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Music and Meaning Nov. 2, 2005 AK 2100

Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

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Page 1: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Music and Meaning

Nov. 2, 2005AK 2100

Page 2: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

The aim of this presentation is to provide a few fundamental ideas, terms and concepts that can be used to better understand how music is structured. Such an understanding is key to unravelling the “mystery” of how and what music means.

Page 3: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Sound and Time

• Music is the art of sound in time

• Sound produced by vibrations

• Pitch

• Dynamics

This symbol is pianissimo, it means play very softly.

This symbol is piano, it means play softly

This symbol is mezzo piano, it means play moderately soft.

This symbol is mezzo forte, it means play moderately loud

This symbol is forte, it means play loudly

This symbol is fortissimo, it means play very loudly

The crescendo sign, it means gradually become louder.

This sign is decrescendo, it means gradually become softer.

Page 4: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Sound and Time• Excerpt: Berlioz,

Fantastic Symphony, IV, March to the Scaffold

0:00 Quiet and Mysterious Low Range pp 0:15 Rustling Sounds Middle Range 0:22 Wind Instruments High Range0:35 Single Sharp Accent sf0:47 Gets Louder Higher instruments long crescendo, leading to f added then ff, more accents1:07 Sudden collapse p followed by diminuendo1:15 New Tune First low, then high Played p1:52 Cuts off sharply: big sound ff, more accents

Similar pitch and dynamic effects for the rest of the excerpt

3:07 Sinking passage Individual pitches, lower and lower3:45 Ominous Lowest pitch of all pp

Pitch Dynamic

Page 5: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Sound and Time

• Tone Color - overtones

• No precise terms: bright, warm, ringing or brassy

• Duration: broad term within music is rhythm

Page 6: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Rhythm and Pitch

• rhythm: actual arrangement of durations

• beat: basic unit for measuring time in music

• accent: some beats are given more emphasis than others

• to beat time is to organize it

• meter: recurring patterns of strong and weak beats

• in Western music only two basic kinds of meter (simple and compound meter)

Page 7: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Metrical vs Non-metrical

• Metrical: Doogus Idris, Sudanese Song

Page 8: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Metrical vs Non-metrical

• Metrical: Tehillim, Steve Reich

Page 9: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Metrical vs Non-metrical

• Non-metrical: Rag, Mauj-Khammaj)

Page 10: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Metrical vs Non-metrical

• Non-metrical: Debussy, Clouds

Page 11: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Rhythm and Pitch

• Compound meter: think of “row, row, row your boat”

• In Western music duple or triple meter serves as the background against which we perceive music’s actual rhythms

• Meter is background; rhythm is foreground

Page 12: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Rhythm and Pitch

Page 13: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Rhythm and Pitch

• Often meter is not explicitly beaten out at all. Does not need to be. We “sense” it

• Meter is strongly stressed in music designed to stimulate regular body movements (e.g. dance of marching music) Example of Duple Meter

I Lotring, Bopong

Page 14: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Rhythm and Pitch

• Often meter is not explicitly beaten out at all. Does not need to be. We “sense” it

• Meter is strongly stressed in music designed to stimulate regular body movements (e.g. dance of marching music) Example of Duple Meter

Bach, Brandenburg Concerto

Page 15: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Pitch

• music in general does not use the total continuous range of musical sounds

• draws from a limited number of fixed pitches

• assembled in a collection called a scale

• different cultures have different scales

• pitches that constitute scales differ across cultures and history

Page 16: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Octaves

A vibrating string that is exactly half as long as another will reinforce the longer one’s strongest partial. This reinforcement causes the duplication effect of octaves

Page 17: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Scales

Page 18: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Diatonic

• Andean Processional “Hanaq pachap kusikuynin”

Page 19: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Diatonic

• Copeland, Appalachian Spring

Page 20: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Chromatic

• Chopin, Nocturne in F-sharp

Page 21: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Chromatic

• Ligeti, Lux aeterna

Page 22: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Scales• human beings able to

detect about 10 octaves

• most instruments have a 2-3 octave range. Piano has about 7

• 7 pitches originally used in Western music. Dates from Ancient Greece

• chromatic scale: original basic scale

Page 23: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Structures of Music

• music consists of simple and complex structures

• do not experience tone, colour, rhythm, dynamics in isolation of one another

Page 24: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Structures of Music - Melody

• melody: an organized series of pitches

• evokes human emotions most directly

Page 25: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Structures of Music - Tunes

• Tunes: a special kind of melody

• divisions in to phrases

• balance between phrases

• parallelism and contrast

• climax and cadence

Page 26: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Structures of Music - Tunes

• George Gershwin “Who Cares” - Ella Fitzgerald0:12 Verse

Let it rain and thunder . . . . Includes a long (six fold) sequence 0:48 Tempo changes0:57Tune Who cares if the sky is to fall in the sea? Who cares what banks fail in Yonkers? Contrasting phrase Long as you’ve got a kiss that conquers Parallel phrase - starts like the preceding, ends higher Why should I care? Life is one long... Three-fold sequence (should I care/life is one/jubilee) Climax on “jubilee” So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence1:55 Tune Begun by band

Page 27: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Structures of Music - Motives & Themes

• motive: distinctive fragment of melody

• theme: refers to the function, not the nature of musical material. Could be a motive, a colour tone, a melody...

Page 28: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Structures of Music - Harmony

• single melodic line in time is enough to qualify as music

• common to hear melodies together with other sounds (accompaniments)

• harmonization

Page 29: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Structures of Music - Harmony

• Consonance:chords that sound at rest

• Dissonance: chords sound tense

• Depend on the kinds of intervals that are sounding simulatenously

• Octaves are the most consonant. Half steps most dissonant

Page 30: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Structures of Music - Texture

• refers to the blend of the various sounds and melodic lines occurring simultaneously in music

• monophony: single unaccompanied melody

• heterophony: subtly different versions of a single melody presented simultaneously

• homophony: one melody combined with other sounds

• polyphony: two or more melodies simultaneously

Page 31: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

0:00Joy theme Low register monophony: a single melodic line, cellos and bases playing together. No accompaniment0:39Theme An octave higher Polyphony, non-imitative: the theme with two lines of counterpoint, in low strings and a mellow wind instrument1:36Theme Two octaves higher

2:21 Theme Three octaves higher Homophony: full orchestra with trumpets prominent

Example of monophonic, polyphonic and homophonic texturesfrom: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 (Joy Theme)

Page 32: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Structures of Music - tonality/modality

• tonality: occurs when melodies give a sense of focusing around a single home pitch

• modality: major and minor keys - refers to different ways of centering or organizing the diatonic scale

Page 33: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Structures of Music - tonality/modality

Page 34: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Musical Form and Style

• form in art is related to its emotional quality

• in music form refers to organization of elements and also standardized formal patterns that are used over and over again

• Two basic factors created musical form

• repetition: Bernstein, “Cool”

• contrast

Page 35: Music and Meaning - York University · • Ligeti, Lux aeterna. Scales ... So long as I care for you and you care Free sequence (I care for you/You care for me) - cadence 1:55 Tune

Musical Form and Style

• form in art is related to its emotional quality

• in music form refers to organization of elements and also standardized formal patterns that are used over and over again

• Two basic factors created musical form

• repetition

• contrast: Joplin “Maple Leaf Rag”