Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, United States, is a large urban park consisting of 1,017 acres of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the development of Golden Gate Park. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20 percent larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is compared, it is over three miles long east to west, about half a mile north to south. With 13 million visitors annually, Golden Gate is the fifth most-visited city park in the United States after Central Park in New York City, Lincoln Park in Chicago, Balboa and Mission Bay Parks in San Diego. In the 1860s, San Franciscans began to feel the need for a spacious public park similar to Central Park, taking shape in New York City. Golden Gate Park was carved out of unpromising sand and shore dunes that were known as the Outside Lands, in an unincorporated area west of San Francisco's then-current borders. Conceived ostensibly for recreation, the underlying purpose of the park was housing development and the westward expansion of the city.
The tireless field engineer William Hammond Hall prepared a survey and topographic map of the park site in 1870 and became its commissioner in 1871. He was named California's first state engineer and developed an integrated flood control system for the Sacramento Valley; the park drew its name from nearby Golden Gate Strait. The plan and planting were developed by Hall and his assistant, John McLaren, who had apprenticed in Scotland, home of many of the 19th-century's best professional gardeners. John McLaren, when asked by the Park Commission if he could make Golden Gate Park "one of the beauty spots of the world," replied saying, "With your aid gentleman, God be willing, that I shall do." He promised that he'd "go out into the country and walk along a stream until he found a farm, that he'd come back to the garden and recreate what nature had done." The initial plan called for grade separations of transverse roadways through the park, as Frederick Law Olmsted had provided for Central Park, but budget constraints and the positioning of the Arboretum and the Concourse ended the plan.
In 1876, the plan was replaced by one for a racetrack, favored by "the Big Four" millionaires: Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntington, Charles Crocker. Stanford, president of the Southern Pacific Railroad, was one of the owners of the Ocean Railroad Company, which ran from Haight Street across the park to its south border out to the beach and north to a point near Cliff House, it was Gus Mooney. Many of Mooney's friends staked claims and built shanties on the beach to sell refreshments to the patrons of the park. Hall resigned, the remaining park commissioners followed. In 1882 Governor George C. Perkins appointed Frank M. Pixley and editor of The Argonaut, to the board of commissioners of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Pixley was adamant that the Mooney's shanties be eliminated, he found support with the San Francisco Police for park security. Pixley favored Stanford's company by granting a fifty-year lease on the route that closed the park on three sides to competition; the original plan, was back on track by 1886, when streetcars delivered over 47,000 people to Golden Gate Park on one weekend afternoon.
The first stage of the park's development centered on planting trees in order to stabilize the dunes that covered three-quarters of the park's area. In order to transform the sand dunes into Greenland, John McLaren grew bent grass seeds obtained from France for two years. Once the seeds were grown, he planted them over the sand to hold the ground together. After this success, McLaren was able introduce new species of plants to the land, is credited to have added over 700 new types of trees to California within the span of one year. By 1875, about 60,000 trees Eucalyptus globulus, Monterey pine, Monterey cypress, had been planted. By 1879, that figure more than doubled to 155,000 trees over 1,000 acres. Within his lifetime, McLaren is credited to have planted over two million trees within northern California as a whole. Another accomplishment of John McLaren is his creation of an open walking space along the Pacific shoreline on the western boundary of the park. Despite obstacles such as heavy tides and winds that carried sand inland towards the park, McLaren was able to build an esplanade by stacking thousands of tree boughs over the course of 20 years.
When he refused to retire at the customary age of 60 the San Francisco city government was bombarded with letters: when he reached 70, a charter amendment was passed to exempt him from forced retirement. On his 92nd birthday, two thousand San Franciscans attended a testimonial dinner that honored him as San Francisco's number one citizen, he lived in McLaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park until he died in 1943, aged 96. There is a street close to Golden Gate Park named after him. In 1903, a pair of Dutch-style windmills were built at the extreme western end of the park; these pumped water throughout the park. The north windmill was restored to its original appearance in 1981 and is adjacent to Queen Wilhelmina tulip garden, a gift of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands; these are planted with other flowers in appropriate seasons. The Murphy Windmill in the southwest corner of the park was restored in September 2011. After the earthquake shook San Francisco in 1906, Golden Gate Park became a site of refuge for many who found themselves without shelter.
The undeveloped Outside Lands became a prime location to house these masses of pe
Jerry Garcia
Jerome John Garcia was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, best known for his work as the lead guitarist and as a vocalist with the band Grateful Dead, which came to prominence during the counterculture era in the 1960s. Although he disavowed the role, Garcia was viewed by many as the leader or "spokesman" of the group. One of its founders, Garcia performed with the Grateful Dead for their entire 30-year career. Garcia founded and participated in a variety of side projects, including the Saunders–Garcia Band, the Jerry Garcia Band, Old & In the Way, the Garcia/Grisman acoustic duo, Legion of Mary, the New Riders of the Purple Sage, he released several solo albums, contributed to a number of albums by other artists over the years as a session musician. He was well known for his distinctive guitar playing, was ranked 13th in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" cover story in 2003. Garcia was renowned for his musical and technical ability his ability to play a variety of instruments, his ability to sustain long improvisations with The Grateful Dead.
Garcia believed that improvisation took stress away from his playing and allowed him to make spur of the moment decisions that he would not have made intentionally. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Garcia noted that "my own preferences are for improvisation, for making it up as I go along; the idea of picking, of eliminating possibilities by deciding, that’s difficult for me". Garcia's improvisation techniques were lauded for their ability to span genres, as well as his ability to employ modal guitar playing, he was a proponent of using the Mixolydian mode, a scale which utilised a flattened 7th note. He used various exotic scales and chromatic playing to add exotic flavours to Grateful Dead work on 1975's Blues for Allah Later in life, Garcia was sometimes ill because of his diabetes, in 1986, he went into a diabetic coma that nearly cost him his life. Although his overall health improved somewhat after that, he continued to struggle with obesity and longstanding heroin and cocaine addictions.
He was staying in a California drug rehabilitation facility when he died of a heart attack in August 1995 at the age of 53. Garcia's ancestors on his father's side were from Galicia in northwest Spain, his mother's ancestors were Swedish. He was born in the Excelsior District of San Francisco, California, on August 1, 1942, to Jose Ramon "Joe" Garcia and Ruth Marie "Bobbie" Garcia, herself born in San Francisco, his parents named him after composer Jerome Kern. Jerome John was their second child, preceded by Clifford Ramon "Tiff", born in 1937. Shortly before Clifford's birth, their father and a partner leased a building in downtown San Francisco and turned it into a bar in response to Jose being blackballed from a musicians' union for moonlighting. Garcia was influenced by music at an early age, his father was his mother enjoyed playing the piano. His father's extended family—who had emigrated from Spain in 1919—would sing during reunions. At age four, while the family was vacationing in the Santa Cruz Mountains, two-thirds of Garcia's right middle finger was accidentally cut off.
Garcia and his brother Tiff were chopping wood. Jerry steadied a piece of wood with his finger, but Tiff miscalculated and the axe severed most of Jerry's middle finger. After his mother wrapped his hand in a towel, Garcia's father drove him over 30 miles to the nearest hospital. A few weeks Garcia — who had not looked at his finger since the accident — was surprised to discover most of it missing when the bandage he was wearing came off during a bath. Garcia confided that he used it to his advantage in his youth, showing it off to other children in his neighborhood. Less than a year after he lost most of his finger, his father died. Vacationing with his family near Arcata in Northern California in 1947, Garcia's father went fly fishing in the Trinity River, part of the Six Rivers National Forest. Not long after entering the river, Garcia's father slipped on a rock, lost his balance and was swept away by the river's rapids, he drowned. Although Garcia claimed he saw his father fall into the river, Dennis McNally, author of the book A Long Strange Trip: The Inside Story of the Grateful Dead, argues Garcia formed the memory after hearing others repeat the story.
Blair Jackson, who wrote Garcia: An American Life, lends weight to McNally's claim. Jackson's evidence was that a local newspaper article describing Jose's death failed to mention Jerry was present when he died. Following the accident, Garcia's mother took over her husband's bar, buying out his partner for full ownership; as a result, Ruth Garcia began working full-time, sending Jerry and his brother to live nearby with her parents and William Clifford. During the five-year period in which he lived with his grandparents, Garcia enjoyed a large amount of autonomy and attended Monroe Elementary School. At the school, Garcia was encouraged in his artistic abilities by his third grade teacher: through her, he discovered that "being a creative person was a viable possibility in life." According to Garcia, it was around this time that he was opened up to country and to bluegrass by his grandmother, whom he recalled enjoyed listening to the Grand Ole Opry. His elder brother, however, staunchly believed the contrary, insisting that Garcia was "fantasizing all... she'd been to Opry, b
The Dead (band)
The Dead was an American rock band composed of some of the former members of the Grateful Dead. After the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann formed the band The Other Ones, performing concert tours in 1998, 2000, 2002, released one album, The Strange Remain. In 2003, they changed their name to The Dead. In addition to Weir, Lesh and Kreutzmann, the 2003 lineup of the band included Jimmy Herring, Jeff Chimenti, Rob Barraco, Joan Osborne; the band was first billed as The Dead on February 14, 2003 at the Warfield in San Francisco. That year, the band opened up their summer tour on June 15 at the Bonnaroo Music Festival, they ended 2003 with two New Year's dates at the Oakland Coliseum on December 30 and 31. In 2004, Herring and Chimenti remained in the lineup, were joined by Warren Haynes; the band played a three-month summer tour called the Wave That Flag Tour. In 2006, guitarist Jimmy Herring joined the group Widespread Panic after George McConnell's departure from the group.
On February 4, 2008, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, along with several other musicians, performed a concert called "Deadheads for Obama", at the Warfield in San Francisco. On October 13, 2008, Lesh and Kreutzmann, joined by Warren Haynes and Jeff Chimenti, played a second show for the Obama campaign, called "Change Rocks", at Penn State University. On January 20, 2009, the same lineup played at one of the ten official balls for the inauguration of President Obama; the band toured the United States in the spring of 2009, playing 23 concerts in April and May, with a lineup of Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, Warren Haynes, Jeff Chimenti. During the second night of the Spring 2009 tour, they were joined on stage by Tipper Gore who sat in on drums during the closing song, "Sugar Magnolia". Over a two night run in New Jersey in April 2009 they reunited with former Grateful Dead collaborator Branford Marsalis on saxophone, they headlined the second annual Rothbury Music Festival in Rothbury, Michigan on July 4, 2009.
After the 2009 Dead tour, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh performed together for the next five years with their new band Furthur. Since Furthur's dissolution in November 2014, the surviving members of the Grateful Dead continued to play in side projects with revolving casts of musicians; as part of their "Fare Thee Well" celebration to honor the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead, the surviving members reformed to play 5 shows, which were to be the final shows that they would play together as a group. They enlisted the help from Phish frontman Trey Anastasio on lead guitar and vocals, Bruce Hornsby on piano and vocals, Jeff Chimenti on keyboards. There were two shows to kick off the "Fare Thee Well" run at Levi's Stadium- just miles from where the Grateful Dead began as a band 50 years earlier; the final three "Fare Thee Well" shows took place at Soldier Field in Chicago, IL. The shows broke the concert attendance record for Soldier Field each consecutive night. From 2015 onward, Kreutzmann and Chimenti continue playing together as Dead & Company, joined by Oteil Burbridge on bass and John Mayer on lead guitar and vocals.
Official website of The Dead Live recordings by The Dead at the Internet Archive
Banjo
The banjo is a four-, five-, or six-stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity as a resonator, called the head, circular. The membrane is made of plastic, although animal skin is still used. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by Africans in the United States, adapted from African instruments of similar design; the banjo is associated with folk, Irish traditional, country music. Banjo can be used in some Rock Songs. Countless Rock bands, such as The Eagles, Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers, have used the five-string banjo in some of their songs; the banjo occupied a central place in African-American traditional music and the folk culture of rural whites before entering the mainstream via the minstrel shows of the 19th century. The banjo, along with the fiddle, is a mainstay of American old-time music, it is very used in traditional jazz. The modern banjo derives from instruments, used in the Caribbean since the 17th century by enslaved people taken from West Africa.
Written references to the banjo in North America appear in the 18th century, the instrument became available commercially from around the second quarter of the 19th century. Several claims as to the etymology of the name "banjo" have been made, it may derive from the Kimbundu word mbanza, an African string instrument modeled after the Portuguese banza: a vihuela with five two-string courses and a further two short strings. The Oxford English Dictionary states that it comes from a dialectal pronunciation of Portuguese bandore or from an early anglicisation of Spanish bandurria; the name may derive from a traditional Afro-Caribbean folk dance called "banya", which incorporates several cultural elements found throughout the African diaspora. Various instruments in Africa, chief among them the kora, feature a skin gourd body; the African instruments differ from early African American banjos in that the necks do not possess a Western-style fingerboard and tuning pegs, instead having stick necks, with strings attached to the neck with loops for tuning.
Banjos with fingerboards and tuning pegs are known from the Caribbean as early as the 17th century. Some 18th- and early 19th-century writers transcribed the name of these instruments variously as bangie, bonjaw and banjar. Instruments similar to the banjo have been played in many countries. Another relative of the banjo is the akonting, a spike folk lute played by the Jola tribe of Senegambia, the ubaw-akwala of the Igbo. Similar instruments include the xalam of Senegal and the ngoni of the Wassoulou region including parts of Mali and Ivory Coast, as well as a larger variation of the ngoni developed in Morocco by sub-Saharan Africans known as the gimbri. Early, African-influenced banjos were built around a wooden stick neck; these instruments had varying numbers of strings, though including some form of drone. The five-string banjo was popularized by Joel Walker Sweeney, an American minstrel performer from Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Although Robert McAlpin Williamson is the first documented white banjoist, in the 1830s, Sweeney became the first white performer to play the banjo on stage.
His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth string. This new banjo was at first tuned d'Gdf♯a, though by the 1890s, this had been transposed up to g'cgbd'. Banjos were introduced in Britain by Sweeney's group, the American Virginia Minstrels, in the 1840s, became popular in music halls. In the antebellum South, many black slaves taught their masters how to play. For example, in his memoir With Sabre and Scalpel: The Autobiography of a Soldier and Surgeon, the Confederate veteran and surgeon John Allan Wyeth recalls learning to play the banjo as a child from a slave on his family plantation. Two techniques associated with the five-string banjo are rolls and drones. Rolls are right hand accompanimental fingering pattern that consist of eight notes that subdivide each measure. Drone notes are quick little notes played on the 5th string to fill in around the melody notes; these techniques are both idiomatic to the banjo in all styles, their sound is characteristic of bluegrass.
The banjo was played in the clawhammer style by the Africans who brought their version of the banjo with them. Several other styles of play were developed from this. Clawhammer consists of downward striking of one or more of the four main strings with the index, middle or both fingerwhile the drone or fifth string is played with a'lifting' motion of the thumb; the notes sounded by the thumb in this fashion are on the off beat. Melodies can be quite intricate adding techniques such as double drop thumb. In old time Appalachian Mountain music, a style called two-finger up-pick is used, a three-finger version that Earl Scruggs developed into the famous "Scruggs" style picking was nationally aired in 1945 on the Grand Ole Opry. While five-string banjos are traditionally played with either fingerpicks or the fingers themselves, tenor banjos and plectrum banjos are played with a pick, either to strum full chords, or most in Irish traditional music, play single-note melodies; the modern banjo comes in a variety of forms, including four- and five-string versions.
A six-string version and played to a guitar, has gained popularity. In all of its forms, banjo playing is
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble that consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trombones, a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular; the term "big band" is used to describe a genre of music. One problem with this usage is. Big bands started as accompaniment for dancing. In contrast with the emphasis on improvisation, big bands relied on written compositions and arrangements, they gave a greater role to bandleaders and sections of instruments rather than soloists. Big bands have four sections: trumpets, saxophones, a rhythm section of guitar, double bass, drums; the division in early big bands was to be two or three trumpets, one or two trombones, three saxophones, a rhythm section. In 1930, big bands consisted of three trumpets, three trombones, three saxophones, a rhythm section of four instruments. Guitar replaced the banjo, double bass replaced the tuba. In the 1940s, Stan Kenton's band and Woody Herman's band used up to five trumpets, four trombones, five saxophones, a rhythm section.
An exception is Duke Ellington. Boyd Raeburn drew from symphony orchestras by adding to his band flute, French horn and timpani. Typical big band arrangements are written in strophic form with the same phrase and chord structure repeated several times; each iteration, or chorus follows twelve bar blues form or thirty-two-bar song form. The first chorus of an arrangement is followed by choruses of development; this development may take the form of improvised solos, written soli sections, "shout choruses". An arrangement's first chorus is sometimes preceded by an introduction, which may be as short as a few measures or may extend to chorus of its own. Many arrangements contain an interlude similar in content to the introduction, inserted between some or all choruses. Other methods of embellishing the form include cadential extensions; some big ensembles, like King Oliver's, played music, half-arranged, half-improvised relying on head arrangements. A head arrangement is a piece of music, formed by band members during rehearsal.
They experiment memorize the way they are going to perform the piece, without writing it on sheet music. During the 1930s, Count Basie's band used head arrangements, as Basie said, "we just sort of start it off and the others fall in." Before 1914, social dance in America was dominated by steps such as polka. As jazz migrated from its New Orleans origin to Chicago and New York City, suggestive dances traveled with it. During the next decades, ballrooms filled with people doing Lindy Hop; the dance duo Vernon and Irene Castle popularized the foxtrot while accompanied by the Europe Society Orchestra led by James Reese Europe. One of the first bands to accompany the new rhythms was led by a drummer, Art Hickman, in San Francisco in 1916. Hickman's arranger, Ferde Grofé, wrote arrangements in which he divided the jazz orchestra into sections that combined in various ways; this intermingling of sections became a defining characteristic of big bands. In 1919, Paul Whiteman hired Grofé to use similar techniques for his band.
Whiteman was educated in classical music, he called his new band's music symphonic jazz. The methods of dance bands marked a step away from New Orleans jazz. With the exception of Jelly Roll Morton, who continued playing in the New Orleans style, bandleaders paid attention to the demand for dance music and created their own big bands, they incorporated elements of Broadway, Tin Pan Alley and vaudeville. Duke Ellington led his band at the Cotton Club in Harlem. Fletcher Henderson's career started when he was persuaded to audition for a job at Club Alabam in New York City, which turned into a job as bandleader at the Roseland Ballroom. At these venues, which themselves gained notoriety and arrangers played a greater role than they had before. Hickman relied on Whiteman on Bill Challis. Henderson and arranger Don Redman followed the template of King Oliver, but as the 1920s progressed they moved away from the New Orleans format and transformed jazz, they were assisted by a band full of talent: Coleman Hawkins on tenor saxophone, Louis Armstrong on cornet, multi-instrumentalist Benny Carter, whose career lasted into the 1990s.
Swing music began appearing in the early 1930s and was distinguished by a more supple feel than the more literal 44 of early jazz. Walter Page is credited with developing the walking bass, though earlier examples exist, such as Wellman Braud on Ellington's Washington Wabble from 1927; this type of music flourished through the early 1930s, although there was little mass audience for it until around 1936. Up until that time, it looked upon as a curiosity. After 1935, big bands rose to prominence playing swing music and held a major role in defining swing as a distinctive style. Western swing musicians formed popular big bands during the same period. There was a considerable range of styles among the hundreds of popular bands. Many of the better known bands reflected the individuality of the bandleader, the lead arranger, the personnel. Count Basie played a relaxed, propulsive swing, Bob Crosby more of a dixieland style, Benny Goodman a hard driving swing, Duke Ellington's compositions were varied and sophisticated.
Many bands featured strong instrumentalists whose sounds dominated, such as the clar
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between voices that are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and contour. It has been most identified in the European classical tradition developing during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period in the Baroque; the term originates from the Latin punctus contra punctum meaning "point against point". Counterpoint has been used to designate a voice or an entire composition. Counterpoint focuses on melodic interaction—only secondarily on the harmonies produced by that interaction. In the words of John Rahn: It is hard to write a beautiful song, it is harder to write several individually beautiful songs that, when sung sound as a more beautiful polyphonic whole. The internal structures that create each of the voices separately must contribute to the emergent structure of the polyphony, which in turn must reinforce and comment on the structures of the individual voices; the way, accomplished in detail is...'counterpoint'.
Counterpoint theory has been given a mathematical foundation in the work initiated by Guerino Mazzola. In particular, his model gives a structural foundation of forbidden parallels of fifths and the dissonant fourth; the model has been extended to microtonal contexts by Octavio Agustin. Some examples of related compositional techniques include: the round, the canon, the most complex contrapuntal convention: the fugue. All of these are examples of imitative counterpoint. In 1725 Johann Joseph Fux published Gradus ad Parnassum, in which he described five species: Note against note. A succession of theorists quite imitated Fux's seminal work with some small and idiosyncratic modifications in the rules. Many of Fux's rules concerning the purely linear construction of melodies have their origin in solfeggi. Concerning the common practice era, alterations to the melodic rules were introduced to enable the function of certain harmonic forms; the combination of these melodies produced the figured bass.
The following rules apply to melodic writing in each species, for each part: The final must be approached by step. If the final is approached from below the leading tone must be raised in a minor key, but not in Phrygian or Hypophrygian mode. Thus, in the Dorian mode on D, a C♯ is necessary at the cadence. Permitted melodic intervals are the perfect fourth and octave, as well as the major and minor second and minor third, ascending minor sixth; the ascending minor sixth must be followed by motion downwards. If writing two skips in the same direction—something that must be only done—the second must be smaller than the first, the interval between the first and the third note may not be dissonant; the three notes should be from the same triad. In general, do not write more than two skips in the same direction. If writing a skip in one direction, it is best to proceed after the skip with motion in the other direction; the interval of a tritone in three notes should be avoided as is the interval of a seventh in three notes.
There must be a climax or high point in the line countering the cantus firmus. This occurs somewhere in the middle of exercise and must occur on a strong beat. An outlining of a seventh is avoided within a single line moving in the same direction. And, in all species, the following rules govern the combination of the parts: The counterpoint must begin and end on a perfect consonance. Contrary motion should predominate. Perfect consonances must be approached by contrary motion. Imperfect consonances may be approached by any type of motion; the interval of a tenth should not be exceeded between two adjacent parts. Build from the bass, upward. In first species counterpoint, each note in every added part sounds against one note in the cantus firmus. Notes in all parts are sounded and move against each other simultaneously. Since all notes in First species counterpoint are whole notes, rhythmic independence is not available. In the present context, a "step" is a melodic interval of whole step. A "skip" is an interval of a fourth.
An interval of a fifth or larger is referred to as a "leap". A few further rules given by Fux, by study of the Palestrina style, given in the works of counterpoint pedagogues, are as follows. Begin and end on either the unison, octave, or fifth, unless the added part is underneath, in which case begin and end only on unison or octave. Use no unisons except at the beginning or end. Avoid parallel fifths or octaves between any two parts. Avoid moving in parallel fourths. Avoid moving in parallel thirds or sixths for long. Attempt to keep any two adjacent parts within a tenth of each other, unless an exceptionally pleasing line can be written by moving outside that range. Avoid having any two parts move in the same direction by skip Attempt to have as much contrary motion as possible. Avoid dissonant inter
Harmony
In music, harmony considers the process by which the composition of individual sounds, or superpositions of sounds, is analysed by hearing. This means occurring frequencies, pitches, or chords; the study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic line, or the "horizontal" aspect. Counterpoint, which refers to the relationship between melodic lines, polyphony, which refers to the simultaneous sounding of separate independent voices, are thus sometimes distinguished from harmony. In popular and jazz harmony, chords are named by their root plus various terms and characters indicating their qualities. In many types of music, notably baroque, romantic and jazz, chords are augmented with "tensions". A tension is an additional chord member that creates a dissonant interval in relation to the bass. In the classical common practice period a dissonant chord "resolves" to a consonant chord.
Harmonization sounds pleasant to the ear when there is a balance between the consonant and dissonant sounds. In simple words, that occurs; the term harmony derives from the Greek ἁρμονία harmonia, meaning "joint, concord", from the verb ἁρμόζω harmozō, " fit together, join". In the past, harmony referred to the whole field of music, while music referred to the arts in general. In Ancient Greece, the term defined the combination of contrasted elements: a lower note, it is unclear whether the simultaneous sounding of notes was part of ancient Greek musical practice. In the Middle Ages the term was used to describe two pitches sounding in combination, in the Renaissance the concept was expanded to denote three pitches sounding together. Aristoxenus wrote a work entitled Harmonika Stoicheia, thought the first work in European history written on the subject of harmony, it was not until the publication of Rameau's Traité de l'harmonie in 1722 that any text discussing musical practice made use of the term in the title, although that work is not the earliest record of theoretical discussion of the topic.
The underlying principle behind these texts is that harmony sanctions harmoniousness by conforming to certain pre-established compositional principles. Current dictionary definitions, while attempting to give concise descriptions highlight the ambiguity of the term in modern use. Ambiguities tend to arise from either aesthetic considerations or from the point of view of musical texture (distinguishing between harmonic and "contrapuntal". In the words of Arnold Whittall: While the entire history of music theory appears to depend on just such a distinction between harmony and counterpoint, it is no less evident that developments in the nature of musical composition down the centuries have presumed the interdependence—at times amounting to integration, at other times a source of sustained tension—between the vertical and horizontal dimensions of musical space; the view that modern tonal harmony in Western music began in about 1600 is commonplace in music theory. This is accounted for by the replacement of horizontal composition, common in the music of the Renaissance, with a new emphasis on the vertical element of composed music.
Modern theorists, tend to see this as an unsatisfactory generalisation. According to Carl Dahlhaus: It was not that counterpoint was supplanted by harmony but that an older type both of counterpoint and of vertical technique was succeeded by a newer type, and harmony comprises not only the structure of chords but their movement. Like music as a whole, harmony is a process. Descriptions and definitions of harmony and harmonic practice may show bias towards European musical traditions. For example, South Asian art music is cited as placing little emphasis on what is perceived in western practice as conventional harmony. Pitch simultaneity in particular is a major consideration. Many other considerations of pitch are relevant to the music, its theory and its structure, such as the complex system of Rāgas, which combines both melodic and modal considerations and codifications within it. So, intricate pitch combinations that sound do occur in Indian classical music—but they are studied as teleological harmonic or contrapuntal progressions—as with notated Western music.
This contrasting emphasis manifests itself in the different methods of performance adopted: in Indian Music improvisation takes a major role in the structural framework of a piece, whereas in Western Music improvisation has been uncommon since the end of the 19th century. Where it does occur in Western music, the improvisation either embellishes pre-notated music or draws from musical models established in notated compositions, therefore uses familiar harmonic schemes. Emphasis on the precomposed in European art music and th
