1.
Johann Sebastian Bach
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Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. Bachs compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor and his music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth. He is now regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. Bach was born in Eisenach, in the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach and his father Johann Ambrosius Bach was the director of the town musicians, and all of his uncles were professional musicians. His father probably taught him to play the violin and harpsichord, apparently at his own initiative, Bach attended St. Michaels School in Lüneburg for two years. He received the title of Royal Court Composer from Augustus III in 1736, Bachs health and vision declined in 1749, and he died on 28 July 1750. Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, the capital of the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach, in present-day Germany and he was the son of Johann Ambrosius Bach, the director of the town musicians, and Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt. He was the eighth and youngest child of Johann Ambrosius, who taught him violin. His uncles were all musicians, whose posts included church organists, court chamber musicians. One uncle, Johann Christoph Bach, introduced him to the organ, Bachs mother died in 1694, and his father died eight months later. The 10-year-old Bach moved in with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach, there he studied, performed, and copied music, including his own brothers, despite being forbidden to do so because scores were so valuable and private and blank ledger paper of that type was costly. He received valuable teaching from his brother, who instructed him on the clavichord, also during this time he was taught theology, Latin, Greek, French and Italian at the local gymnasium. By 3 April 1700 Bach and his schoolfriend Georg Erdmann–who was two years Bachs elder–were enrolled in the prestigious St. Michaels School in Lüneburg, some two weeks travel north of Ohrdruf and their journey was probably undertaken mostly on foot. His two years there were critical in exposing Bach to a range of European culture. In addition to singing in the choir, he played the Schools three-manual organ and he came into contact with sons of aristocrats from northern Germany, sent to the highly selective school to prepare for careers in other disciplines. While in Lüneburg, Bach had access to St. Johns Church and possibly used the famous organ from 1553. His role there is unclear, but it probably included menial, non-musical duties, despite strong family connections and a musically enthusiastic employer, tension built up between Bach and the authorities after several years in the post. Bach was dissatisfied with the standard of singers in the choir and he called one of them a Zippel Fagottist
2.
Moonlight Sonata
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The Piano Sonata No.14 in C♯ minor Quasi una fantasia, Op.27, No. 2, popularly known as the Moonlight Sonata, is a sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven. It was completed in 1801 and dedicated in 1802 to his pupil and this piece is one of Beethovens most popular compositions for the piano, and it was a popular favorite even in his own day. Beethoven wrote the Moonlight Sonata in his thirties, after he had finished with some commissioned work. The first edition of the score is headed Sonata quasi una fantasia, grove Music Online translates the Italian title as sonata in the manner of a fantasy. Translated more literally, this is sonata almost a fantasy, the name Moonlight Sonata comes from remarks made by the German music critic and poet Ludwig Rellstab. In 1832, five years after Beethovens death, Rellstab likened the effect of the first movement to that of moonlight shining upon Lake Lucerne, within ten years, the name Moonlight Sonata was being used in German and English publications. Later in the century, the sonata was universally known by that name. Other critics have approved of the sobriquet, finding it evocative or in line with their own interpretation of the work, instead, the sonata possesses an end-weighted trajectory, with the rapid music held off until the third movement. In his analysis, German critic Paul Bekker states, The opening sonata-allegro movement gave the work a character from the beginning. Which succeeding movements could supplement but not change, Beethoven rebelled against this determinative quality in the first movement. He wanted a prelude, an introduction, not a proposition, the movement opens with an octave in the left hand and a triplet figuration in the right. A melody that Hector Berlioz called a lamentation, mostly by the hand, is played against an accompanying ostinato triplet rhythm. The movement is played pianissimo or very quietly, and the loudest it gets is mezzo forte or moderately loud. The adagio sostenuto has made an impression on many listeners, for instance. Beethovens student Carl Czerny called it a nocturnal scene, in which a ghostly voice sounds from the distance. The movement was popular in Beethovens day, to the point of exasperating the composer himself. Franz Liszt is said to have described the movement as a flower between two chasms
3.
The Star-Spangled Banner
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The Star-Spangled Banner is the national anthem of the United States of America. Key was inspired by the large American flag, the Star-Spangled Banner, the poem was set to the tune of a popular British song written by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society, a mens social club in London. To Anacreon in Heaven, with lyrics, was already popular in the United States. Set to Keys poem and renamed The Star-Spangled Banner, it became a well-known American patriotic song. With a range of one octave and one fifth, it is known for being difficult to sing, although the poem has four stanzas, only the first is commonly sung today. Before 1931, other songs served as the hymns of American officialdom, hail, Columbia served this purpose at official functions for most of the 19th century. My Country, Tis of Thee, whose melody is identical to God Save the Queen, following the War of 1812 and subsequent American wars, other songs emerged to compete for popularity at public events, among them The Star-Spangled Banner, as well as America the Beautiful. Beanes was accused of aiding the arrest of British soldiers, because Key and Skinner had heard details of the plans for the attack on Baltimore, they were held captive until after the battle, first aboard HMS Surprise and later back on HMS Minden. On the morning of September 14, the flag had been lowered. During the bombardment, HMS Terror and HMS Meteor provided some of the bombs bursting in air, Key was inspired by the American victory and the sight of the large American flag flying triumphantly above the fort. This flag, with fifteen stars and fifteen stripes, had made by Mary Young Pickersgill together with other workers in her home on Baltimores Pratt Street. The flag later came to be known as the Star-Spangled Banner and is today on display in the National Museum of American History and it was restored in 1914 by Amelia Fowler, and again in 1998 as part of an ongoing conservation program. Aboard the ship the day, Key wrote a poem on the back of a letter he had kept in his pocket. At twilight on September 16, he and Skinner were released in Baltimore and he completed the poem at the Indian Queen Hotel, where he was staying, and titled it Defence of Fort MHenry. Much of the idea of the poem, including the flag imagery and some of the wording, is derived from a song by Key. The song, known as When the Warrior Returns, was written in honor of Stephen Decatur, absent elaboration by Francis Scott Key prior to his death in 1843, some have speculated in modern times about the meaning of phrases or verses. Professor Mark Clague has stated that the two verses of Keys lyric vilify the British enemy in the War of 1812 and in no way glorifies or celebrates slavery. Clague asserts that the used to refer to British professional soldiers but also the Corps of Colonial Marines which Key viewed as scoundrels
4.
Chord (music)
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A chord, in music, is any harmonic set of pitches consisting of two or more notes that are heard as if sounding simultaneously. In everyday use by musical ensembles such as bands and orchestras, however, the notes of a chord do not have to be played together at the same time, arpeggios and broken chords may, for many practical and theoretical purposes, also constitute chords. Other chords with more than three notes include added tone chords, extended chords and tone clusters, which are used in classical music, jazz. Triads commonly found in the Western classical tradition are major and minor chords, the descriptions major, minor, augmented, and diminished are referred to collectively as chordal quality. Chords are also classified by their root note—for instance, a C major triad consists of the pitch classes C, E. While most chords have at least three notes, power chords, which are used in rock music, particularly in hard rock. An ordered series of chords is called a chord progression, one example of a widely used chord progression in Western traditional music and blues is the 12 bar blues progression, the simplest versions of which include tonic, subdominant and dominant chords. To describe this, Western music theory has developed the practice of numbering chords using Roman numerals which represent the number of steps up from the tonic note of the scale. Common ways of notating or representing chords in Western music include Roman numerals, figured bass, macro symbols, the chords in a song or piece are also given names which refer to their function. The chord built on the first note of a scale is called the tonic chord. The chord built on the note of a major scale is called the subdominant chord. The chord built on the degree of the major scale is called the dominant chord. There are names for the built on every note of the major scale. Chords can be played on instruments, including piano, pipe organ, guitar. Chords can also be performed when multiple musicians play together in an ensemble or when multiple singers sing in a choir. The English word chord derives from Middle English cord, a shortening of accord in the sense of agreement and later. A sequence of chords is known as a progression or harmonic progression. These are frequently used in Western music, a chord progression aims for a definite goal of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord
5.
Musical note
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In music, the term note has three primary meanings, A sign used in musical notation to represent the relative duration and pitch of a sound, A pitched sound itself. Notes are the blocks of much written music, discretizations of musical phenomena that facilitate performance, comprehension. In the former case, one note to refer to a specific musical event, in the latter. Two notes with fundamental frequencies in an equal to any integer power of two are perceived as very similar. Because of that, all notes with these kinds of relations can be grouped under the pitch class. However, within the English-speaking and Dutch-speaking world, pitch classes are represented by the first seven letters of the Latin alphabet. A few European countries, including Germany, adopt an almost identical notation, the eighth note, or octave, is given the same name as the first, but has double its frequency. The name octave is also used to indicate the span between a note and another with double frequency, for example, the now-standard tuning pitch for most Western music,440 Hz, is named a′ or A4. There are two systems to define each note and octave, the Helmholtz pitch notation and the scientific pitch notation. Letter names are modified by the accidentals, a sharp ♯ raises a note by a semitone or half-step, and a flat ♭ lowers it by the same amount. In modern tuning a half step has a ratio of 12√2. The accidentals are written after the name, so, for example, F♯ represents F-sharp, B♭ is B-flat. Additional accidentals are the double-sharp, raising the frequency by two semitones, and double-flat, lowering it by that amount, in musical notation, accidentals are placed before the note symbols. Systematic alterations to the seven lettered pitches in the scale can be indicated by placing the symbols in the key signature, explicitly noted accidentals can be used to override this effect for the remainder of a bar. A special accidental, the natural symbol ♮, is used to indicate an unmodified pitch, effects of key signature and local accidentals do not accumulate. If the key signature indicates G♯, a flat before a G makes it G♭, though often this type of rare accidental is expressed as a natural. Likewise, a sharp sign on a key signature with a single sharp ♯ indicates only a double sharp. Assuming enharmonicity, many accidentals will create equivalences between pitches that are written differently, for instance, raising the note B to B♯ is equal to the note C
6.
Octave
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In music, an octave or perfect octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. It is defined by ANSI as the unit of level when the base of the logarithm is two. The octave relationship is a phenomenon that has been referred to as the basic miracle of music. The most important musical scales are written using eight notes. For example, the C major scale is typically written C D E F G A B C, two notes separated by an octave have the same letter name and are of the same pitch class. Three commonly cited examples of melodies featuring the perfect octave as their opening interval are Singin in the Rain, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, the interval between the first and second harmonics of the harmonic series is an octave. The octave has occasionally referred to as a diapason. To emphasize that it is one of the intervals, the octave is designated P8. The octave above or below a note is sometimes abbreviated 8a or 8va, 8va bassa. For example, if one note has a frequency of 440 Hz, the note one octave above is at 880 Hz, the ratio of frequencies of two notes an octave apart is therefore 2,1. Further octaves of a note occur at 2n times the frequency of that note, such as 2,4,8,16, etc. and the reciprocal of that series. For example,55 Hz and 440 Hz are one and two away from 110 Hz because they are 1⁄2 and 4 times the frequency, respectively. After the unison, the octave is the simplest interval in music, the human ear tends to hear both notes as being essentially the same, due to closely related harmonics. Notes separated by a ring together, adding a pleasing sound to music. For this reason, notes an octave apart are given the note name in the Western system of music notation—the name of a note an octave above A is also A. The conceptualization of pitch as having two dimensions, pitch height and pitch class, inherently include octave circularity, thus all C♯s, or all 1s, in any octave are part of the same pitch class. Octave equivalency is a part of most advanced cultures, but is far from universal in primitive. The languages in which the oldest extant written documents on tuning are written, leon Crickmore recently proposed that The octave may not have been thought of as a unit in its own right, but rather by analogy like the first day of a new seven-day week
7.
Harp
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The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard, which are plucked with the fingers. Harps have been known since antiquity in Asia, Africa and Europe, Harps vary globally in many ways. In terms of size, many smaller harps can be played on the lap, whereas larger harps are quite heavy, different harps may use strings of catgut or nylon, or of metal, or some combination. While all harps have a neck, resonator, and strings, frame harps have a pillar at their end to support the strings, while open harps, such as arch or bow harps. Modern harps also vary in techniques used to extend the range and chromaticity of the strings, the earliest harps and lyres were found in Sumer,3500 BC, and several harps were found in burial pits and royal tombs in Ur. The oldest depictions of harps without a forepillar can be adjacent to the Near East, in the wall paintings of ancient Egyptian tombs in the Nile Valley. These murals show an instrument that resembles the hunters bow. The chang flourished in Persia in many forms from its introduction, about 3000 BC, around 1900 BC arched harps in the Iraq–Iran region were replaced by angular harps with vertical or horizontal sound boxes. By the start of the Common Era, robust, vertical, angular harps, in the last century of the Sasanian period, angular harps were redesigned to make them as light as possible, while they became more elegant, they lost their structural rigidity. At the height of the Persian tradition of illustrated book production, such light harps were still frequently depicted, the works of the Tamil Sangam literature describe the harp and its variants, as early as 200 BC. Variants were described ranging from 14 to 17 strings, and the instrument used by wandering minstrels for accompaniment, another early South Asian harp was the ancient veena, unlike the modern instrument of the same name, the ancient veena was a harp vice the modern lute-type instrument. Some Samudragupta gold coins show of the mid-4th century AD show the king Samudragupta himself playing the instrument, the ancient veena survives today in Burma, in the form of the saung harp still played there. The harp was popular in ancient China and neighboring regions, though harps are largely extinct in East Asia in the modern day, the Chinese konghou harp is documented as early as the Spring and Autumn period, and became extinct during the Ming Dynasty. A similar harp, the gonghu was played in ancient Korea, Harps are essentially triangular in shape, and are made primarily of wood. Harp strings are made of gut or metal, the top end of each string is secured on the crossbar or neck of the instrument, where each will have a tuning peg or similar device to adjust the pitch of that string. It is the distance between the tuning peg and the soundboard, as well as the tension and weight of the string, the body is hollow and when a taut string is plucked, the body resonates, projecting sound. The longest side of the harp is called the column or pillar, though some earlier harps, such as a bow harp, on most harps, the sole purpose of the pillar is to hold up the neck against the great strain of the strings. On harps which have pedals, the pillar is a column and encloses the rods which adjust the pitch of strings
8.
Nonchord tone
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A nonchord tone, nonharmonic tone, or embellishing tone is a note in a piece of music or song that is not part of the implied or expressed chord set out by the harmonic framework. Similarly, a tone is a note that is a part of the functional chord. Chord and nonchord tones are defined by their membership in a chord, The pitches which make up a chord are called chord-tones and they are also defined by the time at which they sound, Nonharmonic tones are pitches that sound along with a chord but are not chord pitches. For example, if an excerpt from a piece of music implies or uses a C major chord, then notes C, E and G are members of that chord, such tones are most obvious in homophonic music but occur at least as frequently in contrapuntal music. Most nonharmonic tones are dissonant and create intervals of a second, fourth or seventh, if the note fails to resolve until the next change of harmony, it may instead create a seventh chord or extended chord. While it is possible that for a three-note chord there are nine possible nonchord tones. Nonharmonic tones generally occur in a pattern of three pitches, of which the tone is the center, Nonchord tones are distinguished through how they are used. The most important distinction is whether they occur on a strong or weak beat and are thus accented or unaccented and they are also distinguished by their direction of approach and departure and the voice or voices in which they occur, and the number of notes they contain. Over the centuries of history, tones which were considered to be nonchord tones came to be viewed as chord tones. In 1940s-era bebop jazz, tones which were considered to be nonchord tones, such as playing an F♯ note with a C7 chord. Certainly no one doubts the need for embellishments. They are indeed indispensable and they connect notes, animate them, lend them a special effect and weight when required, make them pleasing and thus arouse a particular attentiveness. Embellishments help to clarify the content of the notes—be it sad, joyful, an anticipation occurs when this note is approached by step and then remains the same. It is basically a note of the second chord played early, the dissonant in bar 1 is approached by step and resolves when that same pitch becomes a chord tone in bar 2. However, following Heinrich Schenkers usage in Free Composition, some reserve the term neighbor note to the lower neighbor a half step below the main note. The German term Nebennote is a broader category, including all nonchord tones approached from the main note by step. A passing tone or passing note is a nonchord tone prepared by a tone a step above or below it. Where two non-chord notes are before the resolution they are double passing tones or double passing notes, as with above but on an accented beat. A neighbor tone where you step up or down from the chord tone, endeavor, moreover, to introduce suspensions now in this voice, now in that, for it is incredible how much grace the melody acquires by this means
9.
Music theory
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Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. The term is used in three ways in music, though all three are interrelated. The first is what is otherwise called rudiments, currently taught as the elements of notation, of key signatures, of time signatures, of rhythmic notation, Theory in this sense is treated as the necessary preliminary to the study of harmony, counterpoint, and form. The second is the study of writings about music from ancient times onwards, Music theory is frequently concerned with describing how musicians and composers make music, including tuning systems and composition methods among other topics. However, this medieval discipline became the basis for tuning systems in later centuries, Music theory as a practical discipline encompasses the methods and concepts composers and other musicians use in creating music. The development, preservation, and transmission of music theory in this sense may be found in oral and written music-making traditions, musical instruments, and other artifacts. In ancient and living cultures around the world, the deep and long roots of music theory are clearly visible in instruments, oral traditions, and current music making. Many cultures, at least as far back as ancient Mesopotamia and ancient China, have also considered music theory in more formal ways such as written treatises, in modern academia, music theory is a subfield of musicology, the wider study of musical cultures and history. Etymologically, music theory is an act of contemplation of music, from the Greek θεωρία, a looking at, viewing, contemplation, speculation, theory, also a sight, a person who researches, teaches, or writes articles about music theory is a music theorist. University study, typically to the M. A. or Ph. D level, is required to teach as a music theorist in a US or Canadian university. Methods of analysis include mathematics, graphic analysis, and especially analysis enabled by Western music notation, comparative, descriptive, statistical, and other methods are also used. See for instance Paleolithic flutes, Gǔdí, and Anasazi flute, several surviving Sumerian and Akkadian clay tablets include musical information of a theoretical nature, mainly lists of intervals and tunings. The scholar Sam Mirelman reports that the earliest of these dates from before 1500 BCE. Further, All the Mesopotamian texts are united by the use of a terminology for music that, much of Chinese music history and theory remains unclear. The earliest texts about Chinese music theory are inscribed on the stone and they include more than 2800 words describing theories and practices of music pitches of the time. The bells produce two intertwined pentatonic scales three tones apart with additional pitches completing the chromatic scale, Chinese theory starts from numbers, the main musical numbers being twelve, five and eight. Twelve refers to the number of pitches on which the scales can be constructed, the Lüshi chunqiu from about 239 BCE recalls the legend of Ling Lun. On order of the Yellow Emperor, Ling Lun collected twelve bamboo lengths with thick, blowing on one of these like a pipe, he found its sound agreeable and named it huangzhong, the Yellow Bell
