|
|
Music Coursework |
|
|
|
Select Link: Contact Information
|
Nonreligious, or secular, music was composed by wandering poets who sang of chivalry and courtly love in the 12th and 13th centuries. In France they were either jongleurs, itinerant minstrels who made a living from their songs, or troubadours and trouveres, aristocrats who sang for the love of music. In Germany the poet-musicians were called minnesingers. Some 2,000 minstrel melodies are preserved in old manuscripts. The discovery that two voices could sing two separate melodies at the same time -- and still produce pleasing sounds -- occurred sometime during the 9th century. During the next four centuries this type of music gradually replaced the older monophonic style. The first experiments in the new music were called organum. A second voice or voices sang the chant melody at perhaps an interval of a fourth or fifth above the original, or tenor. Sometimes the two moved in opposite directions. Above the tenor a more elaborate part might be sung. As the two parts became more independent, often two distinct melodies proceeded at the same time. When third and fourth parts were added, the music became truly polyphonic. Sometime after the mid-12th century, a new Notre Dame Cathedral was being built in Paris, and with it grew a school of composers. Two names have been preserved from that school -- Leonin and Perotin. They stretched the organum to unheard-of lengths and embellished it with flourishes of long melismas, or many notes sung to one syllable. New rhythmic patterns developed, as did repetitions of motifs, sequential patterns, and imitation. |
||
|
Out of this developed the motet, originally in Latin on a sacred text. Unlike the organum, the text was sung in the upper voices as well as the tenor. Bilingual motets (French-Latin, English-Latin) arose, and secular texts or combinations of sacred and secular texts were used. Tenors were sometimes chosen from French popular songs instead of from plainchant. Instruments played lower voice parts, making the motet an accompanied solo song. The period culminated in the works of Guillaume de Machaut. He left 23 motets, more than 100 secular songs, and a mass. They are characterized by excellent craftsmanship with colorful melodic and harmonic inflections and constantly shifting rhythms. The period from the mid-15th century to about 1600 is usually subdivided into three ages: early, from about 1425 to 1490, the age of Guillaume Dufay and Jean d'Okeghem; high (1490-1520), the age of Josquin des Prez; and late, the age of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. The period before 1550 has also been called the age of the Netherlanders, from the leading role played by composers of present-day Belgium, The Netherlands, and northern France. In the last half of the 16th century the mainstream of European polyphony was also represented by nationals other than the Italian Palestrina -- especially William Byrd in England, Tomas Luis de Victoria in Spain, the Netherlander Orlando di Lasso in Germany, and Philippe de Monte in Austria. The period from the mid-15th to the 17th century marked an amalgamation of the Netherlanders' and Italians' techniques, culminating in the music of Josquin. His influence was felt for the remainder of the era. In his works the elaborate polyphony of the north and the chordal, harmonically controlled style of the south are fused into a rich and expressive language--the perfect union of words and music. The Italian madrigal was a relative latecomer in the Renaissance, the term in a title first appearing in 1530. It was intended as a return to an elevated style from antiquity but drew on the contemporary style of the sacred motet and on Josquin's sonorous chansons. The Netherlanders predominated at first, and it was not until the middle of the century that Italian composers began to contribute with a new and detailed expressiveness. It influenced all national secular part songs but found a special naturalized home in Elizabethan England with such composers as Byrd, Thomas Morley, John Wilbye, Thomas Weelkes, Orlando Gibbons, and Thomas Tomkins. During the Renaissance, instrumental music freed itself from its dependence on vocal models and emerged as an individual style. Although it continued to be composed "apt for voices or viols," as the Elizabethans put it, music developed that reflected the capabilities of performers and the technical possibilities of instruments. Vocal Course: The human voice is perhaps the simplest, yet most difficult of all musical instruments to perform. It is "simplest" because our heavenly father endowed each of us with voice. It comes standard with the human form. It is "difficult" because the instrument itself is within the body. As such, it cannot be touched, watched, or otherwise manipulated by dexterity mechanical means. Through proper discipline, instinct, and practice, the vocal instrument can develop to reproduce beautiful, inspiring sounds termed "Bel Canto," or "beautiful singing." Singing evolved over the last four centuries through experimentation and intense study by great teachers and professional singers. Singing is no mystery, but requires study just like everything else in life. Learning, on the other hand, develops the student commensurate on the effort and depth devoted. In delivering devotional singing to our heavenly father, we should attain the highest level of vocal discipline possible in order to enhance our ability to express ourselves in musical offering. Music Course: The following music coursework is based on A. Danhauser's theory of music: a classical, world renowned approach to music learning and voice preparation. Solfege, the foundation for all true musical instruction, is comprised of two different components, these being: delivery and theoretical. Delivery consists of enunciating while singing the names of notes. Theory's objective explains all aspects of symbols involved in the writing of music, and those laws that regulate the sounds and duration of said symbols. This course will provide the theoretical component of instruction. Music is the "art of sounds." It is read and written with equal virtuosity as the spoken words we pronounce. In order to read music and understand its vernacular, it is vital that we become familiarized with the many symbols used to regulate and deliver such. The study of these symbols and rules is the objective of music theory. |
|||
|
|
|||
The development of Western music was intertwined with
the growth of the Christian church. Chanting of scriptures and prayers
was practiced by early Christians. By the 6th century AD
modal chant -- known as, plain chant -- had increased so greatly that Pope
Gregory I had it collected and organized, and it came to be called
Gregorian chant. The chant did not have a regular rhythm but was fitted
to the natural accents of the Latin words. Like all previous music, each
chant consisted of a single melody, and all the singers sang the same
notes. This type of music is called monophonic, or one-voiced.