Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and exercises for Music for University

Early American Music and Traditions

Benjamin Franklin's instrument: the glass harmonica.

America's music style in the 17th century: European, religious, and functional.

First opera house location: New Orleans, Louisiana.

U.S. Marine Band leader: John Philip Sousa.

19th-century American tradition: The minstrelsy or minstrel show.

What replaced the minstrelsy: Vaudeville shows.

Famous composer of art song: Stephen Foster.

19th-century musical landscape: There was a growing divide between amateur and professional performers in America, similar to Europe.

The Foundations of Ragtime and Blues

Ragtime Characteristics

Stylistically, Ragtime has numerous distinct sections. It is almost always performed on the piano. The left hand plays a steady beat while the...

Historical Context: Ars Nova and Musical Shifts

Philippe de Vitry and Johannes de Muris

Philippe de Vitry and Johannes de Muris, professors of music at the University of Paris, were pivotal figures in the development of music theory. Vitry's students compiled his notes into a treatise called Ars Nova, which explained his perspective on the new music and contrasted it with the older Ars Vetus, detailing the art of early music.

Innovations in Time and Harmony

Vitry considered creating a system to change from the triple time prevalent before, introducing binary time. In France, the melodic line became the basis for harmonization, with voices and instruments supporting it from above and below, leaving the melody in the middle. Until the fifteenth century,...

The Mechanics of Breathing

Inhalation: The first step is to take in the air. Once we have taken the air, it goes to our lungs, which expand, pushing the diaphragm down. In this movement, the diaphragm pushes the entrails and the belly.

Exhalation: We begin to expel the air, controlling this process with the abdominal muscles. The diaphragm goes up, pushing the lungs and forcing them to allow the air to exit.

Vocal Vibration and Amplification

Vibration: The air we have expelled goes through our trachea and arrives at the larynx, where there are two bodies called the vocal cords. These begin to vibrate, producing sound.

Amplification: The sound produced by the vocal cords would be very soft and barely audible if it were not amplified. This sound is...

Renaissance Architecture Origins

Renaissance Architecture has its origins in Renaissance Florence, Italy. It first appeared in the mid-fifteenth century (Quattrocento), and from there spread throughout the rest of Europe. In the early sixteenth century, the artistic movement moved from Florence to Rome (Cinquecento).

The revival was not a mere copy but an interpretation of ancient models by Renaissance architects, who stamped them with their personal style. The two great architects of the fifteenth century, Brunelleschi and Alberti, traveled to Rome to study and contemplate the ruins of classical antiquity.

We must study the phases of this movement before concluding: those corresponding to the fifteenth century (Quattrocento) and the sixteenth...

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In music, a sound that has a definite pitch is called a

a.  noise.         b. dynamic accent.     c.  sound.        d.  tone.

2.  The vibrations of brass instruments come from

a.  the vibrations of a string                b.            a single reed.

c.  the right hand of the musician.       d. the musician’s lips.

3.  The ___________ belongs to the woodwind family

        a. trumpet                    b. flute

c.  violin                     d. organ

4.  Which of the following percussion instruments have indefinite pitch?

        a. Snare drum              b. Chimes

c.  Tympani               ...

Subcategories of 20th Century Drama

During the 20^th century, we found new different subcategories of drama:

• 1900-1950: Broadway (explained below)
• The Little Theatre Movement (explained below)
• Birth of Musical Theatre
• 1930s: The Federal Theatre Project (explained below).
• 1950s: Off-Broadway
• 1960s: Off-Off-Broadway

Broadway Theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, are theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theater District and Lincoln Center along Broadway, in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Along with London's West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world.

Main

The Experimental Art of Máighréad Medbh

Máighréad Medbh (born 1957, County Limerick, Ireland) is a contemporary Irish poet and performance artist whose work is widely recognized for its experimental form, its integration of voice and performance into the texture of the poem, and its sustained reflection on identity, solitude, and the body in relation to culture and history. Her work is as much oral as textual: the vocal delivery is a crucial component of meaning, placing her within the tradition of Irish oral performance while simultaneously expanding it toward experimental and hybrid forms.

Historical Context and Cultural Memory

There are several things to consider: her writing frequently engages with questions of cultural memory, historical...

What are Tone Clusters?

Tone clusters are chords built by stacking adjacent notes.

How did John Cage "Prepare" the Piano?

Cage put screws, erasers, and other items between piano strings to change the sound of the piano.

Defining Indeterminate and Chance Composition

Indeterminate or chance composition occurs when some parameter of the performance is left up to the performer, ensuring that something different will happen every time. It involves a random process of creating work.

Significance of John Cage's 4'33"

This piece consists of 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence by the performer. Cage hoped that the audience might realize that even in the absence of the performer playing, there is still no silence in the performance space.

First Piece for Percussion