Name: Surname: Remember: the TEMPO is the speed of the music. Presto= very fast Allegro= fast Andante= at a walking pace Adagio= slow Largo= very slow Accelerando (acc.) = speed up (cada vez más rápido). Ritardando (rit.) = slow down (cada vez más despacio). Play the rhythms you have got on the scores changing the tempo. Listen and write which is the tempo of the rhythms you are going to listen to: 1 2 3 Now, write numbers according to the order you listen to these rhythm: Presto Allegro Andante Adagio Largo Ritardando Accelerando Listen to this song and then sing it in its karaoke version (ALL OF ME): Daily life instruments: They are instruments from our daily life and we can use them to create music. Watch the video of a percussion group using street objects. Now, in groups of 5, you must play the tale. You must deliver the roles to read it and to sound it, with voices and sounds produced with classroom objects. You have got 15 minutes for preparing it. Music genres: There are many types of music. We classify them according to their purpose. Depending on its purpose, a piece of music belongs to a category. A genre category is formed of music which share the same characteristics. Along this term, we are going to work with: Religious Music Music related to Dance Profane Music Classical Music 1
RELIGIOUS MUSIC. Music in the Middle Age. Romanic and Gotic. Religious music from the I to the VI centuries, was born in the first Christian communities. During the I-III centuries, Christians were persecuted, because Christianity was considered a sect. The Edict of Milan (IV century) ended that situation and made it possible to practice their religion freely. First Christians religious celebrations were creating, step by step, a new type of musical expression: it was austere and vocal. Gregorian chant: It is difficult to establish the origin of the Gregorian chant. The Christian Church, like other religions churches, used the chant to approach to God. That chant came from the Greco-Roman and Jewish music, because the Christianity was born from these three cultures. The Pope Gregory I (540-604) tried to compile and unify the religious chants. To recognize his work, these chants were given his name. Characteristics of Gregory chant: 1. It is monodic (it means that it has only one melodic line), a capella (without instruments). 2. It is vocal. 3. The text is latin (official language of the Catholic Church) 4. The rhythm is free. 5. It has got a religious function, because it makes the prayer more beautiful and it is a praise to God. 6. It is sung by male voices. 7. It uses a different music notation, with neumas (some signs over the text) firstly and with geometric notation (they are squares!). 8. It was written on tetragrams (like our pentagrama (staff) but with only 4 lines. 2
Gregorian chant was written in very big music sheets, and the singers saw them into big books in the churches called lecterns (facistoles en español). Profane music: the begining of polyphony: Along the Romanic, music composed in Europe was monodic, what means that only had one melodic line. From the Gothic, a new musical method was born: the polyphony, what means that more than one melody sound at the same time. Because of that, it was necessary to create a new system which allowed musical signs to represent sounds (notes) and its duration. Thus, the musical figures were created. That new period of study and advance of Science and Art of music was called ARS NOVA (new art). Look at this example of Guillaume de Machat: Ma fin est mon comencement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlemvxqye4g&feature=related 3
Minstrels and troubadours: The minstrels and the trobadours created and popularized the new music. The minstrels were wandering people who visited the villages and the castles. They amused the audience, who generally were not very cultured. They transmitted the popular music. The troubadours were gentleman from a higher social class. They cultivated the poetry and the songs. Examples of troubadours: Alfonso X The Wise (o Sabio), Martín Códax. Cantigas (POEMS) and dances: Along the Middle Age there were two art expressions which were very important: the cantigas (Poems) (especially the Cantigas de Santa María and the Cantigas de amigo), and the dances (for instance the chaconne, the passepied, the giga or the minuet). Musical scales: As you know, when the musical notes are in order, we call it scale. They can be ascending (when it goes from low to high) or descending (when it goes from high to low). The notes you know so far are the natural notes DO RE MI FA SOL LA SI, which are repeated above SI (high) and below DO (low). However, between some of these notes there are some other intermediate sounds. These are the ones which correspond to the black keys of the keyboard of a piano. This happens because musical notes are sounds which are at a distance of TONES or SEMITONES. Between each one of the notes you know and its next one, there is a distance of a TONE, except between MI-FA and between SI-DO, because between each of them there is onle half tone, it means: ONE SEMITONE. So, all the keys in the keyboard are at a distance of one semitone from the next one (or the previous one), which can be a white or a black key. To name them, we have to use some symbols which modify the natural notes. These are the symbols: 4
Sharp sign( ) we write it before its musical note on the score. Its effect consist of raising half a tone (a semitone) the note it is with. Thus, if there is a Do with a sharp sign ( ) it means that the sound isn t a Do, but an intermediate sound between Do and re, wich is the next musical note. If there is a Sol sharp, it means that the sound is between the Sol and the La, wich means: it is higher than a natural Sol but lower than a natural La. Sostido ( ) colócase na partitura antes da nota musical á que acompaña. O seu efecto é aumentar medio ton (un semitón) a nota á que acompañan. Así, se aparece un Do cun sostido ( ) quere dicir que o son non é un Do, senón o son intermedio entre o Do e o Re, que é a seguinte nota. Se aparece un sol sostido, quere dicir que o son está entre o sol e o la, é dicir: máis agudo que un sol natural pero máis grave que un la natural Flat sign ( ) is also written on the score before the musical note but its effect is opposite to the Sharp sign. So, the flat sign lowers half a tone the note it is with. For example, if we find a Flat Sol, it means that the note is lower than the Sol (half a tone). It is between the Sol and the La. Natural ( ) is a sign that stops the effect of the Flat sign or the Sharp sign so that the note it is with, is natural again and no longer Sharp or Flat. Look at the picture to know how musical notes are set in a keyboard. Bemol ( ) tamén se coloca na partitura antes da nota musical á que acompaña pero o seu efecto é contrario ao sostido. Así, este baixa medio ton á nota á que acompaña. Por exemplo, se atopamos un sol bemol, quere dicir que a nota está máis abaixo que o sol, é dicir, que é un semitón (medio ton) máis grave que o sol. Estaría entre o sol e o la. Becuadro ( ) é un símbolo que simplemente anula o efecto do anterior para facer que a nota á que acompañen volva a ser naturalse antes era sostida ou bemol. Mira como se colocan as notas no teclado dun piano: 5