Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Music

Classical Opera and Its Reformation

We delimit Classicism between the years 1730 and 1820 approximately. During this period, opera underwent a significant change, eliminating the excesses of the Baroque era and bringing plots and characters closer to the new bourgeois audience.

Opera Seria

In Opera Seria, the initiator of this reformation was the German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, who laid the foundations of the new opera in 1762 with the work Orpheus and Euridice.

Opera Buffa

Opera Buffa became the favorite genre of Classicism. The main composer was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with The Marriage of Figaro (written in Italian) and The Magic Flute (written in German).

The Role of the Orchestra Conductor

The progressive complexity of orchestral... Continue reading "Classical Music History: Opera, Sonata, and Symphony" »

Intro to Entertainment Management

ENTERTAINMENT AND POPULAR CULTURE - The impact of pop icons and performers in music, dance, and theatre combined with social media has made the entertainment industry a rave for popular culture to thrive. Pop culture is entertainment, music, and sports. Popular culture is distributed across many forms of mass communication.

MUSIC AND POP CULTURE - It contrasts with high cultural art forms, such as opera, classical music, and artworks, magazines, radio, television, movies, music, books, cheap novels, comics, cartoons, and advertising. After the Industrial Revolution, people had increased leisure time. This led to a demand for amusement and entertainment, which also prompted the growth of mass media.

ENTERTAINMENT... Continue reading "Exploring Entertainment Management and Popular Culture" »

Types of Literature

Fiction: It is made up and it comes from a writer's imagination.

Non-fiction: It is about real people, places, things, ideas.

Autobiography: A type of nonfiction in which a person tells the story of their own life.

Biography: A type of nonfiction in which a person tells the story of someone else's life.

Fable: A short story that ends with a moral (lesson) and often uses animals as the main characters.

Play (drama): a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, for a theatrical performance rather than reading.

Poetry: A type of literature that uses concise, colorful, and often rhythmic language to express ideas or emotions.

Science Fiction: Fiction that often takes place... Continue reading "Literature and Drama: Fiction, Poetry, Plays, Tragedy" »

Musical Impressionism: Sound and Sensation

Musical Impressionism was a typically French movement. It is related to Impressionist paintings, referring to open spaces with colorful, luminous, and blurred landscapes (the name Impressionism is based on Monet's painting called Impression, Sunrise). It is also associated with the symbolism of poetry that presents mystery and irrationality as something beautiful.

• The main composers were Claude Debussy, who was inspired by the exotic music of the Far East and created chromatic color atmospheres, and Maurice Ravel, often labeled as a Debussy imitator, but with an extraordinary detail and precise compositional technique that represents orchestral color.
• The sound becomes a vehicle for the internal sensations

Romanticism: Art, Architecture, and Sculpture

Romanticism was a reaction to the rationalist culture of the Enlightenment. While Enlightenment thinkers and artists criticized traditional society and believed in the power of reason, Romanticism focused more on the emotional aspects. Romantic art and culture emphasized elements beyond day-to-day life and people’s usual environments: the exoticism of distant countries (especially in the Orient), fantasy, melancholy, history (especially medieval history), and tragic or heroic situations. Depictions of nature also reflected that interest in the extraordinary: wild and impressive landscapes, impenetrable forests, enormous angry waves, and so on.

Architecture

In architecture, Romantic Historicism, which... Continue reading "Romanticism in Art, Architecture and 19th-Century Sculpture" »

Folk Music and Ethnomusicology

Folklore encompasses the traditional beliefs, stories, customs, and art of a community. Ethnomusicology is the study of traditional music, dance, and instruments, with Béla Bartók as one of its founders.

Examples of folk music include:

• Lullabies
• Love songs (serenades)
• Music for festivities and rituals (Christmas, Easter, funerals)
• Work songs
• Play songs
• Dance music

Musical Phrases and Repetition

A musical phrase is a meaningful segment of a melody. Repetition is common in music, such as:

• Canon: A composition with several parts repeating the same melody.
• Ostinato: A repeated accompanying pattern.

Call and response is a participatory pattern found in various African cultures, involving a leader and a group response.

Traditional

Empowering Women in Electronic Music

It’s hard for women in male-dominated fields like electronic music to get an equal amount of respect, attention, and credit as their male counterparts—especially when their struggles are belittled and doubted by promoters, fans, and colleagues. Collectives like Discwoman and female:pressure (as well as countless solo activists) have attempted to balance this dynamic with all or mostly female lineups, which draw attention to the dearth of female names on global festival and club bills.

Lilith Unfair: Berlin’s Techno-Feminist Bonanza

The biggest such techno-feminist bonanza to take place in the world’s underground clubbing capital, Berlin, joins the cause with Lilith Unfair. This festival is devoted to... Continue reading "Women in Electronic Music: Lilith Unfair and Gender Equality" »

Musicians

They have a maximum play time & minimum fees for different types & length of performance.

Set times

When you plan an event/entertainment you must know that the standard play time is 40 mins before taking a break. Breaks should last no longer than 15-20mins. It also depends on the vibrancy of the preceding performance.

Cover bands

What is a dance band? Dance bands are otherwise known as variety bands/cover bands. They perform top dance hits that your wedding party guests/corporate event audience will enjoy.

Musicians & vocalists

Versatile & play everything from jazz, soul, motown, disco, R&B, blues, pop, contemporary, swing, to current dance music hits. A dance band will typically include male and female vocalists, a saxophone,... Continue reading "Musicians, Set Times, Cover Bands, and Variety Entertainment" »

Circumstances Enabling Renaissance Art and Culture

• Economic prosperity followed the end of epidemics and famines in the Middle Ages. A new social class arose that demanded culture, art, and music: wealthy merchants (the bourgeoisie) became patrons of the arts, in addition to the nobility and the clergy.
• The birth of humanism, a mindset that promoted the development of art (not only religious art as before) to cater to human needs.
• The wisdom of Antiquity was widely spread, emphasizing human concerns.
• The invention of the printing press and travels around the world (including the arrival in America) eased the expansion of new trends.

How Humanism Influenced Renaissance Music

• The diffusion of knowledge affected music as well, helped by the printing

What Does Baroque Adjective Mean?

-Meaning “regularly shaped”. At first, the word in French was used mostly to refer to pearls. Eventually, it came to describe an extravagant style of art characterized by curving lines, gilt and gelt.

Musical Instruments of Baroque:

a) What is a Luthier? The composer who cares for the timbric richness of his works and the interpreter will specialize in his instruments, which will lead to the first virtuosos.

b) Who was the most famous luthier? Amanti, Stradivari and Guarnieri.

c) Where did he come from? Stradivari made palatino quartet and kept in the royal palace in Madrid.

d) Do you know interesting anecdotes about him?

Religious Music:

a) Cantata: is a simpler form composed by texts or popular religious themes.... Continue reading "Baroque Period: Music, Art, and Society" »