopation and rhythmic swing are two of the most distinctive features of jazz. In most jazz styles, the beat is provided by the percussionist and the bass player. There are usually four beats per measure (your book says 2). Accents often come on the weak beats. Jazz musicians create a swing feeling by playing a series of notes slightly uneven. Jazz musicians often deviate from the written rhythms on the page, since jazz rhythms can often be difficult to notate.

musique concrete

which is where music is created through sound effects, like human speech, the buzzing of an insect, the soothing sound of water running, etc. These sounds are recorded by the composer and then spliced together in different orders.

Concert Music Since 1920

After WW1, American music made great strides. With the greater economic and social prosperity, the American music scene flourished. There was a great influx of Europeans coming to America and bringing with them their musical training and heritage as well as an increase in the number of music schools and performance opportunities. Previously, many American composers had gone overseas to study, but now they didn't have to. Many of the middle and late 20th cent. Composers were schooled in the States. Also, there is the coming of the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts), which is a government funded patronage of the arts, which has helped, as well as a greater corporate support of the arts. Nationalism didn't make its mark in America until he 1930's to 1950's. Some of the American composers associated with this movement were Samuel Barber, Howard Hanson, Roy Harris, William Schuman, and especially Aaron Copland.

Wozzeck

Berg composed Wozzeck between the years of 1917-1921. The opera is a tragic story of a soldier, named Wozzeck, who is driven to murder and madness by a hostile society. He is obsessed by strange visions and is persecuted by his sadistic captain. He is used as a guinea pig by a half-demented doctor, and betrayed by the woman with whom he lives (she has been unfaithful), Marie. Wozzeck stabs Marie to death and drowns while trying to wash her blood from his hands. The opera's nightmarish atmosphere makes it reflect expressionistic painting and literature. Berg conveys the tensions and torments of the unconscious through harsh dissonances and grotesque distortions. The vocal line in Wozzeck includes a technique invented by Schoenberg called Sprechstimme, which is a vocal style that is a combination of speaking and singing. We will listen to Act III where Wozzeck and Marie are walking together by a pond. She is anxious to get back home, but he wants to sit and talk. They comment on the blood-red color of the moon in the sky. After kissing her, Wozzeck pulls out a knife and stabs her in the throat. Throughout the scene, one note is persistently heard. As Marie is stabbed, it is sounded over and over by the timpani. After this scene, Wozzeck goes to a tavern where he sees one of Marie's friends who notices blood on him and says she thinks it smells like human blood. He freaks out and leaves to go get rid of the knife. As he is losing his sanity, the moon and the water seem to turn into blood. He wades into the water to wash off the blood and ends up drowning. While he is drowning, the doctor and captain who had tormented him walk by and notice, but don't do anything about it. In the last scene, Wozzeck and Marie's child is told by some other children (while playing ring-around-the-rosie) that his mother is dead. The children run off to see the dead body and the child later follows and the opera just ends.

Improvisation

Improvisation is one of the key elements of jazz. Some jazz improvisations are based on a harmonic pattern or series of chords. This harmonic pattern will be repeated over and over while the improviser creates melodies above it.

20th Century Overview

In music, as in other arts, the early 20th century was a time of revolt. After 1900, there were more fundamental changes in the language of music than any time since the beginning of the baroque era. There were entirely new approaches to the organization of pitch and rhythm and a vast expansion in the vocabulary of sounds, especially in percussive sounds. Some compositions broke with tradition so much that they were met with violent hostility. For example, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (one of the pieces we will talk about later) caused such an uproar at its premiere that police had to be called in to calm people down and to stop fights that had broken out. From the late 1600's to about 1900, musical structure was governed by certain general principles. There were certain forms that were commonly used (e.g. - sonata form, minuet-trio, etc), harmonies were used in conventional ways, and almost all pieces were based around a tonal center. Since 1900, however, no single system has governed the organization of pitch (no longer is there one tonal center or even a tonal center at all). New ways of organizing pitch came along, such as twelve-tone technique, which we will talk about in a later chapter. Composers no longer stuck to using the traditional harmonies based on thirds. Sometimes composers used chords based on fourths and also often composers used chords which were not really even chords at all, but just a cluster of tones. In the past, there were general principles in the relationships of chords and tones which were followed. For example, a dominant chord was almost always followed by a tonic chord because that is where the ear wants to hear a resolution. Now, composers were not concerned about the traditional principles about which chords were supposed to resolve where.

Twelve Tone Music

In the early 1920's Arnold Schoenberg developed a system of organizing atonal music (music with no tonal center) called the twelve-tone system. In twelve-tone music, there is a basic tone row which is a pre-determined ordering of the twelve chromatic pitches (play example of chromatic scale). Each pitch can only be used once. After the composer sets up this basic prime row, the row is put in retrograde (read backwards) and inversion (all intervals reversed in opposite direction) and put in retrograde-inversion (backwards and all intervals reversed). After that, each row is transposed to the other 11 chromatic tones, giving a possibility of 48 different row forms the composer could use in a piece. This method allowed composers to write atonal music with absolutely no perceived tonal center since each of the chromatic tones are half steps and since no note is repeated in a row there are no tones that are emphasized more than others. The following picture is a matrix, which shows all the possibilities of one twelve tone row

American John Cage (1912-1992)

The most famous and influential creator of chance music was the American John Cage (1912-1992). He composed a work entitled 4'33" in 1952 which requires the performer to not make a sound for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. The "music" is made up of the unintentional sounds that an audience might produce in this time span. He also wrote a piece called Imaginary Landscape in which 12 radios are used. The performer manipulates the dials on the radios to different wavelengths and volumes to produce the "music." The following video is a piece written by John Cage for "prepared piano." Pieces for prepared piano are written for a piano that has its sound altered by placing various objects (nuts, bolts, screws, rubber, etc) between or on the strings or hammers. Placing these objects inside the piano produces a different sound or timbre for each note. This technique is typically done on a grand piano because the strings are more readily accessible. The example below, which is a portion of John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes, was inspired by Indian and Hindu music. This recording is particularly interesting because it shows the performer preparing the piano and the accompanying instructions for doing so in the score.

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)

Schoenberg was born in Vienna and was an almost entirely self-taught musician. He taught himself by studying scores, playing in amateur chamber groups, and going to concerts. After he lost his job as a bank clerk at the age of 21, he devoted himself to music. In 1904, he began to teach music theory and composition in Vienna. He taught and inspired two other important 20th century composers - Anton Webern and Alban Berg. Schoenberg invented the twelve-tone system and began using it in his compositions in 1923. After the Nazi's seized power in Germany, Schoenberg, who was Jewish, was dismissed from his teaching post; he came to the US in the same year (1933), where he joined the music faculty of the University of California in Los Angeles.

American Music Before 1920

The Europeans did not arrive to American until the early 1600's. Since obviously they were concerned about who would win the land claims and developing a country, there was not much concern for the arts (which is why most of our study has been music in Europe up until this point). The Puritan settlers did not really believe in the arts. Some of them actually thought that it was of the devil. The only permitted songs were those of church and even then many didn't have any instrumental accompaniment, only voices. Most of the music that existed in America in the 18th century was folk music and church music. Patriotic music became prevalent in the 1800's. Many tunes were taken from other countries and had the texts rewritten to make them patriotic. The Star Spangled Banner actually started out as an English drinking song. An American lawyer, Francis Scott Key, wrote the words to the Star Spangled Banner. By the early 20th century, other styles of music were starting to creep in, especially band music. Many towns had a bandstand in the town square where groups would perform. This was the beginning of the wind band movement.

Melody

The new techniques of pitch organization had a strong impact on melodies. Melody was no longer tied to traditional chords or to major and minor keys. It could be based on a variety of scales, or it could freely use all 12 chromatic tones (play example). Melody in the 20th century often contains wide leaps that are difficult to sing, often with no tonal center. They are no regular and symmetrical in length like in previous eras, where a phrase with 4 measures was usually followed by another phrase in 4 measures.

The Rite of Spring

The orchestra required for this work was enormous, including 8 horns, 4 tubas, and a very important percussion section made up of 5 timpani, bass drum, tambourine, tam-tam, antique cymbals, and a guiro (a notched gourd scraped with a stick). The melodies of The Rite of Spring are folk-like. Like ancient Russian folk tunes, they have narrow ranges and are made up of fragments that are repeated with slight changes in rhythm and pitch. This melodic and harmonic repetition gives the music a ritualistic, hypnotic quality. The idea for The Rite of Spring came to Stravinsky as a "fleeting vision" when he was composing The Firebird in 1910. "I saw in imagination a solemn pagan rite: wise elders, seated in a circle, watching a young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing her to propitiate the god of spring." The following video begins with the opening dance to The Rite of Spring

Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun

This orchestral work is based off a poem by Stephane Mallarme. The poem evokes dreams and erotic fantasies of a pagan forest creature who is half man, half goat. While played a long solo on his flute, the intoxicated faun tries to recall whether he actually carried off two beautiful nymphs or only dreamed of doing so. Exhausted by the effort, he falls back to sleep in the sunshine.

Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra

Variations for Orchestra was one of Schoenberg's twelve-tone pieces. It consists of an introduction, a theme, 9 variations on that theme, and a finale. This piece uses a very common motive called the BACH motive (Bb A C B). 12-tone composers often used this motive in their music. Listen to the first couple of minutes of the following video, which is the second half of Variations for Orchestra.

Blues

is a type of song associated with African Americans in which a solo singer sings about some hardship; the usual form of the blues is a a b. Blues grew out of African American folk music, such as work songs and spirituals. One of the best known blues singers was Bessie Smith. We will listen to her "Lost Your Head Blues" from 1926.

Mainstream music

is considered 20th century music that is neither experimental nor committed to a particular compositional viewpoint. These works were not traditional works like works from the 19th century, but they weren't committed to a particular style like 12-tone works or primitivism. Some of the composers that fall under this category are Bela Bartok, Benjamin Britten, and Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Ragtime

was a style of piano music developed primarily by black pianists who played in southern and Midwestern saloons and dance halls. It is usually in duple meter (2/4) and performed at a moderate march tempo. This type of music existed between 1890 to about 1920. Scott Joplin was known as the "king of ragtime" and composed the famous Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer.

Impressionism

was an artistic viewpoint that emphasized overall impressions rather than detailed observations. Look at the picture on pg. 233. You can tell what the picture is supposed to represent, but the overall picture is blurry and muted and there is not a lot of clear detail to it. In 1874, a group of French painters including Claude Monet had an exhibition in Paris. One of Monet's paintings entitled Impression: Sunrise, which was a misty scene of boats in port, particularly annoyed one art critic who wrote "Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape." Using Monet's title, the critic mockingly called the entire art exhibit "the exhibition of the impressionists." The term impressionist stuck. Impressionistic painters were concerned primarily with effects of light, color, and atmosphere. Up close some of these paintings look like a formless painting, but from a distance the brush strokes blend into a recognizable form. Composers sought to imitate this impressionistic view in music through tone color, atmosphere, and fluidity. The leading Impressionistic composer was Claude Debussy.

John Philip Sousa (1854-1932)

was born to immigrant parents in Washington D.C. He had a musical background, performing as a violinist in a theater orchestra. In 1880, he began his career as the conductor of the Marine band. He later left that to form his own band, which he took touring around the country. He helped develop the sousaphone (marching tuba) and wrote many marches that are patriotic in nature. He is affectionately known as "The March King." One of Sousa's most famous marches is The Stars and Stripes Forever. This march is played often for July 4th events,

Sprechstimme

which is a vocal style that is a combination of speaking and singing.

Charles Ives (1874-1954)

Charles Ives was an American composer who was born in Danbury, Connecticut. His father was a bandmaster who loved to experiment with unusual sounds. Ives studied composition at Yale University. After graduating, he entered into the insurance business and eventually became very wealthy from it. He composed a lot of music after business hours and on the weekends. He had a prolific amount of compositions which just sat around not being published (no one knew who he was). It wasn't until later in his life that he started having his compositions published and became known as a great (or the first great) American composer. Ives's music was very experimental. His works are rooted in folk songs, hymns, and patriotic music. A lot of his music was polytonal, music which had two or more tonal centers. In his first piano lesson with his dad, he taught him how to play twinkle, twinkle little star in two different keys at the same time. His Symphony No.2 was written between 1897-1901. It is written in 5 movements. The 5th movement uses an American folk song and patriotic songs. The songs quoted in this movement are "Camptown Races" "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean," a fragment of "Reville" (bugle call), and another song that sounds a lot like "Old Black Joe."

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Claude Debussy was a French Impressionistic composer who lived in both the romantic and 20th century eras. He studied at the Paris Conservatory from the age of 11 to 22 years old. His professors got frustrated with Debussy because he did not want to use the traditional techniques that were being taught. Debussy's music was often inspired by literary and pictorial ideas and his music sounds free and spontaneous. Tone color gets unprecedented attention in his works; they have a sensuous, beautiful sound. The entire orchestra rarely plays all together to produce a massive sound; instead, there are brief and frequent solos. Woodwinds are prominent and strings and brasses are often muted. "Clair de Lune" which means "moonlight" in English, is perhaps Debussy's most famous piece for piano.

Timbre

Composers in the 20th century sought to get new sounds in their music. Some took traditional instruments and sought to find new ways to make them sound different. For example, in some 20th century flute music, instead of just playing different notes and rhythms like before, composers used things like key clicks, multiphonics (producing 2 tones at once), and singing while playing to get different sounds out of the flute. Also, composers used electronic sounds from synthesizers and computers in their music..

Varese's Poeme Electronique

Edgard Varese, a French composer who spend most of his life in the US, wrote a piece of electronic music called Poeme Electronique in 1958 for the Brussels World Fair. A Swiss architect designed a sequence of colored lights and images to be projected on the interior walls of the pavilion while Varese's music was being played through 425 loudspeakers. Each speaker was playing different parts of the music, so the order of the music heard for each audience member was left up to chance according to which part of the pavilion they were walking in.

Jazz

Jazz was developed in the United States in the early 20th century. It was created by musicians- predominately African Americans - performing in the streets, bars, and dance halls of New Orleans and other southern cities. Jazz can be described as music rooted in improvisation and characterized by syncopated rhythm and a steady beat. The tern jazz didn't became current until 1917, but the music itself was probably heard as early as 1900. At first it only existed in performance- it wasn't written down - so we really don't know how the first jazz music sounded. The first jazz recording was in 1917 by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Jazz started in places like New Orleans, then spread to Chicago, Kansas City, and New York, but today it can pretty much be heard world-wide. In its beginning, jazz was condemned because of its emphasis on sexuality, but it has since become respectable. Early jazz blended elements from many musical cultures, particularly west African, American, and European. West African influences included an emphasis on improvisation, drumming, percussive sounds, and complex rhythms. American influences included hymns, popular songs, folk tunes, dances, and the American band tradition which all had an influence on jazz. Many marching band instruments were used in early jazz bands, and band music helped shaped the forms and rhythms of early jazz. Along with band music, the immediate sources of jazz were ragtime and blues.

New Sounds and Techniques

Musical innovations in the later half of the 20th century were even more far-reaching than the first half. There was an increased used in the twelve-tone technique, serialism, chance music, and electronic music. Many composers began to adopt the twelve-tone technique after World War II. Composers began to take this idea of predetermination of pitches and apply them to other aspects of the music like rhythm, articulations, and dynamic levels. This was referred to as total serialism

Extended Techniques

Now, more than ever, composers began exploring new instrumental techniques, trying to stretch the limit of what sounds could be produced from traditional instruments. For example, flute music in the 20th century sometimes required key clicks (hitting the keys hard enough to produce a percussive sound), singing and playing simultaneously, multi-phonics (using special fingerings to produce two pitches at the same time), and whistle tones (blowing lightly across the embouchure hole to produce a whistling sound similar to the sound of a tea kettle). These "extended techniques" opened up many possibilities to the different timbres an instrument could produce.

Britten's War Requiem

Perhaps one of Britten's most famous works is his War Requiem. He was commissioned to write this work after the cathedral of Saint Michael was rebuilt after being ruined by being bombed during World War II. They played this work at the dedication of the new cathedral. It is a requiem, which is the traditional Mass for the dead. It is written in the traditional Latin, as well as sections from antiwar poems in English. The work is divided into 6 movements and is dedicated to four of Britten's friends who died in World War II. The work uses orchestra, chorus, boys choir, and three soloists. The second movement, the Dies Irae, uses asymmetrical meter (the measures have 7 beats per measure) and dissonance.

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer who wrote not only orchestral music, but much music for the piano. His parents were both amateur pianists and his mother was his first piano teacher. He studied at the conservatories in St. Petersburg and also Moscow. He was known as a very gifted pianist and composer. He immigrated to the US in 1917. His work Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is one of his most famous piano works (for piano and orchestra). It is based on a theme written by virtuoso violinist Paganini. The theme is played followed by a set of 24 variations. The following is the 18th variation.