Music is one of the most wonderful parts

Transcription

1 Elements of Music Elements of Music David took an harp and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him. I Samuel 16:23 The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved mov d with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice Music is one of the most wonderful parts of our lives. Few things give as much immediate satisfaction as does the hearing of a familiar, enjoyable piece of music. Something is deeply felt, something inner is touched. It s like eating a favorite meal without the calories. Few things can cause you to change your mind or feelings as quickly as music. You need only consider the effect of changing a CD or thumbing your ipod to see how quickly your mood can shift. An awareness of this power is not new. Leaders as far back as the Greeks were mindful of the effects of music on a person. Plato even went so far as to say that the masses should not have free access to music because when they heard it they couldn t control themselves. (Give that a serious moment of thought and you agree with him.) While listening to music they might get carried away and forget what they were doing. They might even lose their ability to resist doing something which they had previously said they would not do, because music had the ability

2 to suspend their will power. Sound familiar? Keeping that in mind, let s look a bit deeper. At its most basic music consists of two things: pitch and time. When something vibrates it creates a sound or tone. Pitch is the highness or lowness of this sound. This highness or lowness is determined by the number of vibrations per second. The human ear is able to discern sound at rates of from 35 to 17,000 vibrations per second. Contrary to what the stereo salesman told you, a system that handles from 20 to 20,000 cps may be capable of reproducing the extremes at either end of the sound spectrum, but that is not what makes a good stereo system. These sounds are beyond the range of the human ear. At the low end they become simply sensations of movement. Rather than hearing, you feel the deep bass from a good woofer. And even though your CD player will play into the 19,000 range or higher, only your dog will appreciate it. When he starts to howl you ll know your system is indeed hitting a very high note. The faster the rate of vibration, the higher the pitch. The distance between the highest and lowest note an instrument is capable of playing is known as its range. A piano s range is from roughly 70 to 6000 vibrations per second, while the violin ranges from about 175 to 15,000. Other instruments have varying ranges but all remain within the audible spectrum. Pitch is measured in music through the use of the notation system. Notes are arranged on a set of five parallel lines called a staff. Notes are usually grouped into two broad categories by symbols known as clefs. Generally speaking higher notes are placed on a staff marked as the treble clef, while notes in the lower register are noted in the bass clef. Although these two symbols may look strange to our eye they are nonetheless simply letters of the alphabet: G and F. The treble or G clef is so named because the G seems to circle the second line on the staff, which is a G. The same is true for the F clef. Its two dots enclose or define the second line down, the F line. Another consideration of sound is timbre, or tone color. Timbre (tam-ber) is the result of overtones, certain tones which are set in motion when another pitch is created. Have you ever had something in your car start vibrating when your car reached a certain speed,

3 Elements of Music and then quit as soon as you exceeded this speed? These sympathetic vibrations also occur in music, and are what give each instrument its distinctive sound. It is through timbre that a trumpet sounds like a trumpet and not a piano or a flute or even the human voice, even though all may be playing the same pitch. Overtones are what give each of us a distinct voice. The bone structure in your sinuses is what is responsible for the overtone series which give your voice its unique character. It is also why you don t sound the same when you have a cold or when you pinch your nose your overtones change. THE ORCHESTRA An orchestra is a large group of performers. The instruments they play are traditionally grouped in four classes: strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion. STRINGS Members of the string family are generally played by drawing a bow across the strings, causing them to vibrate. The wooden box to which the strings are attached is no more than a resonator, a sound box, which amplifies the sound of the string. You can produce the same effect with your voice. Stand in any open space i.e., by the side of a road and sing a few notes. Next go home and try the same thing in a small room like your bedroom. Hear the difference? In an open area your voice (or instrument) sounds lost. It doesn t have anything to bounce off; there s nothing to give it some fullness. A closed space makes a better sound. That s why stages are built with a definite shape and

4 size to project sound. That s also why people like to sing in the shower. You sound so good! Today s professionals, instrumental or vocal, don t have to worry about the stage (most stadiums are not known for their acoustical excellence) because they use electronics to enhance the sound of their instrument or voice. All recordings have echo added by the recording technician. Other effects can be produced by altering the way a string is set in motion. Plucking the string is known as pizzicato. In his Symphonie Fantastique Berlioz created another effect by changing the way the strings were played. He wanted to create the eerie sound of skeletons dancing, so instructed his string players to turn over their bows and play with the wood. The string section, a remarkably agile and versatile choir, blends more readily into a homogeneous-sounding group than any other section of the orchestra. This section creates the sound that we associate with orchestras. When we think of an orchestra we re really thinking about the strings. VIOLIN Members of the violin family were developed in Italy in the late 16th century. Due to their superior sound, these instruments gradually replaced their predecessors, the viols, in the chamber ensembles and orchestras of Europe. String instruments are like good wine, they get better with age. The most expensive today were made in the 1500 s by Stradivarius in Italy. And although today s manufacturers have spent thousands of hours and dollars trying to chemically analyze what woods and glues he used, no one can duplicate his entire process. We don t know what the humidity was, the temperature, the age of the wood, etc., all of which combine to give his violins their unique sound (timbre). Today a Strad sells for more than a million and that assumes you can even find one for sale. The violin is the soprano voice of the string section. It is also physically the smallest. VIOLA The viola is the alto member of the string family. It is slightly larger than the violin,

5 Elements of Music and its thicker, longer strings result in a deeper, darker sounding tone. CELLO While the proper name of this instrument is the violoncello, it is commonly known as the cello. It is lower in range than the viola and is noted for its resonant, lyrical quality. Due to its size, it is played from a seated position, being held between the knees. DOUBLE BASS. This instrument, sometimes called the bass viol or contrabass, is the largest and lowest sounding member of the string family. It provides the darkly resonant foundation of the harmony. Often the string instruments are grouped together in an ensemble known as the string quartet. A string quartet is composed of two violins, a viola and a cello. The most rapid melody sections are given to the violins in a quartet since it is easier to manipulate string length on the smaller sized neck of that instrument than on either the cello or the viola. Yes, a bass is large WOODWINDS In the woodwind instruments, a column of air inside the instrument is set into vibration when the performer blows into the instrument. By opening and closing holes and keys running along the length of the instrument, the performer is able to change the length of the air column, thus producing a series of different pitches (since a longer column of air means a slower vibration cycle. The members of the woodwind choir can produce a wide variety of timbres. Originally all woodwind instruments were either made of wood or employed wood as a vibrator. Today many of the instruments (like the flute) are no longer made of wood; but the category is still useful in grouping the instruments according to timbre. Besides the general grouping of woodwind, they may also be subdivided into flutes, double reeds, and single reed instruments.

6 FLUTES FLUTE The flute, the most agile of the woodwinds, is the soprano voice of the woodwind section. The sound is produced by blowing across the tonehole, which sets the air column in the instrument into vibration, thus producing the tone. In its low register the flute sounds dark and somewhat breathy. The middle register has a smooth and velvety tone, while in its upper range the flute produces a bright and brilliant sound. Pitch is changed by either depressing the keys of the instrument in various combinations or through a process known as overblowing which is to increase the air flow into the flute causing a jump in octave. PICCOLO The word piccolo means little - it s a little flute. The tubing of the piccolo is one-half the length of the flute, thus producing tones an octave higher. The timbre of the instrument in its upper register is remarkably brilliant and piercing and can easily be heard through the mass of the orchestral sound. The piccolo is often made of wood rather than metal. a piccolo can be wood or metal Single Reeds CLARINET The clarinet is a single reed instrument with an extremely wide range. It looks like a stick of black wood. The clarinet is one of the newer members of the orchestra, being invented by Johann Christian Denner of Nuremberg, Germany, around the year 1700, almost two centuries after violins made their debut. Double Reeds OBOE The oboe is a double-reed instrument with a conical bore whose sound is produced by the vibration of air between two narrow reeds. While the oboe produces a rather nasal tone (think of the sound of a duck), in the hands of an accomplished musician, the sound can range from bright to mellow. Although its ancestry extends back to ancient Egypt, the modern oboe was developed in Paris in the late 1650 s by Jean Hotteterre. The double reed consists of two reeds placed back to back with a small, somewhat flattened oval opening between them. It is difficult to play. The best way to see if you re an oboe player is to try playing your straw the next time you go out for lunch. Prepare it by pressing the end together with your lips until it is quite flattened but not completely closed, then blow just hard enough to cause a

7 Elements of Music tone. If you don t blow hard enough you will get no sound, while if you blow too hard the straw will simply close off. Welcome to the world of double reeds. ENGLISH HORN The English horn is neither English nor a horn. It is actually an alto oboe with a dark, mournful tone and is played in the same manner as the oboe. It is often assigned slow, expressive melodies in the orchestra (Dvorak s New World Symphony). BASSOON The bassoon, which has a somewhat nasal tone color (but less penetrating than the oboe), is a doublereed instrument which was developed around the year The bassoon s brown wooden tube is over eight feet long, but is doubled into a U shape to allow the performer to reach all the keys and levers. It is often used for comical effects (the broom in The Sorcerer s Apprentice or the grandfather in Peter and the Wolf). bassoon CONTRA BASSOON The contra bassoon, also known as the double bassoon, can hit the lowest note in the orchestra. Its role in the woodwind section is comparable to that of the double bass in the string section in that it supplies a foundation for the harmony. It provides those lows found only in sub-woofers, the kind you can feel as one of those cars goes by, speakers pumping. BRASS The brass instruments are the most powerful section of the orchestra. They have a cup-shaped mouthpiece (funnel-shaped for the French horn) which, when buzzed into by the tightlystretched lips of the performer, sets into vibration the column of air inside the instrument. Pitches are changed by the use of valves or slide, as well as by the degree of lip tension used by the performer. TRUMPET The trumpet, an instrument of ancient origin, is the soprano voice of the brass choir. Roman legions were announced with trumpet fanfares. During the Middle-Ages it was employed mainly for martial purposes and only a nobleman could employ trumpeters. Unlike the early versions which changed pitch solely by the use of the lips, the present-day trumpet, with its three piston valves was developed in Germany about The three valves give eight possible combinations of key position. This, coupled with varying degrees of lip tension, allows the trumpeter to produce a wide variety of pitches. The army bugle and English hunting horn, both of which have no valves, are today s only holdovers from earlier times.

8 FRENCH HORN The French horn, often referred to simply as the horn, is descended from the ancient, valveless, hunting horn and still retains its coiled shape. It has an extremely wide range and can produce tones ranging from dark and mellow to very strident. It too alters pitch through three valves in concert with the labial tension of the player. Additionally, the horn player places his right hand into the bell, and can change the pitch by changing the shape of his hand. (Never shake hands with a horn player. His right hand is always soggy from the saliva being blown through the horn.) The horn blends equally well with the brasses or woodwinds. In fact, the French horn is a member of the woodwind quintet. Orchestral composers often use the horns to produce the effect of majesty and nobility. TROMBONE The trombone is the tenor voice of the brass section. Rather than using valves, pitch changes are obtained by both lip tension and moving the slide back and forth. TUBA The tuba, the bass instrument of the brass section, produces a full, The Brass Family dark tone and is often used to provide or reinforce the harmonic foundation of the orchestral sound. Surprisingly, in the hands of a skilled performer, this ungainly looking instrument can be played with great agility. Contemporary composers are increasingly taking advantage of the tuba s capabilities. The bulky tuba is also heavy enough to often require a separate metal support of its own, with the performer snuggling up to the instrument. The tuba used in marching bands was redesigned so it could be carried over the shoulder. Since its designer was John Philip Sousa the modified instrument carries his name: the Sousaphone. Today s football half-time programs, complete with rows of Sousaphones, owe their creation to one of the best composers of marching music ever. PERCUSSION The members of the percussion section consist of a wide variety of instruments that are sounded by striking, shaking, or scraping. This section is often called the kitchen sink of the orchestra because it includes just about everything. These instruments play a valuable supporting color role in the orchestral sound, as well as occasionally taking a leading role in some orchestral passages. Percussion instruments are divided into two general categories: (1) unpitched percussion which produce a sound, but not an exact musical

9 Elements of Music tone or pitch, and (2) pitched percussion upon which a melody may be played. Some of the unpitched percussion instruments are snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, cymbals, triangle, whip, gong, and a wide variety of Latin American instruments ( Tchaikovsky called for live cannons in his 1812 Overture it was an outside performance). Pitched percussion instruments include the timpani, or kettle drum. Pitch is altered in the timpani by both the size of the drum and the tightness of the drum s head. The modern timpani alters pitch through the use of tuning pegs to set the initial tone, and a pedal which rapidly tightens or loosens the drum head. The harp also is usually included in the percussion section of the orchestra, because a striking motion is used to create sound (rather than being lumped with the string section because they have strings). KEYBOARD Keyboard instruments all have a common feature of having the action of vibration started by pressing on a key. Each key is assigned a separate pitch. There are three main classes of keyboard instrument: the organ, harpsichord, and piano. The organ is the oldest keyboard instrument, dating back to antiquity. Organs were known in ancient Greece and were common in Rome, where they were used in the Colosseum. (That s also why the early church didn t use organs too many Christians had gone to their death in the Colosseum to the sound of organ music.) Sound is created in the organ by air passing through pipes of different lengths. All the pipes have a small stop or plug at their base, and a constant supply The Percussion Family

10 Conductor s score, showing instrument parts. The conductor must read the entire page at a time for it contains the lines for every instrument.

11 Elements of Music of air pressing against that stop. When the organist presses a key a lever moves the stop away from the end of the pipe, allowing the air to rush through, producing a pitch. Organs may have several sets of keyboards or manuals, each with 61 keys. Each manual can be set to play a different set of pipes (a different timbre). This gives the organist great flexibility in quickly changing sounds. The size and shape of the pipes determines not only the pitch; but also the timbre. Pipes are arranged according to timbre into groups called ranks, with each rank having as many as 40 pipes. Most modern church organs are electronic, rather than being true pipe organs, and can generate the sound range of three to five ranks, while the average pipe organ has between thirty or forty different ranks of pipes. Large organs, like this one on our Rexburg campus, have over 100 ranks. That s still small. Other organs in New York and California have well over 400 ranks. That s not 400 pipes, but sets of pipes! The difficulty in changing settings while playing a musical selection means that the organist must preset most of ranks before she begins to play. The multiple manuals, and even one for the feet, allow the organist to use many different ranks or timbres at the same time. There are also rows of buttons just under the front edge of each keyboard, and another three rows of buttons above the foot pedals, any of which Ruffati Organ, Barrus Hall BYU-Idaho

12 can be pressed to instantly change which pipes are to play. Because of its ability to produce a wide variety of different sounds the organ is known as the king of instruments. Years ago the air was forced through the instrument by pumps operated by several apprentices. The first days of being a beginning organ student meant that you got the privilege of manning the pumps during the Sunday church services. In recent times pumps became electric an advancement that was a great relief to organ students all over the world. The other major change in organs has also been brought about by electricity. Most of the organs in use are now electric rather than pipe. This means that the sounds produced by many modern organs is no longer produced by air passing through a specific pipe; but rather through a series of electric oscillations running through specified circuits. Today s rock bands use the same type of keyboard instrument, where all sounds are electronically generated. The harpsichord was the next major keyboard instrument, becoming popular during the s. With this instrument (as well as the piano) the vibrations are created by the action of keys making specifically pitched strings within the instrument vibrate. Each key on the keyboard of a harpsichord is attached to a lever. When the key is depressed (by a finger; not by some bad news), the lever raises a sort of jack with an attachment that plucks the string producing a given pitch. Originally these devices were made of goose quills. The process is the same as using a guitar pick to produce a note on a guitar. The keyboard allows for a large variety of notes, and chord combinations; but there was no real range of dynamics possible on the harpsichord. In 1709 Cristofore invented the piano as a means of solving the dynamic inadequacies of the harpsichord. The basic principle behind the piano also involves a key causing tuned strings to vibrate. The major difference is that the piano strikes the strings with hammers rather than plucking them with tiny picks. While this process seems simpler than the plucking

13 Elements of Music action of a harpsichord, the piano is in fact a very complicated instrument. Each key consists of about 27 different pieces of metal and wood, while a harpsichord employed only eight. This allows the pianist to control the volume of a note through the strength of her touch, and is one of the reasons the proper name for the instrument is the piano-forte, referring in part to the large dynamic variety of the instrument. Pedals on the piano also affect the resonance of the sounding board and strings. Most pianos have three. The right pedal, by raising the dampers, can sustain notes for long periods of time by allowing them to continue to vibrate, while the left pedal physically shifts the hammers closer to the strings to create a softer dampened sound. On expensive pianos this is accomplished by shifting the entire key- Most haprsichords have two keyboards, and the key colors are reversed. board to the right, so the hammers strike only two of the three strings per note. And on all but the best pianos, those used for concerts, the middle pedal does absolutely nothing. It s just there for looks. Unlike the organ, the standard size of a piano keyboard is 88 keys. One of the best ways to get a partial understanding of how all these instruments interrelate is to look at a page from an orchestral score. This shows both how complex the process of conducting is in addition to the challenge of writing music for the varied orchestral instruments. VOICES The human voice is an important musical instrument. Because people are different physically they have voices of different timbres. When we here Justin Bieber sing, we can tell that it s not Michael Buble or Andrea Bocelli. While no two voices sound exactly alike, there are

14 some common voice types which allow us have a set of general voice types, classed by both timbre and pitch. The four basic types of voices are soprano, alto (although the more correct, technical term is contralto), tenor, and bass. Sopranos are the highest voices, capable of singing from approximately a high A to an A below middle C. Within the soprano voice part there are some subdivisions: Coloratura, known for singing those fancy runs and doing all the high, light work; Soprano, which covers the regular range; and Mezzo Soprano, a somewhat darker, lower soprano sound. The contralto or alto is the lowest of the traditional women s voice parts. Not only is the pitch lower, from roughly C above middle C to G below middle C; but the tone quality is noticeably darker. The alto voice lacks much of the bright clarity of the soprano; but is nonetheless very expressive. The tenor is the highest traditional male voice part. It is high and clear sounding in timbre. A tenor s range is from around A above middle C to G below middle C. One of the world s greatest tenors, Luciano Pavarotti, claims that part of the appeal of the tenor voice is that the sound is rather unnatural. Maybe that s why a good tenor voice is so much appreciated, and why Pavarotti has sold tens of millions of CD s. The lowest vocal parts are the baritone and bass. The baritone voice is midway between a tenor and a bass in both range and tone quality with a range from roughly a low G to F above middle C. The bass voice range is approximately one step lower on top and about three steps lower at the bottom. A bass voice sounds very dark and low. Some of the world s best male bass voices are not Italian but Russian. Their culture promotes this rich sound, especially for religious works. YouTube has many wonderful sites. tenor Now that we ve discussed media, let s examine the building blocks of music. Dynamics refers to the volume of the music. The dynamic intensity of a piece of music has a great deal of impact on our intellectual and emotional responses as we listen. Dynamics is a relative phenomenon, that is to say levels of loud or soft depend to some extent on a basic frame of reference, to the sound levels that we are

15 Elements of Music accustomed to hearing. The various dynamic levels are referred to by a variety of Italian terms: from fortissimo (very loud) to pianissimo (very soft). Music would be boring if it played at one dynamic level all the time, so composers have loud and soft portions in the piece. While it would be assumed that you would have each player simply play louder or softer in order to change the overall dynamics, such was not always the case. During the Renaissance and early Baroque eras changes in dynamic levels were accomplished by simply adding or subtracting players rather than having all of them play quietly. In the quiet sections only a small group of the total orchestra would play, then all would come in on the loud sections. The Italian word for all is tutti and was written on the orchestral score as such. It s from this that we have today s ice cream flavor Tutti Fruity. This way of thinking, of adding groups of players to increase the volume, was a carryover from the organ (and harpsichord), where the volume was augmented by adding more pipes. You can t make an organ louder by just striking the key harder. That only works on a piano. But gradual changes in volume for all players were introduced, and are also known by specifi c Italian terms. Crescendo means to get louder, while decrescendo (or diminuendo) is the opposite. Rhythm is the beat present in nearly all music. It is in many respects the most dominant part of music. When we refer to tempo it is in beats per minute. This basic pulse is what makes us tap our feet along with the music. When early monks tried to pass on church music, they were left with the single melody typical of Gregorian chants. Sometimes the beats that are accented (emphasized) fall in unexpected places. This is known as syncopation. It would be like stressing two and four if one were counting one, two, three four. Without a means of accurately noting both pitch and time value it is difficult, if not impossible, to learn music by any way other than oral repetition. bass

16 fff ff f mf mp p pp ppp Dynamic Marks very, very loud very loud (fortissimo) loud (forte) medium loud medium soft soft (piano) very soft (pianissimo) shhhhhh! Decibal Levels of Common Sounds 140 jet taking off pain, permanent damage to ear 120 rock concert 110 damage to ear 100 circular saw 90 street noise in a big city 80 vacuum cleaner 70 telephone ring 60 normal conversation 20 whispering Two time signatures Notes were developed as a means of determining the length of time assigned to a specific pitch. Is the note to be held a longer or shorter period than the notes around it? Note values answer this question. Rhythmic notation in music is based on division by halves. A whole note is the largest note in terms of duration. All other notes are related to this note in their duration. A half note is one half the value of the whole note, a quarter note is half the size of a half note, an eighth note is half again smaller, and so on. By placing a dot to the right of a note, its value increases by one half. If a composer wants silence for a period, then a rest is marked on the page of music. Rests indicate silence and are divided exactly the same way as notes (wholes, halves, etc.) These relative note and rest values remain constant. The specific length of a note in a given work of music depends on the time signature of a work. The time signature is NOT a fraction. Rather, it is a symbol which describes note values within the work of music. The upper figure indicates how many beats are in a measure, and the bottom figure identifies what kind of note (half, quarter, etc.) gets one beat (the counting unit). Meter is the rhythm in music; it falls into two or three patterns. Where there is no meter evident (like Gregorian chant) the music is known as nonmetric. Regular patterns of twos (like a march), are double meter. Patterns of threes, like a waltz, are triple meter. Tempo is the speed of the music; fast, slow, or somewhere in between, and we have a short list of words to indicate such. Since it was the Italians who invented these terms the world has simply adopted their words largo, adagio, etc. Melody is the tune or central musical idea of a work. It may be defined as "placing tones together in a recognizable arrangement." A simpler definition might be the part you can whistle. In other words, it is the identifying element of a musical work. When we whistle Yankee Doodle we whistle the melody. An important part of how a melody sounds is the key in which the piece is written. Key refers to the scale which is used for the work; you may write a piece in G Major or C Major or Eb Minor, etc. Each of these refers to a scale or "key." Scales may be either a major or minor depending upon how the 8 notes are arranged. The 8-note groups are octaves, where the first and last

17 Elements of Music Tempo Markings (in beats per minute) Largo very slow Adagio slow Andante walking pace Moderato medium Allegro fast Vivace very fast 160+ Presto reeeeeally fast notes are the same, the last being one octave higher, i.e., C to C or F# to F#. The basic major scale is easily demonstrated by the song from the Sound of Music, Do Re Mi. Do, re, mi, fa, so etc. are the basic notes of the major scale. Major scales are generally upbeat or "happy." It s not exotic, it s sort of musical white bread. The minor scale on the other hand is made by changing the interval (space between notes) between the second and third steps of the scale. This small change tends to make minor music sound more mysterious or sad. In Beauty and the Beast we can quickly recognize Belle by her happy major scale. We can also recognize Darth Vadar by his theme, but it's in a minor key and sounds almost evil or bad. Another element of music related to key is harmony. In a general sense harmony may be described as either consonant or dissonant. Three or more notes played at the same time are known as a chord. Again, consonant chords tend to be happy, while dissonant harmonies can make a listener uneasy. In any movie we know when the bad guy is coming or bad things are happening because the music becomes dissonant. Consonant and dissonant music is found in all we hear; it shapes our moods. staff, with clef and time signature

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