Music Education

Intro to Music Theory essay

2010-08-10T01:13:00.000-07:00

When listening to music there are four main elements that the listener should become familiar with. These elements are rhythm, melody, harmony, and tone color. These factors along with the creation of structure and musical texture make up the music that we listen to on a day to day basis. Without these musical features music would not be as complex and dynamic as it has grown to be. Depending on how they are arranged and utilized determines what we take away for music after we have listened to it. What we bring to the music is a significant factor as well. Considering all of these components, how we listen to music and how we should listen to music are distinctively different.

Historians believe that when music was first created thousands of years ago, it was merely a simple beat. This element of music soon evolved into what we all recognize now as rhythm. It wasn’t until about 1150 that musical rhythm was formally written down. Even the systems that we have adopted today aren’t flawless, yet they do fulfill the need of the performer and the composer. The elementary “measured music” soon evolved to become “measured metrical units”. Although, when looking back to early rhythms, they might seem too elementary to call the mind behind them genius, yet its influence should not be underestimated. Some examples of modern day time signatures would be such units as 2/4, ѕ and 4/4. If you were to vocalize the rhythm of 2/4 time it could be illustrated as, ONE-two, ONE-two, with the accent on the first beat. ѕ time would be illustrated as ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three, again with the accent on the first beat. Experimentations with rhythms are always around us. Musicians are constantly trying to discover a new groove to play to. Listeners on the other hand feel more comfortable with the rhythms that they are familiar with. Rhythm is said to be connected mostly with physical emotion, while melody connects with mental emotion.

Second in importance to rhythm is melody. All melodies are written within the confinements of a scale system of one form or another. These scales are based on for main “systems” of scale building. These are, Oriental, Greek, Ecclesiastical and Modern. There are many different formations of scales but they are all based on the concept of an initial tone (tonic) and its octave. The arrangement of seven tones in between the octave is called a diatonic formation. Naming all the tones in an octave span would be a chromatic formation. Melodies are derived from variations of these scales. The melodies have strategically placed high and low tones that attempt to connect with the readers emotions. A majority of melodies often lead to some sort of an emotional climax at the end. Melodies are often assisted by harmonies.
Harmony, being considered the most sophisticated of rhythm and melody was established in the ninth century. Unlike the natural forthcoming of rhythm and melodies harmony was an amazing intellectual conception of man. The earliest form of harmony was called “organum” in which we would harmonize the same melody in intervals of sixths or thirds above or below the melody. Soon harmony evolved to two separate melodies being played simultaneously in opposite directions. This was called “descant”. The next development was “Faux-bourdon” or “false-bass”. Instead of say with the crude sounds of fourth and fifth intervals faux-bourdon introduced the forbidden tones of the third and sixths. This later changed the course of harmonic use introducing basic chords known as triads. The combination of harmony and melodies created the color of the music.

Tone color or timbre represents the overall “theme” of the piece of music. The tone of music is the quality of the sound produces by a certain means or instrument. This is not saying that each musical instrument has its own tone color. Rather that a tone color is like an emotion, many different people can express the same emotion as was as many different instruments can express the same tone color in a piece of music. The choice of tone color was not a one of importance back in the early days of musical composition. Today, it is of utmost importance among composers, as they strive to express there theme or emotion in more detail. The listener can easily understand these details when musical texture is implemented.

The three types of musical texture are monophonic, homophonic, and polyphonic. Monophonic is simply a subtle melody line with no harmonic accompaniments aside from rhythmic percussion. Homophonic is a slight variation of monophonic and is of great significance due to its abundance in all music. It contains a melodic line accompanied by a chordal harmony. This was first used in Italian operas. The final form of musical texture is a polyphonic texture. This requires effort by the listener due to the fact that multiple melodies are being played to form harmonies. By using this form of musical texture a composer is offered a wider variety of emotional expression.

Musical structure is most likely the most difficult of all musical elements to decipher. It is definition is self explanatory, being the organization of the artists or composers materials and musical components. Although ever piece of music is unique they all can be traced back to some sort of historical musical form. Since the organization of music is on its own very difficult, most composers find that using these forms as a sort of “musical stepladder” to help begin them on there musical writing voyage. There are many structural principles and distinctions that must be taken into consideration when a composer outs pen to paper. These factors are necessary to create musical coherence in the piece.

All of the components of music discussed so far can be utilized as a building block for one another. They don’t necessarily require a particular order, yet melodies are used as a basis for forming harmonies and rhythms can be a basis for melodies. While all of the components are being created the composer is thinking of texture and structure. Once completed you have the artists’ interpretation of his or her emotions. The listener should bring to the music his/her own experiences and emotions as well as an open mind and a general background of music itself. After hearing a piece of music the listener should take away from the music whatever emotions or thoughts the piece brought to them and possibly a better understanding of what the artist or they feel.

In Coplan’s book “What to Listen for in Music” there is a chapter entitled “from composer to interpreter to listener”. The main purpose of this chapter is to identify the roles that are essential to the creation of music and the impact that they have. The composer is the mastermind of his own music and in his music offers himself to the listeners. The music contains nothing but the feelings, emotions, and experiences of a person. This person uses art to express these feeling to others. In turn he requires an interpreter. This person is needed to carry out the wishes of the composer in the musical sense. Technology has grown to proportions in which there is practically y no feat that the composer can ask of the interpreter that he can not provide. The variation of interpreters in turn equals a variation in conveying the composers “message”. Each music piece can be interpreted differently and hence forth the composers work will vary. The listener is what all of the music is directed towards. To be an active listener is to be a productive one.

Intelligence and a love for what the artists are creating make the music live stronger. The reactions of listeners will be the judgment of the future of music. For, the listener influences the artists that will be creating the music to come.

2010-02-05T01:43:00.000-08:00

Richard Strauss (1964-1949) was born of the famous virtuoso hornist and composer Franz Strauss. The father Strauss was known for his opposition to new musical forms. Richard’s mother was also musical and he began studying music in his hometown of Munich at a young age. Through his father’s dislike for emerging musical style, Richard was educated in the classical style, therefore used this to his advantage in composing a unique type of music using some elements of classicism, but qualifying still as 20th century. He made himself famous with his series of programatic tone poems such as the ones listed above.

Tod and Verklarung (Death and Transfiguration) was written in 1889. It depicts a man on his deathbed as he remembers his happy, earlier days and reflects on some of the trials, tribulations and triumphs of his life. Struggling with the acceptance of his imminent death, the piece moves through Strauss’ trademark sweeping sections which lead to quite sections back into more fast-paced music. The piece ends in calm giving the listener the impression of a peaceful and finally satisfying end.

The finish of Till Eulespiegel’s lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks) is slightly more disconcerting. The story of Till, the mischievous bug that he is, goes like this: Till causes some discord in the marketplace, and later among some scholars. He is tried for his wrongdoing and put to death by either hanging or beheading, thus the gigantic diminished chord about 2 minutes from the end with heavy low brass. There is a woodwind line which could make one think of the severed head dropping into a basket.

Don Juan is Strauss’ take on the Nicolas Lenau fragmentary poem under the same title. It is the story of an idealist in search of the perfect woman. Don Juan, being of a new style was at first difficult for german orchestras of the time to perform. Like much of Strauss’ other programatic music, Don Juan takes the listener through many moods; merriment, anguish, longing, exhilaration. Indeed Strauss has the capability to express many things in each of his relatively short pieces and also the great ability to tell stories in music.

Music: Distraction or Unnecessary for Amusement

2009-12-24T04:44:00.000-08:00

Music has evolved over time to become almost an essential part of life. It is used by some to alter moods and by others to relieve stress. Many people might argue that without music, the world would not be an enjoyable place. Others would argue that music is not crucial to life, but helps out as far as amusement. In this paper, I will discuss the views of Sextus Empiricus and Aristotle. Sextus Empiricus’ argument was that music, as a whole, is just a distraction, as he explains in Against the Musicians. Similarly, Aristotle explains in Politics (Book VIII) that music is not an essential part of entertainment.

Sextus Empiricus uses an effective analogy to explain how music is a distraction. He says, “… Sleep or wine do not relax grief but heighten it by producing torpor, feebleness, and forgetfulness; thus a certain type of melos (music/melody) does not restrain a grief-stricken soul or a heart agitated by anger but -- if it does anything at all -- distracts them” (753a16). When reading this particular passage the first thing that I thought about was how I could relate this to my life. For example, if I fail an Organic Chemistry exam, undoubtedly, I will be in a horrible mood. When I get home, I might put on my “favorite” songs in hopes of shifting my mood, or maybe just to get my mind off of the exam. The reality of it is this: as soon as that music stops playing, the first thing on my mind is that exam. While the music was on, I may not have been thinking about that dreadful exam, but when the music ends, so does the state of consciousness that the songs put me in.

The other focus of this paper is Aristotle’s argument that music is not essential for entertainment. By reading Politics (Book VIII), I came across a few examples to help explain his argument. Aristotle describes the fact that any mastered craft can make a person an artisan. Whether it be a musician, a poet, or a boat maker; if a person has mastered the craft, it has no become an art. When one can say that he/she is an artist of some sort, it brings amusement to life. A poem brings amusement through the context of the rhyme and a boat maker brings amusement because it provides a way to go sailing or fishing, both of which are fun to many people. Both of these are very similar to the idea of music being part of enjoyment (1339a13-1341a19). However, as I believe Aristotle is striving to explain, amusement can come in many different forms. His argument states it best: “Music is not essential for amusement”. There are many different factors in life and in this world that provide amusement, even if music were never brought to life.

These two arguments are similar in a few ways. Both are trying to prove that if music were unavailable, there would still be amusement without the distraction. A person could go to see a play or go watch a football game and still be amused, to a great extent, without the presence of music. If not one musical note or melody is heard, good times will still be had by people.

On the other hand, I believe these two philosophers to be on complete opposite ends of the spectrum, to some degree. It seems like Sextus Empiricus is absolutely opposing to the concept of music. He doesn’t seem supportive at all of the idea that music does in fact act discretely and not simply as a distraction. Conversely, Aristotle seemed relatively supportive of music as a source of amusement and was merely stating that it was not the sole foundation of amusement. There are many other factors in life that contribute to one’s amusement.

American Protest Music

2009-11-12T03:50:00.001-08:00

The 50s and 60s were a time of a nation torn by conflicts: the war in Vietnam and a racial war raging sometimes in the streets. Music played a large role in both of these conflicts. The musical expression of this era allowed an individual voice to speak out, often on issues that challenged the status quo. For people of all colors committed to racial justice, the 60s were a time of hope. They said you could hear it in the music: in the freedom songs that dominated marches throughout the south. Martin Luther King Jr. dubbed music the “soul of the movement.” The songs brought strength and courage, gathered supporters, disseminated information, and ultimately transformed a burden into a movement.

Protest music was intricately intertwined with the civil rights movement. The political songs during the folk revival in the early 60s attracted many people to the movement. Many also believe that protest music owes much to the freedom movement. The folkies spoke of more than just current political issues, they also had a vision of a new world. Because of the example of the freedom movement, this vision was thought of as a true possibility. People believed that it was possible to pass from an old way of life to a new.

During the 50s and 60s, many young people-mostly white, mostly middle-class, identified themselves as a self-conscious and rebellious social group. They made music that reflected an unprecedented crossing of racial and class lines and their actions posed serious challenges to traditional American cultural attitudes and values. These new alternative forms of cultural expression were deemed more necessary due to the failures of 1960s social programs including the War on Poverty, the effects of the Vietnam War on poor and working-class youths, and the repressive policies of the Los Angeles Police Department. All of these struggles contributed to a growing political activism and cultural nationalism.

Out of this activism developed a new kind of politics focused on the ideal of a beloved community. The musicians who connected with the folk revival consolidated their energies around the ideas proclaimed by groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The SDS professed a vision of a living political community dedicated to economic accountability, world peace, and racial justice. They envisioned politics as a way of “Bringing people out of isolation and into community” helping them find “meaning in personal life” Their vision is applicable in today’s society in which there is a widening gap between the rich and the poor among other justice issues.

Critics of the history of rock and roll have underestimated the significance of mass popular music capable of speaking the language of everyday life and articulating the experiences and activities of the streets. There were many white students that were searching for truth behind the actions during the civil rights movement. Many found television shows useless. So they turned to folk music, to Baez, Dylan, and Peter Paul and Mary. The folk singers provided the kind of insight the students sought. What many said star performers like Baez and Dylan did best was to bring people who would otherwise have been content with escapist popular entertainment into at least momentary contact with the larger political world.

Though protest music was able to “Make the impossible seem possible.” as Pete Seger said, there were problems that pervaded this social movement. Passivity in response to injustice and an inability to attract a black audience are a few of the noted problems with the second folk revival. There are many, though, that choose to emphasize the fact that these songs were able to symbolize the faith that solidarity and communication through music truly did generate social action. This music was able to give the individual a voice and that voice truly did create social change.

An Opera Singer Much More Than a Voice

2009-10-21T03:02:00.000-07:00

When we think about opera, we examine a work of art that unites music, drama, dancing, stagecraft and the scenic arts, which we view primarily as a musical experience. However, opera is a vocal art. Opera relies upon the opera singer, who is the participant in the opera’s drama, to bring forth the interpretation of song and music in which the composer has written (Encyclopedia Britannica). There have been many opinions on rather or not the opera singer is merely a voice. Though the gift of voice is essential in becoming and being an opera singer, the overall requirements are much more complex.

The opera singer is much more than a voice, but a human being. In this career field it is highly competitive, stressful and there are limitations on achieving artistic and financial success (Clifton Ware 30). With this knowledge it does not detour the collegiate study of becoming an opera singer. The typical lifestyle of a career bound opera singer does have its down falls at some point in their career. They sometimes began to experience depression, being lonely while on the road, family issues, coping with rejection, and financial doubts. With these dilemmas their life is out of control, with work and their career consuming every aspect of it (Ware 31). In order for the singer to maintain stability in their life, it is very vital to for he/she to prioritize least to greatest. Family relationships are key in providing a secure and comfortable life, which would ease the frustration the opera singer, feels. In a Classical Singer interview, world – renowned stage director Fabrizio Melano says “ Stay centered as much as possible and don’t get distracted by all the craziness going on around you. That requires doing work on yourself. The opera singer has to find their center in everything they do and not just as singers but as human beings.”

Within the vocal community singing is recognized as an extremely demanding profession mentally, emotionally, and physically. In addition, the opera singer is also looked at as a vocal athlete. Before an opera singer can do any type of singing for a performance or just rehearsing, he/she must first warm up. Just like an athlete warms up to stretch their muscles before a game or race, the singer also has a muscle, which is called a vocal chord. The vocal cords are folds at the upper end of the windpipe that vibrate and make voice sounds (Webster Dictionary 838). According to Ware a singer’s total vocal instrument is his/her body, mental and physical conditioning are needed to organize sufficient energy for coping with performances that include leading opera roles and full-length recitals (33). Some of the do’s an opera singer considers are a variety of nutritious foods, beverages, and vitamins. He/she must stay away from inhaling or drinking a large consumption of caffeine products, alcohol, illegal drugs, tobacco, and polluted air. These are some of the ways that a opera singer conserves and protects their vocal instrument through good vocal hygiene.

Another aspect when dealing with the singer’s health and well-being is looking at them as a processor. As a processor the singer observes the intake of sound through the ear, which is an organ of hearing. Though the singer gives considerable attention to voice improvement and care, the singer must also take into great consideration their hearing. Good hearing is essential for the singer in matching pitches, monitoring vocal quality, and providing interpretation when making appropriate adjustments during singing. In order for the opera singer to maintain excellent hearing he/she must avoid excessive noise, remove all impurities from ear such as wax build up and evade the exposure of high decibel noise levels (Ware53).

An opera singer does much traveling state-to-state and country-to-country and the mend of transportation is mostly by plane. The travel by plane raises a concern for the singer due to the ear disorder that can be caused by air pressure in the aircraft cabin, when descending in altitude. Typical symptoms are pain, dizziness, and short –term hearing loss that can be alleviated by drinking, yawning, gum chewing, and gentle nose blowing (Ware 54). According to Clifton Ware there is another principal way the singer hears their own voice: through bone conduction, which is the transmitting of nerve pulses (50). These nerve pulses cause a sensation of vibration to travel throughout the body, which enables the singer to be more effective with feedback, execution and communication. Though the opera singer may not have much control over some of the causes of vocal disorders, there are many preventive measures than can be taken over one’s lifetime.

When studying to become an opera singer one usually starts in their freshman collegiate year. There is much thought that is placed in the decision making of where the student will go. Once the decision is made they are engaged in an intensive curriculum that includes major courses such as theory, ear-training, and performance ensembles each requiring extra time and effort. Among the intensive course load one of the most important classes is diction. Diction teaches the singer to become a linguist, someone who studies a language with serious intent to understand and speak it. There are four languages that are studied -English, Italian, German, and French, primarily because these are the four major languages that operas are written in. Once the language has been learned and the singer has a working knowledge of it, they then move on to the four interrelated functions: (1) articulation- a spoken sound (vowels and consonants), (2) pronunciation- the proper use of speech phonemes according to standard speech, (3) enunciation- the clear and accurate utterance of phonemes: and (4) expression- the full-meaning conveyance of all words and phrases (Ware 50). Thus, the singers role as a linguist is to translate the text clearly, accurately, and expressively, assuring that the audience understands the meaning of every word, nuance, and phrase, that the composer and writer is trying to convey.

In addition to learning all the major languages the singer must also apply technique and artistry. Technique is concerned with means, process, and manner of how a song is executed. Once a singer has mastered or developed a technique it then enables them to learn a song quickly and thoroughly, produce productive tone with ease, and express in performance using a wide range of vocal, musical, linguistic, and dramatic skills (Ware 69). When the opera singer is ready to develop their artistry he/she must first master the skill of interpretation which is defined by Ware as the act of explaining or clarifying a song’s essence (69). With interpretation comes expression, which shows feelings and character. It is also said by Ware that artistry is a right brain activity but also the desired outcome of creative imagination (70).

Once the opera singer has learned the concept of diction, technique, artistry and the necessary precaution measures that are needed in maintaining good health, he/she is then ready. The opera singer then prepares themselves for the learning and studying of an opera role (character). The way that this task is executed is by the singers voice type. There are five basic voice classifications: soprano, mezzo-
soprano, tenor, baritone and bass. Within these voice types there are more specifics, such as: Lyric soprano, coloratura soprano, dramatic mezzo-soprano, counter-tenor, lyric baritone and bass-baritone etc. All roles are not suitable for every voice type. This is why it is very important that the singer knows his or her voice and what type of voice the role is requiring. Once the singer has found the role or roles of their choice, they then proceed to dissect the part; with the basic application of studies they have learned.

Once an artist of a female gender has taken on a leading lady role that she is then known as a “Primma Donna”. The noted Primma Donna in the world of opera in the words of William Madison has “Transformed from an entirely positive description to one with frequently negative connotations”(33). Though the term “Primma Donna” is no more than a leading lady, many female opera singers enjoy and despise being called that. Opera singer Carol Vaness says “The way I feel when I’m called “primma donna” is how I feel when people call me a star.” On the other note opera diva Marilyn Horne expresses that a primma donna is very temperamental in a bad sense (Madison 34). Although the title primma donna is not always welcomed, diva is one that is welcomed but the meaning of it is often related to “primma donna” so what is the big fuss about.

Finally, opera is a diverse art form with much complexity. But when we look at what an opera singer is we can now denote that he/ she is much more than
just a voice, but a primary need of being a human being, vocal athlete, linguist, educator, processor and earning the respect of being one day called a diva and or “primma donna”.

Sebastian Bach

2009-09-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

Born to Maria Elizabeth Lammershirt and musician, Johann Ambrosius Bach, Johann Sebastian was the youngest of their surviving children. While little is known of Johann Sebastian Bach’s childhood, it was later reported by his son that Bach excelled in singing was influenced by his father’s cousin, an organist.
In 1692, Sebastian ’s mother died, and his father remarried. Tragically, within three months, the senior Bach followed his wife, and orphaned J.S Bach and his siblings. Sebastian and his brother, Johann Jacob, went to live with their eldest brother, Johann Christoff at the Ohrdruf Lyceum, where they received a rigorous education.

In 1700, Sebatian left Ohrdruf, went to Luneberg, and became a member of the Matins chorus of Michealiskirshe, where he continued his education1. In the ensuing years, Sebastian was employed as an organist in various places, and while in Muhlhassen, in October 1707, Bach married his second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach2. Less than a year later, in June of 1708, Bach was offered a position of court organist in the Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weinmar’s palace. During this appointment, Bach composed the majority of his organ music and established his first contact with Italian music, which birthed his keyboard arrangements of concertos by Vivaldi and others. Six years later, in 1714, he was promoted to Konzertmeizter, a position that required Sebastian to compose “monatlich neue stucke”, or, compose a new cantata monthly. He fulfilled this requirement until his relationship with the Duke soured in 1716.

It is said that Bach composed some 200 sacred cantatas and numerous secular cantatas. In addition to this staggering quantity, the quality of these works is notable. He composed the bulk of his cantatas during his first few years at Leipzig, and did so in three cycles. Bach would begin each cycle on the first Sunday after Trinity, and continue his work until Trinity Sunday the next year. He used three sources for his cantata text: biblical passages to be read on that day, chorale text associated with that day, and poetic interpretation of expressed sentiment for that particular day. During the first cycle, from 1723–1724, Bach drew from his past compositions in Weimar and Cohen, but essentially, wrote a new piece every Sunday. In the second cycle, from 1724–1725, Bach wrote many of his chorale cantatas as well as cantatas for the Feast Days such as the Feast of Saint John and Festival of Reformation.

In 1723, Bach began his final positions as Kantor of the Thomasschule and Director musices for the town of Leipzig. In his last years, Bach focused on private works including Canonic Variations for Organ on Von Himmel hoch and the Musical Offering. Bach’s health began to falter and by the following year, he had lost his vision. Johann Sebastian Bach died after two unsuccessful surgeries for a cataract.

Beethoven

2009-09-10T14:09:00.000-07:00

When critically analyzed in respect to the earlier artists of the Classical music period, Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven’s music and life are simultaneously shown to be an evolution as well as a break from his predecessors. No doubt due to the influence of Mozart, as well as his tutelage under Haydn, Beethoven inherited their Classical music legacy but did not keep it in stasis. His innovations within musical composition were built upon the artistic foundation of the previous masters. They showcase to further extent contrasts of moods, greater dynamics, increased power and intensity, as well as an overall ambition toward a grander scale than Haydn or Mozart aspired. At the same time, Beethoven’s inspiration to create music and his struggle to elevate the societal position of the musician/composer composed a distinct break from the traditional European cultural function of a musician. This is understood in light of a lifetime that took in the political turbulence of the French Revolution as well as Enlightenment ideals concerning the nature of man. As such, very sharp distinctions from Haydn and Mozart occur that coexist with their lingering legacies within Beethoven.

Classical musical structures and forms can be discerned within Beethoven’s compositions, and as such he operates in the same rough musical framework utilized by Mozart and Haydn. The basic musical structures (sonata form, themes and variations, and rondo) plus the classical conceptions of a symphony and concerto are seen, but altered to permit greater passion and emotive might. One small, yet key, example is Beethoven’s substitution of the scherzo for the minuet and trio as the 3rd movement of a symphony. Its rhythmic force and character flexibility opened new ways of displaying contrasting musical emotions in his music.

Beethoven also tried to operate on a much grander scale, necessitated by his aspiration towards a denser musical tension than before. His symphonies grew to a much longer length as result. In the 3rd Symphony (Eroica), its epic length is built by a further and more complete integration of musical themes and motives then previously, allowing Beethoven an increased range of feelings to exploit in the creation of a heroic and triumphant work. Beethoven needed to, and innovated towards, a fostering of an enhanced musical continuity that would link the disparate parts of his large-scale compositions. The features of the 5th Symphony are indicative of this. Its key characteristics, that develop this notion, is that first the motif of the opening section rhythmically recurs at the opening of every other movement and, second, there is a musical bridge that bonds the 3rd and 4th movements (which is can be seen as a furtherance of Haydn’s handling of cyclic form in Symphonies No.45 and No.46), and both make apparent Beethoven’s desire for singular musical imperative that transcended the pauses that beforehand arbitrarily divided the sections of a symphony and other classical forms. This drive for thematic unity within Beethoven’s compositions illustrates the innovative nature of Beethoven’s music, using original ideas fused with the tradition of Haydn and Mozart.

In contrast to technical nature of the compositional works that built on the conventions of Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven’s inspiration to creating such works and his attempts to elevate the social status of the musician/composer make up his splitting from his precursors. Beethoven, firstly, did not see music as mere entertainment or ear candy. He saw music being capable of achieving the same moral force like a philosophical treatise could, as he reached towards a vision of higher ideals, which makes sense, as he was deeply concerned with the nurturing of spiritual values in man. He irrevocably broke from Mozart’s musical ideal, as Mozart tellingly stated that music “must never offend the ear, but please the hearer, or in other words must never cease to be music” and therefore saw a deeper value to his work then just creating pleasurable distractions.

Due to this enhanced vision of what music was capable of, Beethoven justly felt that a creator of music like him deserved and needed to be mandated the same respect as the nobility. He rebelled by demanding esteem in no uncertain terms from his Viennese noble patrons, never once acquiescing his own individuality to further his career. Beethoven would not allow his career be ultimately determined, like Mozart, by the whims of the Viennese aristocracy or even worse, like Haydn and the Esterhбzys family, in “servitude” for almost 30 years. The ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution made Beethoven dissatisfied with simply acquiescing to a stratified class culture, and he was proactive in making sure that he would never be limited by it (expressively shown in the 1809 arrangement that had three Austrian nobleman paying Beethoven to just stay in Vienna and compose).

Beethoven’s fight for a rise in a musicians social standing allowed him to break from his forerunners acquiescing to the nobility’s tastes to gain their patronage.
In summation, Ludwig van Beethoven embodied the basic Classical music tradition that Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Mozart established, yet as well broke from them in the uses of the tradition to gain a more powerful and intense style of music that embodied the passions and conflict he felt within himself. This power and intensity, coming from his musical inspiration, allowed for Beethoven’s distinctiveness that made him a bridge from the past into modern music.

Listening to Music

2009-09-01T01:51:00.000-07:00

Question one is about the different ways of listening to music. This is a reading debate essay of the three. Whilst you should make arguments, it is necessary that you quote from readings and back them up because you can’t get enough simply from looking at particular uses of music in the contemporary scene. They should be there to reinforce and illustrate your marshalling of other peoples’ arguments. It doesn’t mean that you’ve got no voice. Your voice in this type of essay first of all is from the way that you use the arguments, certainly which bits you tend to cite or lean on from the texts and also what points you are trying to make by using them. We are looking for a reasonable depth of reading on it and looking for an academic quality of balanced argument. I don’t think when you have done the reading that it is actually viable or valid to come up with a very strong argument down one side of this. There are strong cases, as one would expect really for a mix of these three factors.

I would tend to adopt a set approach to each of the three propositions. In what way can you demonstrate that the music itself affects how listeners listen to it without any knowledge of the artists or anything? I think it is certainly possible to argue that that is only a hypothetical premise anyway because if for example anyone puts on Method Man, people laugh and are clearly going to respond in the contextual way - it is not just music with different musical values, it carries cultural codings and values. Now whether you call that the music itself or whether you call that part of its cultural trappings is down to your line of argument. The music itself is probably the least likely to be a strong plank in this. You certainly should be able to demonstrate some context in which music itself affects listening and part of Adorno’s arguments do tend that way. For example, I think that you could use his fundamental division between art music and popular music and perhaps say that it isn’t possible to listen to art music in the way and for the purposes that you listen to popular music - that his assumed gratifications from those two forms don’t cross over. In a way, that the music itself will determine certain things about listening and that you can’t bop around to Mozart and you can’t furrow your brow over Gareth Gates. There is something there about what the music allows you to get from it. Adorno primarily illustrates the importance of personality or orientation of music. As you go through that, you should look at most or all of the points of his typology of listening of which there are seven. The Adorno stuff is very much of its time - it shows the crudity of mass culture when radio was the primary means of record distribution and not records. It is definitely valid to criticise Adorno and one of the outcomes we expect at this level is a critical approach. You can challenge Adorno on various bases and certainly you can qualify him and say that much of what he says has relevance at the time and continues to have relevance now, some of it does not do so in a mature popular music market and that perhaps the line between the types of music and therefore the types of listener that he elaborates is not as clear as it was then/does not exist/not useful - all of which are a fair comment.

From Chris Kennett, we have the varying effects of listening contexts. Some of them were technical, environmental and social. There are lots of possibilities arguing in favour of the context of listening. It is worth constantly looking back at the title while you write and make sure that you are covering it and looking at the word for word aspects. How do you start? Adorno possibly - different ways of listening to music in terms of what you are listening to it for but then you could also put in there the context sensitivity - a way of listening to music is extremely loud in the car or on a walkman or drifting off to sleep. In fact, the preconceptions around those say something about the choice of music and the kind of perception that you’re applying to it. For example, if you are putting it on a sleep timer, you won’t really be getting into it and try to work out any technical aspects of it - it is there for a highly specified function. That in a way becomes a factor of listening to music and the use of the sleep timer is a technological context as in Kennett. It is something that has heavily set up and predisposed the mode of listening and there are plenty of other examples that show that. I think it is fair to go into some of the professional contexts that will affect you, what is the way of listening to music if you think there is a risk of you spending some money on it - if an artist brings music to an entrepreneur, there are contextual factors at least and there may well be personal factors and possibly musical factors that affect how the entrepreneur listens and what they are listening for and to - the level of depth. This may go either way; it may be in that example they would listen very closely to all sorts of unusual considerations. On the other hand, if you follow one strand of Adorno’s reasoning, they won’t do that at all. One of the distillation of comments that he made is that once with art music, music had to be good first and then it got marketed and that now, under the culture industry, music has to be marketable first then examined as to whether it is any good or not. So you could possibly argue that in the example with the entrepreneur listening to some music, they are being right down the culture industry end and only listening for marketability or not allowing other factors to distract them until they have made some appraisal of the marketability. That is definitely a context sensitive listening point.

If you are doing the first essay, be clear but it is a question in two halves and the second half has three components in it - each of which needs to be discussed. The ways of listening to music may not take you very long out of your total budget but certainly there should be thorough argument about the three proposals in the second half. You can come to a conclusion provided that it is safe and it is safe when you have worked through the minor of the things that you have evaluated. You need to show evidence in assessments and assess what it is about. It is making sure that not only do you know things but it is very clear that you know you’ve thought through things on paper so if you are going to favour one outcome then it is important to demonstrate that you have fairly considered the other outcomes and shown why they have less of an influence than the one you’ve picked. Context is definitely very important but you would then need to set up an experiment on paper saying okay, here we are with some effective contexts, here we are switching the variables so that now we are keeping the contexts and the personality and changing the music and as you can see, that doesn’t produce such a strong effect, sort of. Make some kind of argument along those lines so that you are showing the different weightings that these sorts of things have.

Analyse the character and function of one music publication or national newspaper section
This is for the most part a kind of methodical use of data approach to an essay. It draws on the content analysis that we did but it uses it as a stepping-stone so that it is necessary to do both types of content analysis of the publication you are choosing - the quantitative and qualitative analysis but that is not the work you show in great depth. One of the main things that has let down the marks for essays under this title in the past has been that they have taken the title to be show a character and function or show a content analysis and if you don’t distil that and use it to support argument then it is a relatively weak piece of work at this level. It needs to be done as preparation and is the alternative to the reading that has to be done for essay one but as with that, you can’t just plonk chunks of the reading in and call that an argument so you can’t just plonk your content analysis in and call that an analysis of character and function, it isn’t.

Components that make up a character - a lot of it is qualitative here so the layout - some of that you can do by saying there are x pages of colour and x quarter pages and it is quantitative but don’t get bogged down in detail with this. It really is best to kind of do the content analysis, set it aside and work from it drawing bits from it when you need it otherwise you will probably put too much of it in and not enough creative thinking. The graphic approach and the textual approach as well - the type of words, the length of the pieces, the type size - all these things differ and form part of the magazine’s impression of character. Type of language that they use, the type of music that they include and exclude. The position from which they have used society - informal/social judgements - when the magazine’s persona or the journalist’s persona expresses itself, it does so with an assumed character of someone of a certain age with a certain style and it tries to make itself like the readership so who is that national reader? Who is being mimicked by the magazine? That is very much part of the character aspect of it.

For function, there are three areas that we discuss. One is the publishing house itself and sometimes you can certainly draw on what Eamonn Ford talked about in terms of an overall strategy of someone like IPC or EMAP to position themselves in a given market so it is a more complex thing than just putting the magazine out and making money. It forms part of a whole editorial policy to participate in a sector of publishing and you may find when you look up some of the magazines that have closed, you could make the argument that it was because they lost their function from the publisher. There is a function to people who want to use the magazine to communicate with the audience - the advertising industry, the music industry, who will often be the same thing. Quantitative analysis supports that very well because you can actually look at the amount and the type of advertising and you can say something narrower about the function than to reach consumers. You could say given that the magazine carries lots of advertising for relatively cheap products and things like ringtones, etc. - it is aimed at this market, scratch and sniff adverts are aimed at this market and cars for this market. It is the implications of this analysis that are important.

The functions for the music industry as we’ve discussed are wider than the functions to just advertisers because the editorial that is in the magazine serves the music industry well in the broad sense of building artist identity and seeds and loyalty to those things. This is possibly going to depend a lot on what it is you analyse and I would heavily recommend unless you have a good reason otherwise, to analyse something where there is lots of it and it is easy to see like NME, Smash Hits or Q. Unless you feel you have a really strong insight into a particular stake in anything then pick something with plenty of obvious characteristics. Perhaps the most complex and hardest to prove function is the function to the readership but that makes it a very fertile part of the assessment in potential. It means that you can perhaps comment on the changes in function that we’ve talked about and debate with our journalist guests and it means that maybe you can contrast what the magazine thinks it is with the likelihood of what the readership wants from it. So for example, our core topic of criticism and reviewing - you can make a limited argument that the power of the magazine to recommend buying may still be there but is less there for a smaller part of the readership than there would have been in the past however the magazine may not have actually responded to that in terms of changing the balance of its topic.

I think you should keep it in proportion but comparison is quite good to illustrate certain points in a way. If you say there are x pages or parts of a page dedicated to this aspect in the magazine you are talking about, that is not entirely helpful unless you contrast it with a different sort of publication where there is another approach, which is a much more persuasive argument. Where you are working on one of your stronger points, I think that it is a very good added value idea to observe something else similar to show that there is a trend or different to show that this trend only takes place with a certain readership in mind, with a certain magazine style, certain character and function profile. If you are going to do that or use several differing examples then do that kind of thing once applying it to one of your larger arguments or you could loosely run it parallel so that it goes through the whole thing if you can see one that suits. If you are making a very firm split about character and function on the grounds of music genre or age, for example, and you can find publications that are very explicitly targeted and have clearly different approaches - you are asked to do one so you need to put one in the foreground to show how it differs consistently.

As with all things, there must be some kind of example or citation to support any assertion that you make. You can’t just say it is aimed at 18-24 year olds - you need to look at the music that is covered, the type of language used, the advertising, etc. If it comes from you, it needs some kind of evidential support. That can be drawn from the magazine; you don’t have to look outside this for a bibliography.

One tact that you might take with this is to do the methodical content analysis, format as an appendix and then refer to it and that will stop you from overusing it and would give you a nice separation and ensure you were arguing from it and not using chunks of it.

What I’m expecting to see for referencing is a deep referencing of a few issues of one magazine and possibly another one of it. It is only the first essay that really needs any books in it.

What contribution does music journalism make to today’s music industry?
I would hope to see some of the observations from the journalists and PRs during those sessions and you need to contrast that with the contribution or lack of it that other people have made and in some cases, you can see what the PRs were saying last week that one aspect of the contribution of music press has definitely diminished - that it is now according to them only seen as a kind of entry level usage, it doesn’t introduce music to a mass audience, it introduces music to the adopters and tasters.

Again there are some considerations, which I would say as the function of the press to the music industry for this will come up in terms of solidifying acts, identifies with the public, which nothing else really does. If you look at delivery methods of radio or television, radio doesn’t do any of that whatsoever - it is essentially music and television does a bit, it shows you what they look like and a bit of what they act like but the only medium which gives you an apparent insight into how they think is print or text. It is informative for people to look at online journalism and see if there is a difference. I suppose it is quite possible to argue as part of this that just considering music journalism as a single phenomenon gives you some general factors that we’ve gone through but that as specialism has become more favoured in recent years, you can’t really talk about a function of music journalism to the industry - it is different. For example, the function of all or part of DJ Magazine is much more explicit and close to a trade magazine, more likely still, to do with whether or not to buy the records than even something in the same community like Mixmag. Of the mainstream dance magazines, if you contrasted Musik and DJ then their function to the music industry would not actually be identical. Musik is more glamorising, more broadly documentary and personality driven and mainstream and DJ is closer to trade, closer to the factual approach to record buying for their use as a tool to make money with. Certainly, I think it is interesting to talk about aspiration with this. There may be aspects of the urban sector or possibly rock magazines that show the same kind of things - that the readers of dance magazines weren’t going out raving a lot, they just wished they were. Don’t take it at face value, which can also apply to the second topic.

Punk History

2009-08-20T10:57:00.000-07:00

Most of the first wave of British punk were born from art schools. Members from The Clash, Sex pistols, Damned, Wire, Adam and the ants, and Siouxsie and the banshees had all come from such places in and around London. A large contingent came from in and around the Kings road area of west London, and a lot of the first wave knew of each other first hand- Tony James (Gen X), Mick Jones (Clash). Topper Headen (Clash) and Keith Levine (Clash, Public image) had all been in the London SS, a Proto-punk band featuring the aforementioned all-star line-up. Shortly after The SS split, Tony James went to form Chelsea with future Generation X member and MTV pop star Billy Idol. In addition they recruited future Damned Guitarist and leader Brian James. Siouxie Sioux had played in a band at the 100 club with Sid vicious on drums, and Future Adam and the ants member Marco Pironni, which gave "The lord's prayer" a refurbishing in a punk concept. Siouxie Sioux had also been in the Bromley Contingent, a small group of followers who were devoted to the cause of the Sex pistols, and managed to follow them onto the Bill Grundy show, "Today" In december 1976, where Sioux sparked off the use of four letter words when a drunken Grundy made some ill advised comments to her. The Clash's Leader, Joe Strummer had been plying his trade in the pub rock scene, which was instrumental to the rise of punk, with his previous band the 101'ers. As soon as he saw the Pistols, he knew his band was outdated. Strummer was actually an ex public schoolboy, and his dad was a worker in the national treasury of some sort. Other bands, such as the UK subs had also evolved from pub rock- Charlie Harper was in the marauders prior to forming the subs. Eddie and the hot rods were still doing it when punk washed the waves, and were perhaps never a genuine punk band, but a New wave band. Paul Weller and the Jam had formed years previously in 1974 in Woking with no direction until punk came along. A few words with Strummer gave Weller inspiration, although by about 1979 he would be disappointed with the achievements of his peers. Likewise, The Stranglers were a band who before punk did not really fit in with any clique. Upon punk's arrival, their Violent and sexist attitudes had found a place. Other bands formed simply from watching the larger first wavers play; Stiff little fingers immediately after the Clash played in Belfast. Most unusually, Stiff little fingers became the only band to have an outside co-lyricist: Gorden Ogilvie was a journalist with the Daily Express before he became SLF's manager. Eater had band members aged only about 14, and their total musical inadequacy summed up a lot of punk to most people. Some others had little to do with the London scene: Penetration had formed in County Durhum, a region of Britain in the middle of nowhere. Penetration has produced one of the best singers to come out of punk, Pauline Murray. The band itself never reached its potential that people had seen in them, unfortunately. Sham 69 had come from Hersham, a low class suburb just outside the south west of London, apparently taking their name from a partially smudged graffiti on the local train station which read "Walton and Hersham 69" (the local football team). The Buzzcocks were another band from the northwest, and helped forge the Manchester punk scene by helping bands like Warsaw, who later changed their name to Joy Division. The Ramones had a bigger following in the UK than they did in their native country; the US was too embraced in Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles to take any notice of anything else. The Boys were a Ramonesish pop-punk outfit from London, Who released Two classic LPs, Boys (1977) and Alternative chartbusters (1978) they were probably forgotten because the English press were more interested in bands with political motives rather than having fun Crass were one of the brittlelest and most politically hard line of the first wave, and they showed no respect to their peers by proclaiming it was all for financial gain, not revolution. Mark Perry leader of Alternative TV was another who was aware that signing to a major label was naive. His lyrics were much more focused on their aims than most of his peers- just listen to the "How much longer/You bastard" single, and punk ideology is put into a much better context.

Malcolm Mclaren was the owner of a shop called "Sex" in Kings road, which sold Bondage gear and punk items. Eventually he gathered together a few young Naive boys who were willing to help him revolutionise the world of music. Johnny Rotten, as legend has it, first entered his shop with a Pink Floyd T-shirt sketched with the words "I hate" above the band's name. As a result of the Bill Grundy show incident, which gave the Pistols and the Banshees no shortage of press coverage, punk became almost impossible to ignore and major labels snapped and signed most of the first wave. Adam Ant was another product of Mclaren, and his first band line-up would later join jungle rhythm New wave band Bow Wow Wow (another of Mclaren's exploits).

Majors would be paying them a lot of money to behave (The Clash were paid Ј100,000 in advance upon signing with CBS, the Pistols went through many fortune level contracts). At first, a lot of them did refuse to change, but the rate at which some changed their musical style was alarming; The Clash by 1980 had turned into a convovulated mess, with Soul, Reggae, Funk, Rap and many other styles being present on the triple Sandinista album. Likewise, Stiff little fingers moved from the fiery political punk of Inflammable material (1979) to the shocking horns and trumpets of Now then (1982) within three years. It seems ironic that the band who kept the punk ethic longest, of all those who had signed to majors, were the Jam. Paul Weller always claimed the Jam were MOD group, and not a punk group. For the uninitiated, Mod was a style of 60's British rock that had people riding around on scooters and on the seaside; bands such as the Who, Small faces, and Kinks were purveyers of this type of music. Weller claimed his punk peers were too nihilistic in their quest, the second jam single "All around the world" depicted the situation where punks were destroying everything in their wake. Even so, a lot of punk bands had a Mod background anyway, because it was the working class music that preceeded punk the previous decade. The Jam were stubborn enough, so it wasn't until their sixth and final album, The gift (1982) that they withdrew punk ethics. Siouxie and the banshees, on the other hand, mutated into a goth band by the 80's. They were the last first wave band to sign to a major in 1978, which by then they had already incorporated Goth into their music. Likewise, The Damned drew more heavily into gothic influences after the departure of Brian James, releasing some horrible records in the Mid 80's. The Ramones lasted over 20 years, and in that time they have seen the world of music change, all because of a few records they relased in the late 70's. The Ramones debut album had an enormous effect on the London punk scene 0f 75-79, because its sheer simplicity and power meant it could be copied by everyone.

Rock and Roll Music

2009-08-18T04:42:00.000-07:00

Rock and roll music is very influential in the lives of young people. From the origin of rock music to rock music today, many lives have been affected. Rock and roll music accompanies people everywhere they go. In the article, "Rock and roll as Music; Rock and Roll as Culture" by Jack Santino, he discusses how people relate and identify with rock and roll music. Also, in the article, "Rock 'N' Revolt," Isabelle Leymarie examines the relationship between music and violence. People hear rock music when they ride in cars, when they shop at the mall, and even when they browse the internet. There are elements of rock and roll music that influence the identity formation of young people.

First, rock and roll music affects a young person's clothing style. In the article, "Rock and Roll as Music; Rock and Roll as Culture," the author Jack Santino discusses how rock music affects the way a person dresses. For example, he says how rebellious young people wear "motorcycle jackets, shoulder-length hair on men, spiked bracelets, and razor blades" (197). Another style of dress is typical of heavy metal or rock listeners. For example, the band Metallica has a great impact on the way young people dress because when people hear their hard rock music it makes them want to dress in a violent way. Most people who like Metallica wear black shirts and chains hanging out of their pants to look like the lead singer. Rock and roll music also influences the appearance of one of my friends. To illustrate, he listens to the hard rock band Linkin Park, and he shaves his head and wears baggy clothes to look like the drummer of Linkin Park. He told me that the sound of their music made him want to him want to be like them, so he decided to dress like the drummer. In short, rock and roll music provides an outlet for young people's emotions and clothing; however, the lyrics in rock and roll music also influence the identities young people experiment with.

Also, the lyrics of rock and roll music also affect the identities of young people. In his article, Jack Santino also discusses how these parents said that Ozzy Osbourne's music caused their child to commit suicide (199). If a young person is troubled and he listens to a song about suicide, then this could cause him to possibly commit suicide. Also, the lyrics of the rock and roll singer Marilyn Manson have a big impact on young people's lives. For example, his lyrics are very horrifying, and they may cause a young person to commit a crime or even use drugs. Another article that expresses the lyrics and the lifestyles of rock music is "Report on Violence in the Media and Children." The author in this article says that lyrics include bad influences, such as vulgar language, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, sexual promiscuity, domestic abuse, parental disrespect, rejection of authority, and the glorification of violence, drug use, rape, and murder (1 of 6). The article "Impact of Music Lyrics and Music Videos on Children and Youth" discusses how music lyrics and videos have changed dramatically over the past 40 years, and it also discusses the effects it has on children and youth. To illustrate, the article says that "rock music lyrics have become increasingly explicit-particulary with reference to sex, drugs, and violence" (1219). When people hear these explicit lyrics it may cause them to act out one of these elements. Next, Leymarie discusses in her essay how the lyrics in music expresses violence like the music of Ice-T (189). For example, his song "Cop Killer" is a good example because the title says violence itself, and if a young person listens to this song, it may cause them to kill a cop. Last, the lyrics in rock and roll music had a big impact on one of my friends. After my friend started listening to the rock and roll singer Ozzy Osbourne, she started using drugs. She told me that listening to Ozzy Osbourne's songs made her want to do drugs. She also told me that some of Ozzy's lyrics related to drugs, and it just made her want to try them.

In conclusion, the more rigorous and the more violent lyrics in rock music, the more aggressive a young person may behave.

Finally, rock and roll music videos influence the identity formation of young people. In the article, "Gender and Family as Moderators of the Relationship between Music Video Exposure and Adolescent Sexual Permissiveness," the author Nancy Buerkel-Rothfuss and Jeremiah Strouse discuss how exposure to rock music videos on television and premarital sexual attitudes and behavior affect a families environment. For example, Buerkel-Rothfuss and Strouse state that "adolescents like to watch music videos because the image enhance their enjoyment and appreciation of the music and helped them understand the messages of the songs" (505). Also, rock music videos can lead a young person to violence. To illustrate, the authors discuss how "short exposure to music videos can result in a desensitization to violence and increased acceptance of antisocial behavior" (505). Next, young people who watch Music Television (MTV) are also influenced by their videos that they display on television. For instance, the authors say that the videos on MTV influences young people to purchase "albums, posters, T-shirts, and other fashionable memorabilia" (505). In short, watching rock music videos may help a young person to identify himself, or it may lead him to violence.

In conclusion, rock and roll music is omnipresent. No matter where a person goes or what a person does, rock and roll music can and will be influential in that person's life. Different people react to the same rock and roll music in different ways. Regardless of how a person reacts to rock and roll music, the music itself will mold and shape a person's identity as a human being.

Hip Hop

2009-08-17T02:39:00.001-07:00

Stealing from other people is an American tradition as old as the Constitution. Among America's first counts include its theft of land from native tenants, its theft of people through systematic slavery, and its theft of ideas to accommodate a lack of national history. These historical offenses, of course, became habit and have made way to more recent accusations of cultural theft. In the 20th century, for example, mainstream pop culture has made a practice of shoplifting black music traditions for its own profit and enjoyment. First, white America "borrowed" jazz. Then it "borrowed" the blues, then rock and roll, funk, and most recently, Hip Hop.

It is this final ill-gotten gain that interests me most: Hip Hop. Why? Because Hip Hop is my culture. It is the foundation on which my frame of reference is built. Born a few years before me, Hip Hop has not only shaped my worldview, but has sculpted the era in which I live. One might say that instead of a double helix, I have two turntables and a microphone spinning DNA throughout my body. Hip Hop is more than just a part of my life; Hip Hop is me. Yet, my complexion is as pale as your garden-variety Caucasian. While my skin tone does not exclude me from participating in Hip Hop, it does call my motives into question.

Do I speak with Marshall Mathers' accent out of a desire to be “down” with Viacom's version of pop culture? Or am I one of those disenfranchised “wanna-be’s”, merrily following contemporary hipsters? Is there any possibility that I approach Hip Hop with passion and genuine interest? Can a white person save Hip Hop?

The answer to the last question is, of course, no. This is not because I am white or that I lack Hip Hop credentials, such as rhyming, spinning, or dancing. It’s also not because Hip Hop does not need saving, because it does. The answer is because no single person can save it. Instead, if Hip Hop is to be saved, every human being who cares about the culture must do it. We (all of us who have an interest) need to take Hip Hop back, and reclaim it from the mass-marketing mailboxes of Middle America.

To understand Hip Hop's current crisis, we must first trace a bit of its history. Human beings have an established record of coming together to express their joy through rhythmic movement. In the early or mid-1970s, Hip Hop emerged as the latest in a long line of music sensations.
Hip Hop was born in the Eastern United States as both a social and urban experience. Its parents were of African descent, black city dwellers. Among early hip hoppers were a mix of harsh poverty and middle class prosperity. People of varied economic backgrounds mixed casually because crack cocaine was still a decade or so away from carving out the economic chasm that currently exists in America's inner cities. Urban life was far from prosperous, but in the 1970s it had not yet bottomed out either.

These circumstances instigated the creation of Hip Hop, a very simple organism that acted as a communication device among city folk. It inhaled frustration and desperation and exhaled insightful expression. In its infancy, Hip Hop traveled from its native New York to other American metropolitan hubs. Hip Hop proliferated, but remained true to its promising ethic: bring folks from the neighborhood together to have a good time. As the toddling culture gained its bearings, Hip Hop expanded upon its candid nature by becoming more comfortable discussing social ills. Emcees and graffiti writers had always been quick to critique the problems of their world, but songs such as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's The Message encouraged the formation of a nationwide (and later global) network that became more than the soundtrack to so many block parties. According to one oft-quoted line from Hip Hop luminary Chuck D, the culture evolved to be "a black CNN," passing information from city to city. Hip Hop was a shared experience uniting urbanites by leisurely pursuits and common hardships.

Along its journey, Hip Hop left some debris in the small, suburban towns dotting the pathways between its bigger, urban destinations. This fresh, new art form proved irresistible to America's kids, regardless of their color or rung on the economic ladder. It was quickly adopted by white kids throughout the country as the unofficial language of youthful rebellion. Soon after, corporate America found they could generate huge profits by packaging the exciting elements of the music and peddling it back to the youth responsible for its creation. Once Hip Hop developed a business model, it shed its innocence in favor of the lavish goodies provided by the bottom line. Hip Hop moved from the music of city to become the sound of the suburbs - which tend to be guided by Caucasian sorrow - where it has decayed ever since.

There is quite a bit of debate as to the precise timeline of Hip Hop's downward spiral. Some believe 1986 – when Run DMC's Raising Hell and the Beastie Boys' Ill Communications both cracked the upper level of the pop charts – was the beginning of Hip Hop’s demise. Others suggest that Dr. Dre's 1992 album, The Chronic, paved the way for Hip Hop to become the official rebel music of American youth. Still others cite the late 1990s emergence of rap-rock and Eminem as the surest sign that Hip Hop had been jacked by Western pop culture. Whatever date, we ascribe to the crime, let there be no doubt that Hip Hop is now an American institution.

Much like its musical predecessors, Hip Hop was ripped from the arms of its African origin parents and incorporated into mainstream American culture long ago. Now, Hip Hop is equally comfortable in the mouths of three fresh-faced MC’s crowded together on the streets of Brooklyn as it is in the disc player of a white, 30-something accountant from Pittsburg. Once reserved for the disenfranchised masses of black urban youth, Hip Hop is now the chew toy of white suburbia.

What was once thought to be a passing fad has endured as the most disposable American institution. By 2001, a generation or two of suburban youth have had the opportunity to outgrow Hip Hop and look back jokingly at the follies of their awkward years. Artists such as MC Hammer, 2 Live Crew, Will Smith, and the Beastie Boys have a camp value to the 30-something generation. While far from the standard bearers of Hip Hop, these artists are important because of their success and their lasting, though minor, impact on a significant segment of the American population. America has not only eaten its young, it has swallowed and digested the culture of its youth with impunity.

Yet Hip Hop is far from fecal matter. While Egotrip's Book of Rap Lists said, "you can't kill hip hop because it's already dead," I would argue that Hip Hop is simply enduring some growing pains. Yes, Hip Hop is in grave danger. But recognition of its true problem will allow all of us - black, white, brown, purple, green, or other - to act as its collective savior.

Hip Hop's crisis mirrors the crisis of the American suburbs and their middle class residents. Suburbia in the United States is excessively comfortable, which breeds boredom and encourages rebellion for the sake of rebellion. Where Hip Hop is concerned, American youth have sought to engage in the hedonism in which the culture has dabbled. On an isolated basis, this may not be a problem, but when all of our major media outlets pepper our senses with sex and violence - we are left to believe that Hip Hop is little else.

We should not assign blame to TV or to the record labels because they are only pushing a product that has proven selling power. Def Jam has undeniable proof that an album from DMX will achieve platinum status. Fans not only pack arenas to see him perform, they request his video on MTV, wear T-shirts bearing his name, and pack movie theaters for a film in which he stars. On the other hand, many struggling rappers, one such named Rawkus, is left to hope that their Reflection Eternal album will sell enough copies to cover costs. Several hundred fans may gossip about the group on the Internet and a few dozen DJs will empty underground record stores of advance 12" vinyl singles, but album sales beyond 100,000 would register a major victory for the group and the growing mid-major independent label.

Hip Hop may have had very benign origins, but it has evolved into the most powerful cultural influence of the last decades of the 20th century. Hip Hop may still be shaped by the mores of Americans of African descent, but the culture now includes significant contributions from all shades of the human pigmentation spectrum. As a result, it's difficult for us to attribute Hip Hop's nadir to white appropriation of the culture - as has been the case with its musical ancestors. It is not a good thing that a popular white rock band can add a DJ and now be considered Hip Hop. Neither is it a good thing that one of Hip Hop's shining black stars used his third - and to date most successful - album to extol the same vices that his first two albums passionately railed against. While Hip Hop has not necessarily been helped by the intrusion of white America, we would be foolish to believe that the black and brown creators of the culture have not also aided the decline of Hip Hop.
If Talib Kweli is correct when he says in Soul Rebels from his 2000 Train of Thought album that, "Hip hop lives for us," then we must refuse to sit back and be sold a poor bill of goods. The people who consume Hip Hop must become more involved in the creation of it. It is not necessary for every member of the Hip Hop nation to become an emcee or graf writer or DJ, but it is necessary that we exercise our free will to refuse that which we do not need. Hip Hop does not need to get lost in the proclamation that white America has infiltrated the culture and ruined it. Nor does Hip Hop need redundant contributions that cover well-worn ground without demonstrating real talent. And finally, Hip Hop does not need to be defined and distributed by an uncaring external source that believes the culture only has value as a sellable commodity.

This process of saving Hip Hop requires a great deal of compromise, because not every form of Hip Hop will be pleasant to each member of the Hip Hop nation. We must first understand that there is a place for both Master P and Mos Def, that we can be both entertained and educated by the same schizophrenic culture. The dilemma is establishing standards that we will not allow some corporate entity to violate. We know that injustice can require harsh words to describe it, but never should the description be to the detriment of the people suffering from the inequity. Likewise, we can grant creative license to artists who weave tales of mild corruption, but to portray lavish lifestyles without explaining consequences is an error we must not permit.

So can Hip Hop be saved? Absolutely. Any current decline in Hip Hop does not suggest its pending demise, but rather indicates the growing pains Hip Hop must endure as it moves toward adulthood. While maturity would seem to be the last goal of any youth culture, so must Hip Hop mature if it wishes to survive. Hip Hop does not need to completely shed the trappings of youth, but by taking responsibility for itself, Hip Hop can better guide the people who consume it. Perhaps Hip Hop will lose its dangerous appeal in the process, but the result will be that "Hip Hop lives for us." And that is why the art form was born in the first place.

Amadeus Mozart

2009-08-16T04:41:00.000-07:00

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a key composer during the Classical Period of music. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived at a small town and after that he moved to Austria and he composed operas for the emperor. At that time, there were tow prized positions of employment for a composer; he could either be the Court Composer and the Capellmeister. If you were the court composer you were the composer to the King or Emperor, and if you were the Capellmeister you were the church composer. In the movie both of those two positions had been taken. One of them had been taken from Salieri, he was the court composer and the other spot had been taken as well, by someone else.

In the period that Mozart lived there were no cars or there were only a few cars and it was very difficult to move around, and when someone was sick or hurt they either had to bring him to the doctor on a cart or for men had to carry something like a bucket and the sick or hurt person was inside the bucket.

As I had already indicated above in the period that Mozart lived there were two prised positions for a composer. Mozart wanted to became court composer so he was very jealous of Salieri. Salieri on the other hand was very jealous of Mozart because Mozart was a very good musician. Mozart also had a very good hearing; actually his hearing was so good that when he heard something for the first time he could play it on the piano. He didn’t only have good hearing he also had a very rare talent. That talent was that he could make music up on the spot: like if someone else gave him a piece of music he could add up other parts and make the piece more interesting.

In the time that Mozart lived I think that musicians or composers had a very big role in the community. I came to that conclusion because they did the operas for the emperor and when I watched the film the emperor really liked the operas and without musicians he wouldn’t be able to make operas.

On the film the emperor wouldn’t allow the opera named the marriage of Frederic to be played because of political reasons and because it contained some scenes that would make the people want revolution. And now that I mentioned that I would like to say that the job that Mozart wouldn’t do was teach the emperors daughter.

As a child Mozart toured Europe and became widely regarded as a miracle of nature because of his music talent as a performer of piano, harpsichord, and organ and as a composer of instrumental and vocal music.

Mozart is considered one of the most brilliant and versatile composers ever. He worked in all musical genres, wrote inspired works in each genre, and produced an extraordinary number of compositions, especially considering his short life. By the time Mozart died at age 35, he had completed 41 symphonies, 27 piano concertos, 23 string quartets, 17
piano sonatas, 7 major operas, and numerous works for vice and other instruments.

Mozart works were catalogued chronologically by Austrian music bibliographer Ludwig von Kuchel, who published his catalogue in 1862.

About Saxophones

2009-08-14T04:44:00.000-07:00

In the woodwind family of instruments, there is a very unique set of instruments; the saxophones. There are actually six different saxophones in this family: soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, contrabass, and bass saxophone. The saxophone was invented in the late 18th century when composers wanted to fill out their orchestra's with a sound that wasn't quite like a brass instrument, and not exactly a woodwind. Thus, the uniquely sounding saxophone was created. I have had the experience of playing the alto, tenor and baritone saxophones. These three saxophones can be classified by using key signature, size, and tone.

The alto saxophone is used mainly for the melodies of tunes with fast tempos. The alto is in the key of E-Flat, meaning that the alto plays a standard B-flat scale starting on the note of G. The alto's range allows it to play the melodies with instruments like the trumpets and clarinets. The size of the alto is not as small as the soprano, but not as big as the tenor sax. The alto's tone is higher pitched to play like a trumpet with the capability to play like a clarinet.

Likewise, the tenor saxophone can be compared to a few instruments, such as, the trombone and the French horn. The tenor saxophone is in the key of B-flat. The tenor usually has the harmony parts in a composition, but sometimes plays melody when the piece calls for more of a middle range of sound. The tenor plays best in the harmony parts because of its ability to play low and middle range notes very well. Tenor saxophones are usually paired with the French horn because it has the same type of sound, but has a unique woodwind sound at the same time.

The size of the tenor is a little larger than an alto, but not as big of the baritone, which is the next biggest saxophone in this family.

Unlike the alto or tenor, the baritone saxophone has a deep bass sound. Baritone saxophones normally have an accompanying part to the tuba or the euphonium (baritone). Like the alto, the baritone saxophone is in the key of E-flat, but is an entire octave lower. Meaning, a high G on a baritone saxophone would be a middle G on an alto. The baritone saxophone is used in jazz music a lot because of it's unique "cross over" sound. The size of a baritone sax is huge compared to a soprano or alto.

The saxophone is an excellent addition to any orchestra. The different sounds and ranges of the many saxophones add depth and a wide range to the overall sound of an orchestra. The different tones and sizes of saxophones help the saxophone stand out from any other instrument. The different saxophones can be classified by using key signature, size, and tone. My experience of playing these saxophones has helped me understand the differences, and I hope that I have helped you to understand these as well.