Assignment #2 – Listening for design in music
– music, art & ideas
Listen to the first minute or so of each selection on the “Music for the Humanities” CD included with the textbook. For some design principles, I have listed specific tracks to limit your choices; identify the track that is the best example of that particular design principle. In your answers, identify the track selections by following the authors' format: composer name (plain font), title of work (in quotation marks or italics, depending on the size of the entire work). You do not need identify the performers. Explain your selection, focusing on objectively observable characteristics of the music. (Of course the fact that you like or dislike the piece or find a story or picture or mood in the music is more important, but it is not the purpose of this assignment to register those vital subjective reactions.)
Do not use the word
"song" to refer to works that are not songs. (The term "song" properly refers to
a piece of vocal music usually with some pattern of repetition in the melody
and the sung text; there are only two examples on the CD: the Schubert, track
17, and the Louis Armstrong, track 23) Use
“piece” or “work” instead.
LINE
1.
Listen to the first minute of the Chopin "Revolutionary"
etude (track 16). Describe the
directions and use of line in this part of the piece. ("Etude" simply means
"study.")
REPETITION
2.
The simplest sense of repetition is when we perceive a regular pulse or
a tempo. Which of the following three
examples does not seem to have a steady pulse or tempo? Track 2, 5 or 6?
3.
Musical ideas are often repeated to build up longer ideas and entire
pieces. Which is a better example of
that, track 4 or 13?
CONTRAST can be created in music in many ways.
4.
Identify a work that creates a contrast in dynamics between loud
and soft. 7 or 15?
5.
Which work creates a greater contrast between high and low register,
19 or 21?
6.
Which work has the greatest contrast in timbre, 11 or 8?
7.
Describe the rhythmic and registral contrast heard in the section of
music around 0:56-1:20 in the Berlioz
excerpt (track 15). (Hint: what is the
length of the note values in the melody played by the brass instruments compared
to the rest of the orchestra?]
8.
Describe two contrasts in the first minute of Beethoven’s Fifth
Symphony (track 14).
TEXTURE
9.
Homorhythmic textures occur when most of an ensemble is performing the same rhythms
simultaneously. Considering the vocal parts only, which is the better example of
that, track 7 or 18?
10. Polyphonic textures occur when many
musical lines intertwine, and the individual rhythms are different in each
line. Which is the better example of
that, track 7 or the first 45 seconds or so of track 9 (considering the vocal parts only)?
11. Which piece uses both
homorhythmic and polyphonic textures, track 4 or 6?
ECONOMY
12. These two piano pieces are relatively short
(although one is very short) compared to the majority of 19th
or 20th Century pieces for piano.
Which piece gives the greater sense of economy, the sense that there is
not one extra note used, track 16 or 20?
(This is a subjective answer – no right or wrong. Justify your opinion with objective
observations about the pieces.)
Your observations about the assignment
13. Which was the easiest or most obvious
question? Which was the most difficult
or the one you are least confident about?
14. For which music concept is it easiest to find an
analogy in painting? Which one is most
resistant to an art analogy?
AGAIN, BE SURE TO IDENTIFY
COMPOSER NAMES AND TITLES OF WORKS; WE SHOULD BE LEARNING THESE THINGS, NOT
TRACK NUMBERS. AN ANSWER WITH ONLY A
TRACK NUMBER IS WRONG. The composer & title for each track is
listed inside the cover of the textbook.
5 points off if not typed/printed
Feb 2009 David Meckler