1.
Beats Per Minute (website)
–
Beats Per Minute covers a wide variety of genres but specializes in rock, hip hop, and electronic music. The site changed its name from One Thirty BPM to Beats Per Minute in January 2012, founded in late 2008 as a five-man operation, Beats Per Minute has since expanded to a staff of over 50 contributors based in the U. S. New Zealand, Germany, Australia, and Sweden, Beats Per Minute is now a featured publication on Metacritic. Beats Per Minute awards both new releases and reissues on a 0-100% point scale, here are a list of releases that have been awarded the perfect 100% score
Beats Per Minute (website)
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Beats Per Minute (formerly One Thirty BPM)
2.
Italian language
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By most measures, Italian, together with Sardinian, is the closest to Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is a language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City. Italian is spoken by minorities in places such as France, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Crimea and Tunisia and by large expatriate communities in the Americas. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages, Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world. Italian is a major European language, being one of the languages of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 65 million native speakers, including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries and on other continents, the total number of speakers is around 85 million. Italian is the working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Italian is known as the language of music because of its use in musical terminology and its influence is also widespread in the arts and in the luxury goods market. Italian has been reported as the fourth or fifth most frequently taught foreign language in the world, Italian was adopted by the state after the Unification of Italy, having previously been a literary language based on Tuscan as spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was influenced by other Italian languages and to some minor extent. Its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian, unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latins contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive, however, Italian as a language used in Italy and some surrounding regions has a longer history. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri, written in his native Florentine. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language, and thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the language of Italy. Italian was also one of the recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy has always had a dialect for each city, because the cities. Those dialects now have considerable variety, as Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. Even in the case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages
Italian language
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Dante Alighieri (above) and
Petrarch (below) were influential in establishing their
Tuscan dialect as the most prominent literary language in all of
Italy in the
Late Middle Ages
Italian language
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The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates areas where the Italian language was used officially during the Italian colonial period.
Italian language
Italian language
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Pietro Bembo was an influential figure in the development of the Italian language from the Tuscan dialect, as a literary medium, codifying the language for standard modern usage
3.
Musical composition
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People who create new compositions are called composers in classical music. In popular music and traditional music, the creators of new songs are usually called songwriters, with songs, Composition is the act or practice of creating a song or other piece of music. In popular music and traditional music, songwriting may involve the creation of an outline of the song, called the lead sheet. In classical music, orchestration is typically done by the composer, in some cases, a pop or traditional songwriter may not use written notation at all, and instead compose the song in her mind and then play, sing and/or record it from memory. In jazz and popular music, notable recordings by influential performers are given the weight that written or printed scores play in classical music. Although a musical composition often uses musical notation and has a single author, a piece of music can also be composed with words, images, or, since the 20th century, with computer programs that explain or notate how the singer or musician should create musical sounds. A more commonly known example of chance-based music is the sound of wind chimes jingling in a breeze, although in the 2000s, composition is considered to consist of the manipulation of each aspect of music, according to Jean-Benjamin de Laborde, Composition consists in two things only. The first is the ordering and disposing of several sounds. in such a manner that their succession pleases the ear and this is what the Ancients called melody. The second is the rendering audible of two or more simultaneous sounds in such a manner that their combination is pleasant and this is what we call harmony, and it alone merits the name of composition. In classical music, a piece of music exists in the form of a composition in musical notation or as a live acoustic event. Since the invention of recording, a classical piece or popular song may also exist as a recording. If music is composed before being performed, music can be performed from memory, by reading written musical notation, compositions comprise a huge variety of musical elements, which vary widely from between genres and cultures. Popular music genres after about 1960 make extensive use of electric and electronic instruments, such as electric guitar, electric and electronic instruments are used in contemporary classical music compositions and concerts, albeit to a lesser degree than in popular music. Music from the Baroque music era, for example, used only acoustic and mechanical such as strings, brass, woodwinds, timpani and keyboard instruments such as harpsichord. A 2000s-era pop band may use electric guitar played with electronic effects through a guitar amplifier, different musical styles permit singers or performers to use various amounts of musical improvisation during the performance of a composed song or piece. In free jazz, the performers may play without any sheet music, improvisation is the act of composing musical elements spontaneously during the performance, as opposed to having a composer write down the music beforehand. Improvisation was an important skill during the Baroque music era, instrumentalists and singers were expected to be able to improvise ornaments, during the classical period, solo instrumentalists were expected to be able to improvise virtuostic cadenzas during a concerto. During the Romantic music era, composers began writing out ornaments and cadenzas, in contemporary classical music, some composers began writing pieces which indicate that the performer should improvise during certain sections
Musical composition
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People composing music
Musical composition
–
Scherzo in A flat (
Borodin) Play (
help ·
info)
4.
Beat (music)
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In music and music theory, the beat is the basic unit of time, the pulse, of the mensural level. In popular use, beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including, tempo, meter, specific rhythms, Rhythm in music is characterized by a repeating sequence of stressed and unstressed beats and divided into bars organized by time signature and tempo indications. Metric levels faster than the level are division levels. Beat has always been an important part of music, some music genres such as disco will in general de-emphasize the beat, while other such as funk emphasize the beat to accompany dance. The downbeat is the first beat of the bar, i. e. number 1, the upbeat is the last beat in the previous bar which immediately precedes, and hence anticipates, the downbeat. Both terms correspond to the direction taken by the hand of a conductor, an anticipatory note or succession of notes occurring before the first barline of a piece is sometimes referred to as an upbeat figure, section or phrase. Alternative expressions include pickup and anacrusis, the latter term was borrowed from the field of poetry, in which it refers to one or more unstressed extrametrical syllables at the beginning of a line. In music that progresses regularly in 44 time, counted as 1234,1234. The first beat of the bar is usually the strongest accent in the melody and the likeliest place for a change, the third is the next strongest. The second and fourth are weaker—the off-beats, subdivisions that fall between the pulse beats are even weaker and these, if used frequently in a rhythm, can also make it off-beat. The effect can be simulated by evenly and repeatedly counting to four. This is a technique of African polyrhythm that transferred to popular western music. According to Grove Music, the Offbeat is where the downbeat is replaced by a rest or is tied over from the preceding bar, the downbeat can never be the off-beat because it is the strongest beat in 44 time. Certain genres tend to emphasize the off-beat, where this is a characteristic of rocknroll. A back beat, or backbeat, is a syncopated accentuation on the off beat, in a simple 44 rhythm these are beats 2 and 4. A big part of R&Bs attraction had to do with the stompin backbeats that make it so eminently danceable, an early record with an emphasised back beat throughout was Good Rockin Tonight by Wynonie Harris in 1948. There is a back beat on Roll Em Pete by Pete Johnson and Big Joe Turner. A distinctive back beat can be heard on Back Beat Boogie by Harry James And His Orchestra, outside U. S. popular music, there are early recordings of music with a distinctive backbeat, such as the 1949 recording of Mangaratiba by Luiz Gonzaga in Brazil
Beat (music)
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It's got a backbeat, you can't lose it -
Chuck Berry
Beat (music)
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Metric levels: beat level shown in middle with division levels above and multiple levels below.
5.
Minute
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The minute is a unit of time or of angle. As a unit of time, the minute is equal to 1⁄60 of an hour, in the UTC time standard, a minute on rare occasions has 61 seconds, a consequence of leap seconds. As a unit of angle, the minute of arc is equal to 1⁄60 of a degree, although not an SI unit for either time or angle, the minute is accepted for use with SI units for both. The SI symbols for minute or minutes are min for time measurement, the prime is also sometimes used informally to denote minutes of time. In contrast to the hour, the minute does not have a historical background. What is traceable only is that it started being recorded in the Middle Ages due to the ability of construction of precision timepieces, however, no consistent records of the origin for the division as 1⁄60 part of the hour have ever been found, despite many speculations. Historically, the word comes from the Latin pars minuta prima. This division of the hour can be refined with a second small part. For even further refinement, the third remains in some languages, for example Polish and Turkish. The symbol notation of the prime for minutes and double prime for seconds can be seen as indicating the first, international System of Units Latitude and longitude Orders of magnitude Henry Campbell Black, Blacks Law Dictionary, 6th Edition, entry on Minute. West Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota,1991
Minute
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Key concepts
Minute
–
Base units
6.
Metronome
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A metronome is a device that produces an audible beat—a click or other sound—at regular intervals that the user can set in beats per minute. Musicians use the device to practice playing to a regular pulse, metronomes typically include synchronized visual motion. A kind of metronome was among the inventions of Andalusian polymath Abbas ibn Firnas, in 1815 Johann Maelzel patented it as a tool for musicians, under the title Instrument/Machine for the Improvement of all Musical Performance, called Metronome. Musicians practice with metronomes to improve their timing, especially the ability to stick to a tempo, Metronome practice helps internalize a clear sense of timing and tempo. Composers often use a metronome as a standard tempo reference—and may play or sing their work to the metronome to derive beats per minute if they want to indicate that in a composition, when interpreting emotion and other qualities in music, performers seldom play exactly on every beat. Typically, every beat of an expressive performance doesnt align exactly with each click of a metronome. This has led some musicians to use of a metronome. Some go as far as to suggest that musicians shouldnt use metronomes at all and those in favour of metronome use understand this as a criticism of metronome technique as commonly practiced by musicians, rather than criticism of the tool as such. Their response has been to better methods of metronome technique to address the various issues raised by the critics. These techniques however arent widely known by musicians generally, including critics of metronome use. Metronome technique has developed, but the body of published information is small—so some critics may think that metronome technique consists only of playing music along with the metronome. In his book, Metronome Techniques, Frederick Franz maintains that those who disparage metronomes as making you mechanical misunderstand their proper use, the word metronome first appeared in English c.1815 and is Greek in origin, metron measure and nomos regulating, law. According to Lynn Townsend White, Jr. the Andalusian inventor, Abbas Ibn Firnas, galileo Galilei first studied and discovered concepts involving the pendulum in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. To get the pulse with this kind of visual devices. The more familiar mechanical musical chronometer was invented by Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel in Amsterdam in 1814, the original text of Maelzels patent in England can be downloaded. Ludwig van Beethoven was maybe the first notable composer to indicate specific metronome markings in his music, musicians practice playing to metronomes to develop and maintain a sense of timing and tempo. For example, a musician fighting a tendency to speed up play a phrase repeatedly while slightly slowing the BPM setting each time. Even pieces that do not require a constant tempo sometimes provide a BPM marking to indicate the general tempo
Metronome
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Mechanical metronome
Metronome
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A mechanical wind-up metronome in motion
Metronome
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Electronic metronome, Wittner model
7.
Electronic dance music
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Electronic dance music is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres made largely for nightclubs, raves, and festivals. EDM is generally produced for playback by disc jockeys who create seamless selections of tracks, called a mix, EDM producers also perform their music live in a concert or festival setting in what is sometimes called a live PA. In the United Kingdom and in continental Europe, EDM is more commonly called dance music or simply dance. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, following the emergence of raving, pirate radio, at this time a perceived association between EDM and drug culture led governments at state and city level to enact laws and policies intended to halt the spread of rave culture. By the early 2010s the term dance music and the initialism EDM was being pushed by the US music industry. Early examples of dance music include the disco music of Giorgio Moroder. During the early 1980s, the popularity of disco music declined in the United States, abandoned by major US record labels. European disco continued evolving within the mainstream pop music scene. European acts Silver Convention, Love and Kisses, Munich Machine, and American acts Donna Summer, in 1977, Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte produced I Feel Love for Donna Summer. It became the first well-known disco hit to have a completely synthesised backing track, other disco producers, most famously American producer Tom Moulton, grabbed ideas and techniques from dub music to provide alternatives to the four on the floor style that dominated. The sound that originated from P-Funk the electronic side of disco, dub music. Much of the music produced during this time was, like disco, at this time creative control started shifting to independent record companies, less established producers, and club DJs. Other dance styles that began to become popular during the era include dance-pop, boogie, electro, Italo disco, house. In the early 1980s, electro emerged as a fusion of funk, also called electro-boogie, but later shortened to electro, cited pioneers include Zapp, D. Train, Sinnamon. Early hip hop and rap combined with German and Japanese electropop influences such as Kraftwerk, as the electronic sound developed, instruments such as the bass guitar and drums were replaced by synthesizers and most notably by iconic drum machines, particularly the Roland TR-808. Early uses of the TR-808 include several Yellow Magic Orchestra tracks in 1980-1981, the 1982 track Planet Rock by Afrikaa Bambaataa, and the 1982 song Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye. In 1982, producer Arthur Baker with Afrika Bambaataa released the seminal Planet Rock which was influenced by the Yellow Magic Orchestra using Kraftwerk samples, Planet Rock was followed later that year by another breakthrough electro record, Nunk by Warp 9. In 1983, Hashim created an electro funk sound which influenced Herbie Hancock, the early 1980s were electros mainstream peak
Electronic dance music
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Roland TB-303: The
bass line synthesizer that was used prominently in
acid house.
Electronic dance music
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Typical tools for EDM production: computer, MIDI keyboard and mixer/sound recorder.
Electronic dance music
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An EDM festival in 2013 with over 100,000 attendees, exhibiting the large crowds and dramatic lighting common at such events since the early 2000s.
8.
Articulation (music)
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In music, articulation refers to the direction or performance technique which affects the transition or continuity on a single note or between multiple notes or sounds. There are many types of articulation, each with a different effect on how the note is played, in music notation articulation marks include the slur, phrase mark, staccato, staccatissimo, accent, sforzando, rinforzando, and legato. A different symbol, placed above or below the note, represents each articulation, woodwind and brass instruments generally produce articulations by tonguing, the use of the tongue to break the airflow into the instrument. Certain palate cues can help student musicians master articulations, for example, the syllable dah demonstrates one placement of the tongue to articulate notes. In most cases, using the tip of the tongue, is the best way of articulation. However, different articulation markings require different tongue placement, smooth, connected passages may require an articulation more reminiscent of the syllable la, while heavy, sharp notes may be attacked with an articulation similar to tah. Furthermore, the implementation of double-tonguing may be required when many articulations are required in rapid succession, double-tonguing can be simulated by repeating the syllables dig and guh in rapid succession. Double-tonguing is a primarily used by brass players, however. A third, rare form of articulation for wind players is doodle tonguing, the name of this articulation comes from the sound, doodle, one would make if she were to sound her voice while performing the articulation. Doodle-tonguing is achieved by moving the tip of the tongue up and down quickly to block the air stream momentarily on the way up, bowed stringed instruments use different bowing techniques to achieve different articulations. One of these techniques is pizzicato, occasionally, articulations can be combined to create stylistically or technically correct sounds. For example, when staccato marks are combined with a slur, tenuto markings under a slur are called hook bows. This name is less commonly applied to staccato or martellato markings. Apagados refers to notes that are played dampened or muted, without sustain, the term is written above or below the notes with a dotted or dashed line drawn to the end of the group of notes that are to be played dampened. The technique is chiefly written for bowed or plucked instruments, modernists refer to the apogado as palm mute. On the guitar, the musician dampens the strings with the palm of the hand, strictly speaking, the term dampened is correct for this effect in music, since to mute means to silence. Illustration of the apagados may be found in the work of composer for Spanish guitar, see, https, //web. archive. org/web/20110714065232/http, //www. mednetconnection. com/18051/18020. html List of musical symbols, Articulation Marks Tonguing Cooper, Helen. Basic Guide to How to Read Music, GNU Lilypond Notation Softwares List of Articulation Symbols
Articulation (music)
–
Articulations from legato to staccatissimo. Legato (
help ·
info), Portato (
help ·
info), Staccato (
help ·
info), Staccatissimo (
help ·
info)
Articulation (music)
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General
9.
Metre (music)
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The metre of music is its rhythmic structure, the patterns of accents heard in regularly recurring measures of stressed and unstressed beats at the frequency of the musics pulse. A variety of systems exist throughout the world for organising and playing music, such as the Indian system of tala. Later music for such as the pavane and galliard consisted of musical phrases to accompany a fixed sequence of basic steps with a defined tempo. The term is not very precisely defined, macPherson preferred to speak of time and rhythmic shape, Imogen Holst of measured rhythm. This perception and abstraction of rhythmic measure is the foundation of human instinctive musical participation, rhythms of recurrence arise from the interaction of two levels of motion, the faster providing the pulse and the slower organizing the beats into repetitive groups. Once a metric hierarchy has been established, we, as listeners, a definition of musical metre requires the possibility of identifying a repeating pattern of accented pulses — a pulse-group — which corresponds to the foot in poetry. Frequently a pulse-group can be identified by taking the accented beat as the first pulse in the group, frequently metres can be broken down into a pattern of duples and triples. The level of musical organisation implied by musical metre includes the most elementary levels of musical form, metrical rhythm, measured rhythm, and free rhythm are general classes of rhythm and may be distinguished in all aspects of temporality. Measured rhythm is where each time value is a multiple or fraction of a time unit. Free rhythm is where there is neither, some music, including chant, has freer rhythm, like the rhythm of prose compared to that of verse. Some music, such as some graphically scored works since the 1950s and non-European music such as Honkyoku repertoire for shakuhachi, may be considered ametric. Senza misura is an Italian musical term for without metre, meaning to play without a beat, Metric levels may be distinguished, the beat level is the metric level at which pulses are heard as the basic time unit of the piece. Faster levels are division levels, and slower levels are multiple levels, a rhythmic unit is a durational pattern which occupies a period of time equivalent to a pulse or pulses on an underlying metric level. In duple metre, each measure is divided into two beats, or a multiple thereof, for example, in the time signature 24, each measure contains two quarter-note beats, and with the time signature 68, each measure contains two dotted-quarter-note beats. Corresponding quadruple metres are 44, with 2 ×2 =4 quarter-note beats per measure, triple metre is a metre in which each measure is divided into three beats, or a multiple thereof. For example, in the time signature 34, each contains three quarter-note beats, and with a time signature of 98, each measure contains three dotted-quarter beats. Simple metre and compound metre are distinguished by the way the beats are subdivided, Simple metre or simple time is a metre in which each beat of the measure divides naturally into two equal parts. The top number in the signature will be 2,3,4,5
Metre (music)
–
Musical and lyric metre.
10.
Texture (music)
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In music, texture is how the melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic materials are combined in a composition, thus determining the overall quality of the sound in a piece. For example, a thick texture contains many layers of instruments, one of these layers could be a string section, or another brass. The thickness also is changed by the amount and the richness of the playing the piece. The thickness varies from light to thick, a pieces texture may be changed by the number and character of parts playing at once, the timbre of the instruments or voices playing these parts and the harmony, tempo, and rhythms used. An example is the Scherzo from Schubert’s piano sonata in B major, the first four bars are monophonic, with both hands performing the same melody an octave apart, Bars 5-9 are homophonic, with all voices coinciding rhythmically, Bars 11-20 are polyphonic. There are three parts, the top two moving in parallel, the lowest part imitates the rhythm of the upper two at the distance of three beats. The passage climaxes abruptly with a silence, After the silence. Many composers use more than one type of texture in the piece of music. A simultaneity is more than one complete musical texture occurring at the same time, a more recent type of texture first used by György Ligeti is micropolyphony. Other textures include polythematic, polyrhythmic, onomatopoeic, compound, style brisé Benward, Bruce, and Marilyn Nadine Saker. Music, In Theory and Practice, seventh edition, vol, arranging Music for the Real World, Classical and Commercial Aspects. Hanning, Barbara Russano, Concise History of Western Music, based on Donald Jay Grout & Claudia V. Paliscas A History of Western Music, published by W. W. Norton & Company, New York, Copyright 1998. Melody, Linear Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music, in Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music, edited by Gary Wittlich, pp. 270–301. In Proceedings of the ICMC2005 – International Computer Music Conference, monophony, Grove Music Online, edited bymDeane Root. What to Listen for in Music, revised edition, New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. Frobenius, Wolf, Peter Cooke, Caroline Bithell, and Izaly Zemtsovsky, Polyphony, hyer, Brian, Homophony, Grove Music Online, edited by Deane Root. Trajectory, Material, Process, and Flow in Robert Morris’s String Quartet Arc, perspectives of New Music 52, no. A Guide to Musical Texture with multimedia
Texture (music)
11.
Conducting
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Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance, such as an orchestral or choral concert. A conductors directions will almost invariably be supplemented or reinforced by verbal instructions or suggestions to their musicians in rehearsal prior to a performance. The conductor typically stands on a podium with a large music stand for the full score. Conducting while playing a piano or synthesizer may also be done with musical theatre pit orchestras, communication is typically non-verbal during a performance. However, in rehearsals, frequent interruptions allow the conductor to give verbal directions as to how the music should be played or sung, Conductors act as guides to the orchestras or choirs they conduct. They choose the works to be performed and study their scores, to which they may make adjustments, work out their interpretation. They may also attend to matters, such as scheduling rehearsals, planning a concert season, hearing auditions and selecting members. Orchestras, choirs, concert bands and other musical ensembles such as big bands are usually led by conductors. The principal conductor of an orchestra or opera company is referred to as a music director or chief conductor, or by the German words Kapellmeister or Dirigent. Conductors of choirs or choruses are sometimes referred to as director, chorus master, or choirmaster. Conductors of concert bands, military bands, marching bands and other bands may hold the title of director, bandmaster. Respected senior conductors are sometimes referred to by the Italian word, an early form of conducting is cheironomy, the use of hand gestures to indicate melodic shape. This has been practiced at least as far back as the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, other devices to indicate the passing of time came into use. Rolled up sheets of paper, smaller sticks and unadorned hands are all shown in pictures from this period, the large staff was responsible for the death of Jean-Baptiste Lully, who injured his foot with one while conducting a Te Deum for the Kings recovery from illness. The wound became gangrenous and Lully refused amputation, whereupon the gangrene spread to his leg, in instrumental music throughout the 18th century, a member of the ensemble usually acted as the conductor. This was sometimes the concertmaster, who could use his bow as a baton and it was common to conduct from the harpsichord in pieces that had a basso continuo part. In opera performances, there were sometimes two conductors – the keyboard player was in charge of the singers, and the principal violinist or leader was in charge of the orchestra. By the early 19th century, it became the norm to have a dedicated conductor, the size of the usual orchestra expanded during this period, and the use of a baton became more common, as it was easier to see than bare hands or rolled-up paper
Conducting
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Steven Sametz conducting the Lehigh University Choir, sans baton
Conducting
Conducting
–
Andrew Lee Neer conducting with a baton in Detroit in 2011
Conducting
–
Giuseppe Verdi conducting his opera
Aida in 1881
12.
Drummer
–
The term percussionist applies to a musician who performs struck musical instruments of numerous diverse shapes, sizes and applications. Most contemporary western ensembles bands for rock, pop, jazz, most drummers of this particular designation work within the context of a larger contingent that may also include, keyboard or guitar, auxiliary percussion and bass. Said ensembles may also include melodic based mallet percussion including, vibraphone, the rhythm section, being the core metronomic foundation with which other melodic instruments, including voices, may present the harmonic/melodic portion of the material. In popular music, the function of the drummer is to keep time or provide a steady tempo. There are many tools that a drummer can use for either timekeeping or soloing and these include cymbals, snare, toms, auxiliary percussion and many others. Also there are single, double, and triple bass pedals for the bass drum, before motorized transport became widespread, drummers played a key role in military conflicts. Military drummers provided drum cadences that set a marching pace. In some armies drums also assisted in combat by keeping cadence for firing and loading drills with muzzle loading guns, military drummers were also employed on the parade field, when troops passed in review, and in various ceremonies including ominous drum rolls accompanying disciplinary punishments. Children also served as drummer boys well into the century, though less commonly than is popularly assumed, due to the nature of the job. In modern times, drummers are not employed in battle, typically buglers and drummers mass under a sergeant-drummer and during marches alternately perform with the regiment or battalion ensembles. Military-based musical percussion traditions were not limited exclusively to the western world, in the Ottoman Empire, the size of a military band reflected the rank of its commander in chief, the largest band was reserved for the Sultan. It included various percussion instruments, often adopted in European military music, the pitched bass drum is still known in some languages as the Turkish Drum. The drumline is a type of marching ensemble descended from drummers, and can be arranged as a performance of a drum. Their uniforms will often have a style and a fancy hat. In recent times, it is common to see drummers in parades wearing costumes with an African, Asian, Latin, Native American, or tribal look. Various indigenous cultures use the drum to create a sense of unity with others especially during recreational events, the drum also helps in prayers and meditations. List of drummers Drum beat Drum machine Drum tracks Pipe band This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
Drummer
–
Hand drummers in
Berkeley, California, about 1966.
Drummer
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A marching drum line warming up, 2011
Drummer
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Turkmenistan Independence Day, 2011
Drummer
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Drummer of the French
Chasseurs alpins
13.
Note value
–
A rest indicates a silence of an equivalent duration. The breve appears in different versions, as shown at right. The first two are used, the third is a stylistic alternative. Sometimes the longa or breve is used to indicate a long note of indefinite duration. When a stem is present, it can go either up or down, in most cases, the stem goes down if the notehead is on the center line or above, and up otherwise. Any flags always go to the right of the stem, a note value may be augmented by adding a dot after it. This dot adds the next briefer note value, making it one, a number of dots lengthen the note value by 2n − 1/2n its value, so two dots add two lower note values, making a total of one and three quarters times its original duration. The rare three dots make it one and seven eighths the duration, and so on, the double dot was first used in 1752 by J. J. Quantz, in music of the 18th century and earlier the amount by which the dot augmented the note varied, it could be more or less than the modern interpretation, to fit into the context. To divide a note value to three parts, or some other value than two, tuplets may be used. However, see swung note and notes inégales, around 1250, Franco of Cologne invented different symbols for different durations, although the relation between different note values could vary, three was the most common ratio. Philippe de Vitrys treatise Ars nova described a system in which the ratios of different note values could be 2,1 or 3,1 and this black mensural notation gave way to white mensural notation around 1450, in which all note values were written with white noteheads. In white notation the use of triplets was indicated by coloration, both black and white notation periodically made use of ligatures, a holdover from the clivis and porrectus neumes used in chant. Around 1600 the modern system was generally adopted, along with barlines. In the 17th century, however, old usages came up occasionally, the British names go back at least to English renaissance music, and the terms of Latin origin had international currency at that time. Obviously, longa means long, and the rest rarely indicate relative shortness, breve is from Latin brevis, short, minim is from minimus, very small, and quaver refers to the quavering effect of very fast notes. The elements semi-, demi- and hemi- mean half in Latin, French, the chain semantic shift whereby notes which were originally perceived as short came progressively to be long notes is interesting both linguistically and musically. On-line activity that counts musical notes
Note value
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Parts of a note
14.
Meter signature
–
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are to be contained in each bar and which note value is to be given one beat. A mid-score time signature, usually following a barline, indicates a change of meter. | Simple time signatures consist of two numerals, one stacked above the other, The lower numeral indicates the value that represents one beat. The upper numeral indicates how many beats there are grouped together in a bar. For instance,24 means two quarter-note beats per bar—38 means three eighth-note beats per bar, the most common simple time signatures are 24,34, and 44. The symbol is used for 44 time, also called common time or imperfect time. In modern notation, it is used in place of 22 and is called alla breve or, colloquially, in compound meter, subdivisions of the main beat are in three equal parts, so that a dotted note becomes the beat unit. Compound time signatures are named as if they were simple time signatures, in which the part of the beat unit is the beat. The lower number is most commonly an 8, as in 98 or 128,34 is a simple signature that represents three quarter notes. To the ear, a bar may seem like one singular beat, for example, a fast waltz, notated in 34 time, may be described as being one in a bar. Terms such as quadruple, quintuple, and so on are also occasionally used, as mentioned above, though the score indicates a 34 time, the actual beat division can be the whole bar, particularly at faster tempos. Correspondingly, at slow tempos the beat indicated by the time signature could in actual performance be divided into smaller units, on a formal mathematical level the time signatures of, e. g.34 and 38 are interchangeable. In a sense, all simple triple time signatures, such as 38,34,32, etc. —and all compound duple times, such as 68,616, a piece in 34 can be easily rewritten in 38, simply by halving the length of the notes. Other time signature rewritings are possible, most commonly a simple time signature with triplets translates into a compound meter, though formally interchangeable, for a composer or performing musician, different time signatures often have different connotations. First, a note value in the beat unit implies a more complex notation. Second, beaming affects the choice of actual beat divisions and it is, for example, more natural to use the quarter note/crotchet as a beat unit in 64 or 22 than the eight/quaver in 68 or 24. Third, time signatures are traditionally associated with different music styles—it might seem strange to notate a rock tune in 48 or 42. For all meters, the first beat is stressed, in time signatures with four groups in the bar
Meter signature
15.
Crotchet
–
A quarter note or crotchet is a note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note. Often, musicians say that a crotchet is one beat, but this is not always correct, as the beat is indicated by the time signature of the music. Quarter notes are notated with a filled-in oval note head and a straight, the stem usually points upwards if it is below the middle line of the stave or downwards if it is on or above the middle line. However, the direction may differentiate more than one part. The head of the note also reverses its orientation in relation to the stem, in Unicode, the symbol is U+2669. A related value is the quarter rest and it denotes a silence of the same duration as a quarter note. It typically appears as the symbol, or occasionally, as the older symbol, the note derives from the semiminima of mensural notation. The word crotchet comes from Old French crochet, meaning hook, diminutive of croc, hook. However, because the hook appeared on the note in the later white notation. The quarter note is played for half the length of a half note and it is one beat in a bar of 44. The term quarter note is a calque of the German term Viertelnote, the Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Serbian and Slovak names mean quarter and quarters pause
Crotchet
–
A quarter note/crotchet with stem pointing up, a quarter note with stem pointing down, and a quarter rest
16.
Johann Nepomuk Maelzel
–
Johann Nepomuk Maelzel was a German inventor, engineer, and showman, best known for manufacturing a metronome and several music automatons, and displaying a fraudulent chess machine. He worked with Beethoven to compose a song, the son of an organ builder, he received a comprehensive musical education. He moved to Vienna in 1792, after several years of study and experiment, he produced an orchestrion instrument, which was publicly exhibited, and afterward sold for 3,000 florins. In 1804, he invented the panharmonicon, an able to play the musical instruments of a military band, powered by bellows. This instrument was sold to a Parisian admirer for 120,000 francs, in 1805 Maelzel purchased Wolfgang von Kempelens half-forgotten automaton chess player, The Turk, took it to Paris, and sold it to Eugene Beauharnais at a large profit. In 1808 he invented an improved ear trumpet, and a musical chronometer, in 1813 Maelzel and Beethoven were on familiar terms. In 1814, Beethoven wrote a deposition claiming that Maelzel had defrauded him, claiming ownership of this music, Beethoven described Maelzel in this deposition as a rude, churlish man, entirely devoid of education or cultivation. In 1816 Maelzel became established in Paris as manufacturer of his newly invented metronome, Maelzels metronome was copied from a metronome invented earlier by Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel. By 1817, Beethoven and Maelzel appear to have patched things up, Beethoven wrote glowingly of Maelzels metronome and declared he would stop using traditional tempo indications like allegro. In 1817 Maelzel left Paris for Munich, and then took up his abode in Vienna. The moving panorama of Moscow was wonderfully realistic and effective, with its music, the smaller objects were genuine automatons, and marvels of beauty and ingenuity. Imitations of the Conflagration in after-years became adjuncts to most of the museums, often, when Maelzels exhibition opened with the performance of the chess-player, he would call upon the audience in vain for an opponent, so little was the game in practice at that time. For many years Maelzel journeyed throughout the United States, repeating his exhibitions with unvarying success and it is said he had the faculty of seizing on the crude inspirations of others and perfecting them to his own advantage. He died on a ship in the harbor of La Guaira, Venezuela, views on Maelzel show that he was not always positively viewed by his contemporaries. Maelzel will be remembered by the Metronome. As a man, Maelzel seems to have been quarrelsome, extravagant, had he possessed a larger amount of culture and of conscience, he might have done service to high Art. — The Year-book of facts in science and art Wilson, James Grant, Fiske, John, eds
Johann Nepomuk Maelzel
–
von Kempelen's Chess Turk
Johann Nepomuk Maelzel
–
Exhibition advertisement of c. 1818
17.
Beethoven
–
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he one of the most famous. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies,5 piano concertos,1 violin concerto,32 piano sonatas,16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn and he lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost completely deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose, many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life. Beethoven was the grandson of Ludwig van Beethoven, a musician from the town of Mechelen in the Duchy of Brabant in the Flemish region of what is now Belgium, who at the age of twenty moved to Bonn. Ludwig was employed as a singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne, eventually rising to become, in 1761. The portrait he commissioned of himself towards the end of his life remained proudly displayed in his grandsons rooms as a talisman of his musical heritage. Ludwig had one son, Johann, who worked as a tenor in the musical establishment and gave keyboard. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767, she was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Keverich, Beethoven was born of this marriage in Bonn. There is no record of the date of his birth, however. Of the seven children born to Johann van Beethoven, only Ludwig, the second-born, caspar Anton Carl was born on 8 April 1774, and Nikolaus Johann, the youngest, was born on 2 October 1776. Beethovens first music teacher was his father and he later had other local teachers, the court organist Gilles van den Eeden, Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer, and Franz Rovantini. Beethovens musical talent was obvious at a young age, some time after 1779, Beethoven began his studies with his most important teacher in Bonn, Christian Gottlob Neefe, who was appointed the Courts Organist in that year. Neefe taught Beethoven composition, and by March 1783 had helped him write his first published composition, Beethoven soon began working with Neefe as assistant organist, at first unpaid, and then as a paid employee of the court chapel conducted by the Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi. His first three piano sonatas, named Kurfürst for their dedication to the Elector Maximilian Friedrich, were published in 1783, Maximilian Frederick noticed Beethovens talent early, and subsidised and encouraged the young mans musical studies. Maximilian Fredericks successor as the Elector of Bonn was Maximilian Francis, the youngest son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, echoing changes made in Vienna by his brother Joseph, he introduced reforms based on Enlightenment philosophy, with increased support for education and the arts
Beethoven
–
Portrait by
Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820
Beethoven
–
Beethoven's birthplace at Bonngasse 20, now the
Beethoven House museum
Beethoven
–
Prince-Elector's Palace (Kurfürstliches Schloss) in Bonn, where the Beethoven family had been active since the 1730s
Beethoven
–
A portrait of the 13-year-old Beethoven by an unknown Bonn master (c. 1783)
18.
Music sequencer
–
This software also improved on the quality of the earlier sequencers which tended to be mechanical sounding and were only able to play back notes of exactly equal duration. Software-based sequencers allowed musicians to program performances that were more expressive and these new sequencers could also be used to control external synthesizers, especially rackmounted sound modules, and it was no longer necessary for each synthesizer to have its own devoted keyboard. As the technology matured, sequencers gained more features, such as the ability to record multitrack audio, Sequencers used for audio recording are called digital audio workstations. Many modern sequencers can be used to control virtual instruments implemented as software plug-ins and this allows musicians to replace expensive and cumbersome standalone synthesizers with their software equivalents. Today the term sequencer is used to describe software. Workstation keyboards have their own proprietary built-in MIDI sequencers, drum machines and some older synthesizers have their own step sequencer built in. There are still also standalone hardware MIDI sequencers, although the demand for those has diminished greatly due to the greater feature set of their software counterparts. Music sequencers are often categorized by handling data types, as following, or, the phrase samplers including Groove machines, etc. Also, music sequencer can be categorized by its construction and supporting modes, realtime sequencers record the musical notes in real-time as on audio recorders, and play back musical notes with designated tempo, quantizations, and pitch. For editing, usually punch in/punch out feature originated in the recording is provided. For detailed editing, possibly another visual editing modes under graphical user interface may be more suitable, anyway, this mode provides usability similar to the audio recorder already familiarized by musicians, and it is widely supported on software sequencer, DAW, and built-in hardware sequencers. Analog sequencers are typically implemented with analog electronics, and play the musical notes designated by a series of knobs or sliders corresponding to each musical note and it is designed for both composition and live performance, users can change the musical notes at any time without regarding recording mode. And also possibly, the time-interval between each note can be independently adjustable. Typically, analog sequencer is used to generate the repeated minimalistic phrases which is reminiscent of Tangerine Dream, on the bass machines, select a step note from a chromatic keypads, then select a step duration from a group of length-buttons, sequentially. In general, step mode, along with roughly quantized semi-realtime mode, is supported on the analog drum machines, bass machines. Software sequencer is a class of application software providing a functionality of music sequencer, the features provided as sequencers vary widely depending on the software, even an analog sequencer can be simulated. The user may control the software sequencer either by using the user interfaces or a specialized input devices. The early music sequencers were sound producing devices such as musical instruments, music boxes, mechanical organs, player pianos
Music sequencer
–
1980s typical software sequencer platform, using
Atari Mega ST computer.
Music sequencer
–
Today's typical software sequencer, supporting
multitrack audio (
DAW) and
plug-ins (
Steinberg Cubase 6)
Music sequencer
–
User interface on
Steinberg Cubase v6.0, a
digital audio workstation with an integrated software sequencer.
Music sequencer
–
An analog sequencer
19.
Alberto Ginastera
–
Alberto Evaristo Ginastera was an Argentine composer of classical music. He is considered one of the most important 20th-century classical composers of the Americas, Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires to a Catalan father and an Italian mother. During the last few years of his life, he preferred to pronounce his surname in its Catalan pronunciation, Ginastera studied at the Williams conservatory in Buenos Aires, graduating in 1938. As a young professor, he taught at the Liceo Militar General San Martín, after a visit to the United States in 1945–47, where he studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood, he returned to Buenos Aires and co-founded the League of Composers. He held a number of teaching posts, among his notable students were Ástor Piazzolla, Alcides Lanza, Waldo de los Ríos, Jacqueline Nova and Rafael Aponte-Ledée. See, List of music students by teacher, G to J#Alberto Ginastera, Ginastera moved back to the United States in 1968 and then in 1970 to Europe. He died in Geneva, Switzerland, at the age of 67 and was buried in the Cimetière des Rois there, Ginastera grouped his music into three periods, Objective Nationalism, Subjective Nationalism, and Neo-Expressionism. Among other distinguishing features, these vary in their use of traditional Argentine musical elements. Many of Ginasteras works were inspired by the Gauchesco tradition and this tradition holds that the Gaucho, or landless native horseman of the plains, is a symbol of Argentina. His Cantata para América Mágica, for soprano and 53 percussion instruments, was based on ancient pre-Columbian legends. Its West Coast premiere was performed by the Los Angeles Percussion Ensemble under Henri Temianka, a portion of Ginasteras Piano Sonata No.1 is performed in the movie The Competition, and the piece is included in the movie soundtrack. 1, Op.28 Piano Concerto No,2, Op.39 Violin Violin Concerto, Op.30 Cello Cello Concerto No. 1, Op.36 Cello Concerto No,1, Op.22 Arrangement of an Organ Toccata by Domenico Zipoli Piano Sonata No. 2, Op.53 Piano Sonata No,1, for violin and piano, Op.16 String Quartet No. 2, for violoncello and piano, Op.21 String Quartet No,2, Op.26 Piano Quintet, Op.29 String Quartet No. Cantata para América Mágica, Raquel Adonaylo, soprano, Los Angeles Percussion Ensemble, William Kraft, with, Carlos Chávez, Toccata for Percussion, Henri Temianka, conductor. LP recording, analog, 33⅓ rpm, stereo,12 in, Cantata para America Magica, McGill Percussion Ensemble, P. Béluse, director, Elise Bédard, soprano, McGill Records CD,1997. Complete works for piano, Andrzej Pikul, Dux Recording Producers,2007,1, Paganini Quartet, Decca Gold Label
Alberto Ginastera
–
Alberto Ginastera
Alberto Ginastera
–
Julián Aguirre Conservatory of Music, founded by Ginastera in 1951
20.
John Cage
–
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher, and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham. The content of the composition is not four minutes and 33 seconds of silence, as is often assumed, the works challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage was also a pioneer of the piano, for which he wrote numerous dance-related works. The best known of these is Sonatas and Interludes and his teachers included Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cages major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, the I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text on changing events, became Cages standard composition tool for the rest of his life. Cage was born September 5,1912, at Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown Los Angeles and his father, John Milton Cage, Sr. was an inventor, and his mother, Lucretia Harvey, worked intermittently as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times. The familys roots were deeply American, in a 1976 interview, John Milton Sr. taught his son that if someone says cant that shows you what to do. In 1944–45 Cage wrote two small character pieces dedicated to his parents, Crete and Dad, the latter is a short lively piece that ends abruptly, while Crete is a slightly longer, mostly melodic contrapuntal work. During high school, one of his teachers was Fannie Charles Dillon. By 1928, though, Cage was convinced that he wanted to be a writer and he graduated that year from Los Angeles High School as a valedictorian, having also in the spring given a prize-winning speech at the Hollywood Bowl proposing a day of quiet for all Americans. By being hushed and silent, he said, we should have the opportunity to hear other people think. Cage enrolled at Pomona College in Claremont as a major in 1928. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks, I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly, Cage persuaded his parents that a trip to Europe would be more beneficial to a future writer than college studies. He subsequently hitchhiked to Galveston and sailed to Le Havre, where he took a train to Paris, Cage stayed in Europe for some 18 months, trying his hand at various forms of art. First he studied Gothic and Greek architecture, but decided he was not interested enough in architecture to dedicate his life to it and he then took up painting, poetry and music
John Cage
–
John Cage (1988)
John Cage
–
John Cage (left) and
Michael Bach in Assisi, Italy, 1992
John Cage
–
Variations III, No. 14, a 1992 print by Cage from a series of 57.
21.
Disc jockey
–
A disc jockey is a person who mixes different sources of pre-existing recorded music as it is playing, usually for a live audience in a nightclub or dance club or via broadcasting. DJs typically perform for an audience in a nightclub or dance club or a TV, radio broadcast audience, or in the 2010s. DJs also create mixes, remixes and tracks that are recorded for later sale, in hip hop music, DJs may create beats, using percussion breaks, basslines and other musical content sampled from pre-existing records. In hip hop, rappers and MCs use these beats to rap over, DJs use equipment that can play at least two sources of recorded music simultaneously and mix them together. This allows the DJ to create seamless transitions between recordings and develop unique mixes of songs, DJ equipment, notably the specialized DJ mixer, a small audio mixer with a crossfader and cue functions. The crossfader enables the DJ to blend or transition from one song to another, the cue knobs or switches allow the DJ to preview a source of recorded music in headphones before playing it for the live club or broadcast audience. Previewing the music in headphones helps the DJ pick the track they want to play. DJs may also use a microphone to speak to the audience, effects such as reverb to create sound effects, drum machines. The title DJ is also used by DJs in front of their real names or adopted pseudonyms or stage names as a title to denote their profession. Some DJs focus on creating a mix of songs for the club dancers or radio audience. Other DJs use turntablism techniques such as scratching, in which the DJ or turntablist manipulates the record player turntable to create new sounds. In many types of DJing, including club DJing and radio/TV DJing, there are several types of disc jockey. Radio DJs or radio personalities introduce and play music that is broadcast on AM, FM, club DJs select and play music in bars, nightclubs or discothèques, or at parties, raves, or even in stadiums. Mobile DJs travel with portable sound systems and play recorded music at a variety of events. Some mobile DJs also serve as the master of ceremonies at weddings or other events, directing the attention of attendees, there are also many competitions for DJs that specialize in different turntablism techniques, such as mixing, hip hop music-style scratching or other kinds of techniques. Other types of DJ use musical performance techniques that allow them to be categorized as performing musicians, hip hop DJs and are also often songwriters or music producers who use turntablism and sampling to create backing instrumentals for new tracks. In reggae, the DJ is a vocalist who raps, toasts, chants or chats over pre-recorded rhythm tracks, the individual who helps the DJ by selecting tracks or records to be played is called the selector. Many electronica artists and producers who work as DJs often perform music by combining turntablism with keyboards, digital musical instruments
Disc jockey
–
A DJ performing at an event
Disc jockey
–
Technics 1200 MK2, Technics 1210 MK2, and Pioneer DJM-500 shown in a common DJ configuration
Disc jockey
–
A DJ at Sundance Film Festival 2003
Disc jockey
–
A young woman plays a gramophone in an air raid shelter in north London (1940).
22.
Beatmatching
–
The technique was developed to keep the people from leaving the dancefloor at the end of the song. Beatmatching is no longer considered a novelty, and new digital software has made the technique easier to master. The beatmatching technique consists of the steps, While a record is playing, start a second record playing. Use gain control on the mixer to match the levels of the two records, restart and slip-cue the new record at the right time, begin the new record on beat with the record currently playing. Pay attention to structures, careful phrasing can make the mix seamless. Continue this process until the two records are in sync with each other and it can be difficult to sync the two records perfectly, so manual adjustment of the records is necessary to maintain the beat synchronization. Before fading in the new track, check that the beats of two tracks match by listening to both channels together in the headphones, as the sound from the speakers can reach you with a delay. Gradually fade in parts of the new track while fading out the old track, while in the mix, ensure that the tracks are still synchronized, adjusting the records if needed. The fade can be repeated several times, for example, from the first track, fade to the track, then back to first. One of the key things to consider when beatmatching is the tempo of songs, and the musical theory behind the songs. Attempting to beatmatch songs with completely different BPMs, will result in one or both of the songs sounding too fast or too slow. When beatmatching songs of similar BPMs it is important to consider the genre of each song, while most songs with the same BPM have similar beat structures, some genres will feature songs that wont mix well with others. When beatmatching, a technique used by many disc jockeys around the world is to vary the equalization of both tracks. Doing so creates a transition that the audience would generally react to better. The pitch and tempo of a track are linked together, spin a disc 5% faster. However, some modern DJ software can change pitch and tempo independently using time-stretching and pitch-shifting, allowing harmonic mixing. There is also a feature in most modern DJ software to change the tempo but keeping the original pitch, beatmatching was invented by Francis Grasso in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Initially he was counting the tempo with a metronome and looking for records with the same tempo
Beatmatching
–
Alignment of beats in the beatmatching process
23.
Bar (music)
–
Dividing music into bars provides regular reference points to pinpoint locations within a piece of music. It also makes written music easier to follow, since each bar of staff symbols can be read and played as a batch. Typically, a piece consists of bars of the same length. In simple time, the top figure indicates the number of beats per bar, the word bar is more common in British English, and the word measure is more common in American English, although musicians generally understand both usages. In international usage, it is correct to speak of bar numbers and measure numbers. Along the same lines, it is wise to reserve the abbreviated form ‘bb, 3–4’ etc. for beats only, bars should be referred to by name in full. The first metrically complete measure within a piece of music is called ‘bar 1’ or ‘m. 1’, when the piece begins with an anacrusis, ‘bar 1’ or ‘m. 1’ is the following measure. Originally, the bar came from the vertical lines drawn through the staff to mark off metrical units. In British English, these lines are called bar, too. Note that double bar refers not to a type of bar, another term for the bar line denoting the end of a piece of music is music end. A repeat sign looks like the end, but it has two dots, one above the other, indicating that the section of music that is before is to be repeated. The beginning of the passage can be marked by a begin-repeat sign. This begin-repeat sign, if appearing at the beginning of a staff, does not act as a bar line because no bar is before it, in music with a regular meter, bars function to indicate a periodic accent in the music, regardless of its duration. Igor Stravinsky said of bar lines, The bar line is much, much more than a mere accent, bars and bar lines also indicate grouping, rhythmically of beats within and between bars, within and between phrases, and on higher levels such as meter. The earliest barlines, used in keyboard and vihuela music in the 15th and 16th centuries, didnt reflect a regular meter at all but were only section divisions, or in some cases marked off every beat. Barlines began to be introduced into music in the late 16th century. Not until the mid-17th century were used in the modern style with every measure being the same length. Modern editions of music that was originally notated without barlines sometimes use a mensurstrich as a compromise
Bar (music)
–
Hypermeter: 4 beat measure, 4 measure hypermeasure, and 4 hypermeasure verses. Hyperbeats in red.
24.
Ballroom dance
–
Ballroom dance is a set of partner dances, which are enjoyed both socially and competitively around the world. Because of its performance and entertainment aspects, ballroom dance is widely enjoyed on stage, film. Ballroom dance may refer, at its widest definition, to almost any type of dancing as recreation. The two styles, while differing in technique, rhythm and costumes, exemplify core elements of dancing such as control. Developed in England, the two styles are now regulated by the World Dance Council and the World DanceSport Federation. In the United States, two variations are popular, American Smooth and American Rhythm, which combine elements of the Standard. There are also a number of dances, and local or national dances. Sequence dancing, in pairs or other formations, is still a style of ballroom dance. The term ballroom dancing is derived from the ball which in turn originates from the Latin word ballare which means to dance. In times past, ballroom dancing was social dancing for the privileged, among the dances described were the solemn basse danse, the livelier branle, pavane, and the galliarde which Shakespeare called the cinq pace as it was made of five steps. Eventually, the first definite cleavage between ballet and ballroom came when professional dancers appeared in the ballets, and the left the Court. Ballet technique such as the turned out positions of the feet, however, the dance was initially met with tremendous opposition due to the semblance of impropriety associated with the closed hold, though the stance gradually softened. In the 1840s several new dances made their appearance in the ballroom, including the Polka, Mazurka, in the meantime a strong tendency emerged to drop all decorative steps such as entrechats and ronds de jambes that had found a place in the Quadrilles and other dances. Modern ballroom dance has its roots early in the 20th century, the first was a movement away from the sequence dances towards dances where the couples moved independently. This had been pre-figured by the waltz, which had made this transition. The second was a wave of music, such as jazz. Since dance is to a large extent tied to music, this led to a burst of newly invented dances, there were many dance crazes in the period 1910–1930. The third event was an effort to transform some of the dance crazes into dances which could be taught to a wider dance public in the US
Ballroom dance
–
WDC World Youth (Under 21) Champions 2013, Michael Foskett & Nika Vlasenko
Ballroom dance
–
Galliard in
Siena, Italy, 15th century
Ballroom dance
–
Vernon and Irene Castle, early ballroom dance pioneers, c. 1910–18
Ballroom dance
–
Young couple dancing
cha-cha-cha at a junior Latin dance competition in the
Czech Republic.
25.
Popular music
–
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training and it stands in contrast to both art music and traditional or folk music. Art music was historically disseminated through the performances of music, although since the beginning of the recording industry. Traditional music forms such as blues songs or hymns were passed along orally, or to smaller. The original application of the term is to music of the 1880s Tin Pan Alley period in the United States, although popular music sometimes is known as pop music, the two terms are not interchangeable. Popular music songs and pieces typically have easily singable melodies, in the 2000s, with songs and pieces available as digital sound files, it has become easier for music to spread from one country or region to another. Some popular music forms have become global, while others have an appeal within the culture of their origin. Through the mixture of genres, new popular music forms are created to reflect the ideals of a global culture. The examples of Africa, Indonesia and the Middle East show how Western pop music styles can blend with local traditions to create new hybrid styles. Sales of recordings or sheet music are one measure, middleton and Manuel note that this definition has problems because multiple listens or plays of the same song or piece are not counted. Manuel states that one criticism of music is that it is produced by large media conglomerates and passively consumed by the public. He claims that the listeners in the scenario would not have been able to make the choice of their favorite music, moreover, understandings of popular music have changed with time. A societys popular music reflects the ideals that are prevalent at the time it is performed or published, david Riesman states that the youth audiences of popular music fit into either a majority group or a subculture. The majority group listens to the commercially produced styles while the subcultures find a minority style to transmit their own values and this allows youth to choose what music they identify with, which gives them power as consumers to control the market of popular music. Form in popular music is most often sectional, the most common sections being verse, chorus or refrain, other common forms include thirty-two-bar form, chorus form *, and twelve-bar blues. Popular music songs are rarely composed using different music for each stanza of the lyrics, the verse and chorus are considered the primary elements. Each verse usually has the melody, but the lyrics change for most verses. The chorus usually has a phrase and a key lyrical line which is repeated
Popular music
–
The 19th century singer
Jenny Lind depicted performing
La sonnambula
26.
Traditional music
–
Folk music includes both traditional music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th century folk revival. The term originated in the 19th century, but is applied to music older than that. Some types of music are also called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways, as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers and it has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. Starting in the century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times and this type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock, folk metal, electric folk, and others. Even individual songs may be a blend of the two, a consistent definition of traditional folk music is elusive. The terms folk music, folk song, and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions and they are extensions of the term folklore, which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe the traditions, customs, and superstitions of the uncultured classes. Traditional folk music also includes most indigenous music, however, despite the assembly of an enormous body of work over some two centuries, there is still no certain definition of what folk music is. Some do not even agree that the term Folk Music should be used, Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of old songs, with no known composers, the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character. Such definitions depend upon processes rather than abstract musical types, one widely used definition is simply Folk music is what the people sing. For Scholes, as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók, Folk music was already. seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear, particularly in a community uninfluenced by art music and by commercial and printed song. In these terms folk music may be seen as part of a schema comprising four types, primitive or tribal, elite or art, folk. Music in this genre is often called traditional music. Although the term is only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre
Traditional music
–
Béla Bartók recording Slovak peasant singers in 1908
Traditional music
–
Indians always distinguished between classical and folk music, though in the past even classical Indian music used to rely on the unwritten transmission of repertoire.
Traditional music
–
Armenian traditional musicians
Traditional music
–
Assyrians playing
zurna and
Davul, the typically used instruments for their folk music.
27.
Lead singer
–
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of sustained tonality, rhythm, and a variety of vocal techniques. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist, Singers perform music that can be sung with or without accompaniment by musical instruments. Singing is often done in an ensemble of musicians, such as a choir of singers or a band of instrumentalists, Singers may perform as soloists, or accompanied by anything from a single instrument up to a symphony orchestra or big band. Singing can be formal or informal, arranged or improvised and it may be done as a form of religious devotion, as a hobby, as a source of pleasure, comfort, or ritual, as part of music education, or as a profession. Excellence in singing requires time, dedication, instruction, and regular practice, if practice is done on a regular basis then the sounds can become more clear and strong. Professional singers usually build their careers around one specific genre, such as classical or rock. They typically take voice training provided by teachers or vocal coaches throughout their careers. Though these four mechanisms function independently, they are coordinated in the establishment of a vocal technique and are made to interact upon one another. During passive breathing, air is inhaled with the diaphragm while exhalation occurs without any effort, exhalation may be aided by the abdominal, internal intercostal and lower pelvis/pelvic muscles. Inhalation is aided by use of external intercostals, scalenes and sternocleidomastoid muscles, the pitch is altered with the vocal cords. With the lips closed, this is called humming, humans have vocal folds which can loosen, tighten, or change their thickness, and over which breath can be transferred at varying pressures. The shape of the chest and neck, the position of the tongue, any one of these actions results in a change in pitch, volume, timbre, or tone of the sound produced. Sound also resonates within different parts of the body and an individuals size, Singers can also learn to project sound in certain ways so that it resonates better within their vocal tract. This is known as vocal resonation, another major influence on vocal sound and production is the function of the larynx which people can manipulate in different ways to produce different sounds. These different kinds of function are described as different kinds of vocal registers. The primary method for singers to accomplish this is through the use of the Singers Formant and it has also been shown that a more powerful voice may be achieved with a fatter and fluid-like vocal fold mucosa. The more pliable the mucosa, the more efficient the transfer of energy from the airflow to the vocal folds, Vocal registration refers to the system of vocal registers within the voice. A register in the voice is a series of tones, produced in the same vibratory pattern of the vocal folds
Lead singer
–
American jazz singer and songwriter
Billie Holiday in New York City in 1947
Lead singer
–
"Vocalist" redirects here. See also:
Lead vocalist and
Backing vocalist.
Lead singer
–
Ercole de' Roberti: Concert, c. 1490
Lead singer
–
Rock singer Ian Gillan performing live with
Deep Purple in
Hoyos del Espino in 2013.
28.
Sound recording
–
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording, prior to the development of analog recording, there were mechanical systems for reproducing instrumental music, such as wind-up music boxes and later, in the late 19th century, player pianos. Analog sound reproduction is the process, with a bigger loudspeaker diaphragm causing changes to atmospheric pressure to form acoustic sound waves. Digital recording and reproduction converts the sound signal picked up by the microphone to a digital form by the process of digitization. This lets the audio data be stored and transmitted by a variety of media. Whereas successive copies of an analog recording tend to degrade in quality, as noise is added. A digital audio signal must be reconverted to analog form during playback before it is amplified and connected to a loudspeaker to produce sound, long before sound was first recorded on cylinders or records, music was recorded—first by written music notation, then also by mechanical devices. Fowler, this. cylinder with raised pins on the surface remained the device to produce and reproduce music mechanically until the second half of the nineteenth century. The Banu Musa brothers also invented an automatic flute player, which appears to have been the first programmable machine, according to Fowler, the automata were a robot band that performed. more than fifty facial and body actions during each musical selection. In the 14th century, Flanders introduced a mechanical bell-ringer controlled by a rotating cylinder, similar designs appeared in barrel organs, musical clocks, barrel pianos, and musical boxes. A music box is a musical instrument that produces sounds by the use of a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc so as to pluck the tuned teeth of a steel comb. They were developed from musical snuff boxes of the 18th century, some of the more complex boxes also have a tiny drum and/or bells, in addition to the metal comb. The fairground organ, developed in 1892, used a system of accordion-folded punched cardboard books, the player piano, first demonstrated in 1876, used a punched paper scroll that could store an long piece of music. The most sophisticated of the rolls were hand-played, meaning that the roll represented the actual performance of an individual. This technology to record a live performance onto a piano roll was not developed until 1904, piano rolls were in continuous mass production from 1896 to 2008. A1908 U. S. Supreme Court copyright case noted that, in 1902 alone, the use of piano rolls began to decline in the 1920s although one type is still being made today. The first device that could record actual sounds as they passed through the air was the phonautograph, the earliest known recordings of the human voice are phonautograph recordings, called phonautograms, made in 1857. They consist of sheets of paper with sound-wave-modulated white lines created by a stylus that cut through a coating of soot as the paper was passed under it
Sound recording
–
Frances Densmore recording
Blackfoot chief Mountain Chief on a cylinder phonograph for the
Bureau of American Ethnology (1916)
Sound recording
–
Emile Berliner with disc record gramophone
Sound recording
–
Magnetic audio tapes: acetate base (left) and polyester base (right)
Sound recording
–
A typical Compact Cassette
29.
Record producer
–
A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may also pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers also often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is also a competent arranger, composer. The producer will also liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects. These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu
Record producer
–
Alan Parsons in an
ESO 50th anniversary video.
Record producer
–
A
Danish recording session
Record producer
–
Mixing Console
30.
Classical music
–
Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western music, including both liturgical and secular music. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common-practice period, Western staff notation is used by composers to indicate to the performer the pitches, tempo, meter and rhythms for a piece of music. This can leave less room for such as improvisation and ad libitum ornamentation. The term classical music did not appear until the early 19th century, the earliest reference to classical music recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836. This score typically determines details of rhythm, pitch, and, the written quality of the music has enabled a high level of complexity within them, J. S. The use of written notation also preserves a record of the works, Musical notation enables 2000s-era performers to sing a choral work from the 1300s Renaissance era or a 1700s Baroque concerto with many of the features of the music being reproduced. That said, the score does not provide complete and exact instructions on how to perform a historical work, even if the tempo is written with an Italian instruction, we do not know exactly how fast the piece should be played. Bach was particularly noted for his complex improvisations, during the Classical era, the composer-performer Mozart was noted for his ability to improvise melodies in different styles. During the Classical era, some virtuoso soloists would improvise the cadenza sections of a concerto, during the Romantic era, Beethoven would improvise at the piano. The instruments currently used in most classical music were largely invented before the mid-19th century and they consist of the instruments found in an orchestra or in a concert band, together with several other solo instruments. The symphony orchestra is the most widely known medium for music and includes members of the string, woodwind, brass. The concert band consists of members of the woodwind, brass and it generally has a larger variety and number of woodwind and brass instruments than the orchestra but does not have a string section. However, many bands use a double bass. Many of the used to perform medieval music still exist. Medieval instruments included the flute, the recorder and plucked string instruments like the lute. As well, early versions of the organ, fiddle, Medieval instruments in Europe had most commonly been used singly, often self accompanied with a drone note, or occasionally in parts. From at least as early as the 13th century through the 15th century there was a division of instruments into haut, during the earlier medieval period, the vocal music from the liturgical genre, predominantly Gregorian chant, was monophonic, using a single, unaccompanied vocal melody line. Polyphonic vocal genres, which used multiple independent vocal melodies, began to develop during the medieval era, becoming prevalent by the later 13th
Classical music
Classical music
–
Nineteenth-century composer and pianist
Clara Schumann is one of only a few female composers mentioned in the Concise Oxford History of Music.
Classical music
–
The Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra performs
Tchaikovsky 's
Fourth Symphony.
Classical music
–
A youth
concert band in performance.
31.
Baroque music
–
Baroque music is a style of Western art music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750. This era followed the Renaissance music era, and was followed in turn by the Classical era, Baroque music forms a major portion of the classical music canon, being widely studied, performed, and listened to. The Baroque period saw the creation of tonality, an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key, during the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. A characteristic Baroque form was the dance suite, while the pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were designed for listening, not for accompanying dancers. During the period, composers and performers used more elaborate ornamentation, made changes in musical notation. Many musical terms and concepts from this era, such as toccata, fugue, dense, complex polyphonic music, in which multiple independent melody lines were performed simultaneously, was an important part of many Baroque choral and instrumental works. The word baroque comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning misshapen pearl, the term Baroque is generally used by music historians to describe a broad range of styles from a wide geographic region, mostly in Europe, composed over a period of approximately 150 years. The systematic application by historians of the baroque to music of this period is a relatively recent development. In 1919, Curt Sachs became the first to apply the five characteristics of Heinrich Wölfflins theory of the Baroque systematically to music, all of these efforts resulted in appreciable disagreement about time boundaries of the period, especially concerning when it began. In English the term acquired currency only in the 1940s, in the writings of Bukofzer, nevertheless, the term has become widely used and accepted for this broad range of music. It may be helpful to distinguish the Baroque from both the preceding and following periods of musical history, the Baroque period is divided into three major phases, early, middle, and late. Although they overlap in time, they are dated from 1580 to 1630, from 1630 to 1680. In reference to music, they based their ideals on a perception of Classical musical drama that valued discourse, the early realizations of these ideas, including Jacopo Peris Dafne and LEuridice, marked the beginning of opera, which were a catalyst for Baroque music. Concerning music theory, the widespread use of figured bass represents the developing importance of harmony as the linear underpinnings of polyphony. Harmony is the end result of counterpoint, and figured bass is a representation of those harmonies commonly employed in musical performance. With figured bass, numbers, accidentals or symbols were placed above the bassline that was read by keyboard instrument players such as players or pipe organists. The numbers, accidentals or symbols indicated to the player what intervals she should play above each bass note. The keyboard player would improvise a chord voicing for each bass note and this led to the idea that certain sequences of chords, rather than just notes, could provide a sense of closure at the end of a piece—one of the fundamental ideas that became known as tonality
Baroque music
–
Baroque theatre in
Český Krumlov
Baroque music
–
Claudio Monteverdi in 1640
Baroque music
–
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Baroque music
–
Arcangelo Corelli
32.
Renaissance music
–
Renaissance music is vocal and instrumental music written and performed in Europe during the Renaissance era. From this changing society emerged a common, unifying musical language, in particular the style of the Franco-Flemish school. The invention of the press in 1440 made it cheaper and easier to distribute music and musical theory texts on a wider geographic scale. Prior to the invention of printing, songs and music that were written down and music theory texts had to be hand-copied, demand for music as entertainment and as a leisure activity for educated amateurs increased with the emergence of a bourgeois class. These musicians were sought throughout Europe, particularly in Italy, where churches and aristocratic courts hired them as composers, performers. This reversed the situation from a hundred years earlier, opera, a dramatic staged genre in which singers are accompanied by instruments, arose at this time in Florence. Opera was developed as an attempt to resurrect the music of ancient Greece. Music was increasingly freed from constraints, and more variety was permitted in range, rhythm, harmony, form. In the Renaissance, music became a vehicle for personal expression, composers found ways to make vocal music more expressive of the texts they were setting. Secular music absorbed techniques from sacred music, and vice versa, popular secular forms such as the chanson and madrigal spread throughout Europe. Courts employed virtuoso performers, both singers and instrumentalists, Music also became more self-sufficient with its availability in printed form, existing for its own sake. Precursor versions of familiar modern instruments developed into new forms during the Renaissance. These instruments were modified to responding to the evolution of musical ideas, Early forms of modern woodwind and brass instruments like the bassoon and trombone also appeared, extending the range of sonic color and increasing the sound of instrumental ensembles. From the Renaissance era, notated secular and sacred music survives in quantity, including vocal and instrumental works, an enormous diversity of musical styles and genres flourished during the Renaissance. These can be heard on recordings made in the 20th and 21st century, including masses, motets, madrigals, chansons, accompanied songs, instrumental dances, beginning in the late 20th century, numerous early music ensembles were formed. One of the most pronounced features of early Renaissance European art music was the reliance on the interval of the third. Polyphony – the use of multiple, independent melodic lines, performed simultaneously – became increasingly elaborate throughout the 14th century, the beginning of the 15th century showed simplification, with the composers often striving for smoothness in the melodic parts. The modal characteristics of Renaissance music began to break down towards the end of the period with the use of root motions of fifths or fourths
Renaissance music
–
Musicians, ca 1600
Renaissance music
–
1611
woodcut of Josquin des Prez, copied from a now-lost oil painting done during his lifetime
Renaissance music
–
San Marco in the evening. The spacious, resonant interior was one of the inspirations for the music of the Venetian School.
Renaissance music
–
Hurdy-gurdy
33.
Pulse (music)
–
In music and music theory, the pulse consists of beats in a series of identical yet distinct periodic short-duration stimuli perceived as points in time occurring at the mensural level. This pulse is typically what listeners entrain to as they tap their foot or dance along with a piece of music, the pulse may be audible or implied. The tempo of the piece is the speed of the pulse, if a pulse becomes too fast it would become a drone, one that is too slow would be perceived as unconnected sounds. When the period of any continuous beat is faster than 8–10 per second or slower than 1 per 1. 5–2 seconds, musical pulses are generally specified in the range 40 to 240 beats per minute. The pulse is not necessarily the fastest or the slowest component of the rhythm and this is currently most often designated as a crotchet or quarter note when written. In fact there is a tendency to perceptually group or differentiate an ideal pulse in this way. A repetitive, regularly accented pulse-group is called a meter, pulses can occur at multiple metric levels - see figure. Pulse groups may be distinguished as synchronous, if all pulses on slower levels coincide with those on faster levels, an isochronal or equally spaced pulse on one level that uses varied pulse groups create a pulse on the multiple level that is non-isochronal
Pulse (music)
–
A repeating pulse represented graphically as on an
oscilloscope.
34.
Time signature
–
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are to be contained in each bar and which note value is to be given one beat. A mid-score time signature, usually following a barline, indicates a change of meter. | Simple time signatures consist of two numerals, one stacked above the other, The lower numeral indicates the value that represents one beat. The upper numeral indicates how many beats there are grouped together in a bar. For instance,24 means two quarter-note beats per bar—38 means three eighth-note beats per bar, the most common simple time signatures are 24,34, and 44. The symbol is used for 44 time, also called common time or imperfect time. In modern notation, it is used in place of 22 and is called alla breve or, colloquially, in compound meter, subdivisions of the main beat are in three equal parts, so that a dotted note becomes the beat unit. Compound time signatures are named as if they were simple time signatures, in which the part of the beat unit is the beat. The lower number is most commonly an 8, as in 98 or 128,34 is a simple signature that represents three quarter notes. To the ear, a bar may seem like one singular beat, for example, a fast waltz, notated in 34 time, may be described as being one in a bar. Terms such as quadruple, quintuple, and so on are also occasionally used, as mentioned above, though the score indicates a 34 time, the actual beat division can be the whole bar, particularly at faster tempos. Correspondingly, at slow tempos the beat indicated by the time signature could in actual performance be divided into smaller units, on a formal mathematical level the time signatures of, e. g.34 and 38 are interchangeable. In a sense, all simple triple time signatures, such as 38,34,32, etc. —and all compound duple times, such as 68,616, a piece in 34 can be easily rewritten in 38, simply by halving the length of the notes. Other time signature rewritings are possible, most commonly a simple time signature with triplets translates into a compound meter, though formally interchangeable, for a composer or performing musician, different time signatures often have different connotations. First, a note value in the beat unit implies a more complex notation. Second, beaming affects the choice of actual beat divisions and it is, for example, more natural to use the quarter note/crotchet as a beat unit in 64 or 22 than the eight/quaver in 68 or 24. Third, time signatures are traditionally associated with different music styles—it might seem strange to notate a rock tune in 48 or 42. For all meters, the first beat is stressed, in time signatures with four groups in the bar
Time signature
35.
Johann Sebastian Bach
–
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
Johann Sebastian Bach
–
Portrait of Bach, aged 61, by
E. G. Haussmann, 1748
Johann Sebastian Bach
–
Johann Ambrosius Bach, Bach's father
Johann Sebastian Bach
–
St. George's Church in Eisenach, where Bach was baptised. Portal inscription: "
Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott ".
Johann Sebastian Bach
–
Organs Bach played in Arnstadt
36.
Brandenburg concertos
–
The Brandenburg Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, in 1721. They are widely regarded as some of the best orchestral compositions of the Baroque era, Bach wrote out the music himself for presentation to the Margrave rather than leaving it to a copyist. While he took the opportunity to revise the music, most likely and he appears to have selected the six pieces from concertos he had composed over a number of years while Kapellmeister at Köthen, and possibly extending back to his employment at Weimar. Bachs dedication to the Margrave was dated 24 March 1721, Bachs reference to his scoring the concertos for several instruments is an understatement. Bach used the widest spectrum of orchestral instruments … in daring combinations, every one of the six concertos set a precedent in scoring, and every one was to remain without parallel. Heinrich Besseler has noted that the forces required tallies exactly with the 17 players Bach had at his disposal in Köthen. Because King Frederick William I of Prussia was not a significant patron of the arts, the full score was left unused in the Margraves library until his death in 1734, when it was sold for 24 groschen of silver. The autograph manuscript of the concertos was only rediscovered in the archives of Brandenburg by Siegfried Wilhelm Dehn in 1849, the manuscript was nearly lost in World War II, when being transported for safekeeping to Prussia by train in the care of a librarian. The train came under bombardment, and the librarian escaped the train to the nearby forest. In the modern era these works have been performed by orchestras with the parts each played by a number of players, under the batons of, for example, Karl Richter. They have also performed as chamber music, with one instrument per part, especially by groups using baroque instruments and historically informed techniques. There is also an arrangement for piano duet by composer Max Reger. Title on autograph score, Concerto 1mo à2 Corni di Caccia,3 Hautb, è Bassono, Violino Piccolo concertato,2 Violini, Duration, about 22 minutes This concerto is the only one in the collection with four movements. The concerto also exists in a version, Sinfonia BWV 1046a. This implies a date of composition possibly as early as the 1713 premiere of the cantata, although it could have been used for a subsequent revival. The first movement can also be found as the sinfonia of a later cantata Falsche Welt, dir trau ich nicht, BWV52, but in a version without the piccolo violin that is closer to Sinfonia BWV 1046a. The third movement was used as the chorus of the cantata Vereinigte Zwietracht der wechselnden Saiten, BWV207. Title on autograph score, Concerto 2do à1 Tromba,1 Flauto,1 Hautbois,1 Violino, concertati, the clarino does not play in the second movement, as is common practice in baroque era concerti
Brandenburg concertos
–
Johann Sebastian Bach
Brandenburg concertos
–
Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt (1710,
Antoine Pesne)
37.
Minuet
–
A minuet, is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 34 time. The name may refer to the steps, pas menus, taken in the dance, or else be derived from the branle à mener or amener. The minuet was traditionally said to have descended from the bransle de Poitou, at the period when it was most fashionable it was controlled, ceremonious and graceful. The name is given to a musical composition written in the same time and rhythm. Among Italian composers the minuet was often quicker and livelier and was sometimes written in 38 or 68 time. Because the tempo of a minuet was not standard, the tempo direction tempo di minuetto was ambiguous unless qualified by another direction, as it sometimes was. Initially, before its adoption in other than social dance. But the second section eventually expanded, resulting in a kind of ternary form, the second minuet provided form of contrast by means of different key and orchestration. On a larger scale, two such minuets might be combined, so that the first minuet was followed by a second one. The whole form might in any case be repeated as long as the dance lasted, around Lullys time it became a common practice to score this middle section for a trio. As a result, this section came to be called the minuets trio. 13 in G major, K.525, popularly known under the title Eine kleine Nachtmusik, a livelier form of the minuet simultaneously developed into the scherzo. This term came into existence approximately from Beethoven onwards, but the form itself can be traced back to Haydn, the minuet and trio eventually became the standard third movement in the four-movement classical symphony, Johann Stamitz being the first to employ it thus with regularity. An example of the form of the minuet is to be found in Don Giovanni. A famous example of a more recent instrumental work in minuet form is Ignacy Jan Paderewskis Minuet in G. Scherzo, revisiting Music Theory, A Guide to the Practice. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie, the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. Dance Research, The Journal of the Society for Dance Research 24 and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. article name needed. Classical Form, A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, the Theory of Music as Applied to the Teaching and Practice of Voice and Instruments, 21st edition
Minuet
–
Minuet in the
Classical Period.
38.
Viennese waltz
–
Viennese Waltz is the genre of a ballroom dance. At least three different meanings are recognized, in the historically first sense, the name may refer to several versions of the waltz, including the earliest waltzes done in ballroom dancing, danced to the music of Viennese Waltz. What is now called the Viennese Waltz is the form of the waltz. It was the first ballroom dance performed in the hold or waltz position. To this day however, in Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, and France, the words Walzer, vals, a true Viennese waltz consists only of turns and change steps. Other moves such as the fleckerls, American-style figures and side sway or underarm turns are modern inventions and are not normally danced at the balls in Vienna. Furthermore, in a properly danced Viennese Waltz, couples do not pass, as the Waltz evolved, some of the versions that were done at about the original fast tempo came to be called specifically Viennese Waltz to distinguish them from the slower waltzes. In the modern dance, two versions of Viennese Waltz are recognized, International Style and American Style. Today the Viennese Waltz is a ballroom and partner dance that is part of the International Standard division of contemporary ballroom dance, the Viennese Waltz, so called to distinguish it from the Waltz and the French Waltz, is the oldest of the current ballroom dances. It emerged in the half of the 18th century from the German dance. The Waltzen, as written in a magazine from 1799, is performed by dancers who held on to their long gowns to prevent them from dragging or being stepped on. The dancers would lift their dresses and hold them high like cloaks and this action also required the dancers bodies to be very close together and this closeness also attracted moral disparagement. Wolf published a pamphlet against the dance entitled Proof that Waltzing is the Main Source of Weakness of the Body, but even when faced with all this negativity, it became very popular in Vienna. Large dance halls like the Zum Sperl in 1807 and the Apollo in 1808 were opened to provide space for thousands of dancers, the dance reached and spread to England sometime before 1812. It was introduced as the German Waltz and became a huge hit and it gained ground due to the Congress of Vienna at the beginning of the 19th century and the famous compositions by Josef Lanner, Johann Strauss I and his son, Johann Strauss II. Initially, the waltz was significantly different from its form today, in the first place, the couples did not dance in the closed position as today. The illustrations and descriptions make it clear that the couples danced with arm positions similar to that of the dances, the Ländler. The hold was at times semi-closed, and at times side by side, arms are intertwined and circling movements were made under raised arms
Viennese waltz
–
For the figure skating compulsory dance of the same name, see
Compulsory dances.
Viennese waltz
–
Early waltz steps, 1816 from Thomas Wilson Treatise on waltzing
Viennese waltz
–
Ball in the
Hofburg
39.
Perpetuum mobile
–
Canons are often intended to be performed in a moto perpetuo fashion. Perpetuum mobile as a genre of musical compositions was at the height of its popularity by the end of the 19th century. Such pieces would often be performed as encores, in some cases increasing the tempo along the repeats. Perpetuum mobile pieces of both kinds include, The finale of Haydns String Quartet No.53 in D major, Op.64, beethovens 22nd piano sonata, and large segments of the finales of his Tempest and Appassionata sonatas. The second of Franz Schuberts Impromptus, D.899, the finale of Carl Maria von Webers Piano Sonata No.1 Charles-Valentin Alkans Le chemin de fer, op. Ottokar Novaceks Perpetuum Mobile, for violin and piano, nicolò Paganinis Moto perpetuo Op.11 for violin. Most often performed with a rather insignificant obbligato accompaniment, when scored for instruments it becomes a virtuoso challenge of circular breathing and double-tonguing. Béla Fleck has performed it on the banjo, nikolai Rimsky-Korsakovs Flight of the Bumblebee, an interlude for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan. Johann Strauss IIs Perpetuum Mobile, musikalischer Scherz for orchestra, bedřich Smetanas Album Leaf No.3 from Six Album Leaves Op.2. Mouvement, a 1905 piano composition by Claude Debussy, the second movement of Prokofievs Piano Concerto No.2. Trois Mouvements perpétuels, a 1918 piano composition by Francis Poulenc, the end of the opera Wozzeck, Act III Scene 5, by Alban Berg. The last movement of Maurice Ravels Sonata for Violin and Piano, the last movement of the Violin Concerto by Samuel Barber. The last movement of Béla Bartóks Concerto for Orchestra, prelude no.2 in A minor from 24 Preludes and Fugues by Dmitri Shostakovich. The final movement of Benjamin Brittens Cello Sonata in C Major Op.65, also the third movement of his Suite for Violin and Piano Op.6, the finale of his first solo cello suite and the penultimate movement of his third cello suite. Perpetuum Mobile by Michael Roberts, used as the music for Thames Television. Fracture, a moto perpetuo piece based on the whole-tone scale composed by guitarist Robert Fripp and included on the 1974 album Starless, john Adamss Short Ride in a Fast Machine. Perpetuum Mobile by Penguin Cafe Orchestra, equus by Eric Whitacre The album Perpetuum Mobile by the German avant garde group Einstürzende Neubauten has some examples of the concept
Perpetuum mobile
–
A well-known example as a technique is the presto finale of
Frédéric Chopin 's
Piano Sonata No. 2: This figuration of rapid triplet quavers (eighth notes) continues for the duration of the movement.
40.
Ludwig van Beethoven
–
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he one of the most famous. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies,5 piano concertos,1 violin concerto,32 piano sonatas,16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn and he lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost completely deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose, many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life. Beethoven was the grandson of Ludwig van Beethoven, a musician from the town of Mechelen in the Duchy of Brabant in the Flemish region of what is now Belgium, who at the age of twenty moved to Bonn. Ludwig was employed as a singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne, eventually rising to become, in 1761. The portrait he commissioned of himself towards the end of his life remained proudly displayed in his grandsons rooms as a talisman of his musical heritage. Ludwig had one son, Johann, who worked as a tenor in the musical establishment and gave keyboard. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767, she was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Keverich, Beethoven was born of this marriage in Bonn. There is no record of the date of his birth, however. Of the seven children born to Johann van Beethoven, only Ludwig, the second-born, caspar Anton Carl was born on 8 April 1774, and Nikolaus Johann, the youngest, was born on 2 October 1776. Beethovens first music teacher was his father and he later had other local teachers, the court organist Gilles van den Eeden, Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer, and Franz Rovantini. Beethovens musical talent was obvious at a young age, some time after 1779, Beethoven began his studies with his most important teacher in Bonn, Christian Gottlob Neefe, who was appointed the Courts Organist in that year. Neefe taught Beethoven composition, and by March 1783 had helped him write his first published composition, Beethoven soon began working with Neefe as assistant organist, at first unpaid, and then as a paid employee of the court chapel conducted by the Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi. His first three piano sonatas, named Kurfürst for their dedication to the Elector Maximilian Friedrich, were published in 1783, Maximilian Frederick noticed Beethovens talent early, and subsidised and encouraged the young mans musical studies. Maximilian Fredericks successor as the Elector of Bonn was Maximilian Francis, the youngest son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, echoing changes made in Vienna by his brother Joseph, he introduced reforms based on Enlightenment philosophy, with increased support for education and the arts
Ludwig van Beethoven
–
Portrait by
Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820
Ludwig van Beethoven
–
Beethoven's birthplace at Bonngasse 20, now the
Beethoven House museum
Ludwig van Beethoven
–
Prince-Elector's Palace (Kurfürstliches Schloss) in Bonn, where the Beethoven family had been active since the 1730s
Ludwig van Beethoven
–
A portrait of the 13-year-old Beethoven by an unknown Bonn master (c. 1783)
41.
George Gershwin
–
George Jacob Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwins compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known, among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris as well as the opera Porgy and Bess. Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark, Henry Cowell and he began his career as a song plugger, but soon started composing Broadway theatre works with his brother Ira Gershwin, and Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris intending to study with Nadia Boulanger, who refused him, after returning to New York City, he wrote Porgy and Bess with Ira and the author DuBose Heyward. Initially a commercial failure, Porgy and Bess is now considered one of the most important American operas of the twentieth century, Gershwin moved to Hollywood and composed numerous film scores until his death in 1937 from a malignant brain tumor – glioblastoma multiforme. Gershwins compositions have been adapted for use in films and for television. Many celebrated singers and musicians have covered his songs, Gershwin was of Russian Jewish and Ukrainian Jewish ancestry. His grandfather, Jakov Gershowitz, had served for 25 years as a mechanic for the Imperial Russian Army to earn the right of travel and residence as a Jew. His teenage son, Moishe Gershowitz, worked as a cutter for womens shoes. Moishe Gershowitz met and fell in love with Roza Bruskina, the daughter of a furrier in Vilnius. She and her family moved to New York due to increasing anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia, Moishe, faced with compulsory military service if he remained in Russia, moved to America as soon as he could afford to. Once in New York, he changed his first name to Morris, Gershowitz lived with a maternal uncle in Brooklyn, working as a foreman in a womens shoe factory. When he married Rose on July 21,1895, Gershowitz soon Americanized his name to Gershwine. Their first child was born on December 6,1896, Gershwin then moved his family into a second-floor apartment on Brooklyns Snediker Avenue. Their second son, soon to be renamed George, was born at there on September 26,1898 and his birth certificate identifies him as Jacob Gershwine, with the surname pronounced Gersh-vin in the Russian and Yiddish immigrant community. He was named after his grandfather, the one time Russian army mechanic, American practice by then was to give children a first and a middle name, but had no other. He changed the spelling of his name to Gershwin when he became a professional musician, George and Ira lived in many different residences, as their father changed dwellings with each new enterprise which he became involved in. Mostly, the boys grew up around the Yiddish Theater District and they frequented the local Yiddish theaters, with George occasionally appearing onstage as an extra
George Gershwin
–
George Gershwin in 1937
George Gershwin
–
George Gershwin, c. 1935.
George Gershwin
–
Gershwin's mausoleum in
Westchester Hills Cemetery
George Gershwin
–
Birthday party honoring
Maurice Ravel in New York City, March 8, 1928. From left:
Oskar Fried;
Éva Gauthier; Ravel at piano;
Manoah Leide-Tedesco; and George Gershwin.
42.
Samuel Barber
–
Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings has earned a permanent place in the repertory of orchestras. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music twice, for his opera Vanessa and for the Concerto for Piano, also widely performed is his Knoxville, Summer of 1915, a setting for soprano and orchestra of a prose text by James Agee. At the time of his death, nearly all of his compositions had been recorded, Barber was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, the son of Marguerite McLeod and Samuel Le Roy Barber. He was born into a comfortable, educated, social, and his father was a physician, his mother, called Daisy, was a pianist of English-Scottish-Irish descent whose family had lived in the United States since the time of the Revolutionary War. His aunt, Louise Homer, was a contralto at the Metropolitan Opera, his uncle. Louise Homer is known to have influenced Barbers interest in voice, through his aunt, Barber had access to many great singers and songs. At a very early age, Barber became profoundly interested in music and he began studying the piano at the age of 6 and at age 7 composed his first work, Sadness, a 23-measure solo piano piece in C minor. At the age of nine he wrote to his mother, Dear Mother, now dont cry when you read it because it is neither yours nor my fault. I suppose I will have to tell it now without any nonsense, to begin with I was not meant to be an athlet. I was meant to be a composer, and will be Im sure, ill ask you one more thing. —Dont ask me to try to forget this unpleasant thing and go play football. —Please—Sometimes Ive been worrying about this so much that it makes me mad. Barber attempted to write his first opera, entitled The Rose Tree, at the age of 12, he became an organist at a local church. He began composing seriously in his teenage years. Around the same time, he met fellow Curtis schoolmate Gian Carlo Menotti, at the Curtis Institute, Barber was a triple prodigy in composition, voice, and piano. He soon became a favorite of the founder, Mary Louise Curtis Bok. It was through Mrs. Bok that Barber was introduced to his lifelong publisher, at the age of 18, Barber won the Joseph H. Bearns Prize from Columbia University for his violin sonata. From his early to late twenties, Barber wrote a flurry of successful compositions and his first orchestral work, an overture to The School for Scandal, was composed in 1931 when he was 21 years old. It premiered successfully two years later in a given by the Philadelphia Orchestra under conductor Alexander Smallens
Samuel Barber
–
Samuel Barber, photographed by
Carl Van Vechten, 1944
Samuel Barber
–
Childhood home of Samuel Barber in West Chester, Pennsylvania
43.
Musical form
–
The term musical form refers to the overall structure or plan of a piece of music, and it describes the layout of a composition as divided into sections. According to Richard Middleton, musical form is the shape or structure of the work and he describes it through difference, the distance moved from a repeat, the latter being the smallest difference. Difference is quantitative and qualitative, how far, and of what type, in many cases, form depends on statement and restatement, unity and variety, and contrast and connection. This phrase may be regarded as the unit of musical form. Even at this level, the importance of the principles of repetition and contrast, weak and strong, climax and repose, thus, form may be understood on three levels of organization. For the purpose of exposition, these levels can be roughly designated as passage, piece. The smallest level of construction concerns the way musical phrases are organized into musical sentences and this may be compared to, and is often decided by, the verse form or meter of the words or the steps of a dance. In the analysis of form, any components that can be defined on the time axis are conventionally designated by letters. Upper-case letters are used for the most fundamental, while lower-case letters are used for sub-divisions, if one such section returns in a varied or modified form, a numerical digit or an appropriate number of prime symbols appears after the letter. Even at this simplest level, there are patterns that may be re-used on larger timescales, for example, consider the analogy with rhyme schemes, The following verse is composed of two differently-rhymed couplets, and thus its organization is binary or twofold. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are, up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky. There once was a fellow from Leeds Who swallowed a packet of seeds, in less than an hour he burst into flower And he died trying to pull up the weeds. The next level concerns the structure of any single self-contained musical piece. If the hymn, ballad, blues or dance alluded to above simply repeats the same musical material indefinitely then the piece is said to be in strophic form overall. If it repeats with distinct, sustained changes each time, for instance in setting, ornamentation or instrumentation, then the piece is a theme and variations. If the theme is played, then a new theme is introduced, great arguments and misunderstanding can be generated by such terms as ternary and binary, as a complex piece may have elements of both at different organizational levels. The grandest level of organization may be referred to as cyclical form and it concerns the arrangement of several self-contained pieces into a large-scale composition. For example, a set of songs with a theme may be presented as a song-cycle
Musical form
–
Thought-form of the Music of
Gounod, according to
Annie Besant and
C.W. Leadbeater in Thought Forms (1901)
44.
Lead sheet
–
A lead sheet is a form of musical notation that specifies the essential elements of a popular song, the melody, lyrics and harmony. The melody is written in modern Western music notation, the lyric is written as text below the staff, the lead sheet does not describe the chord voicings, voice leading, bass line or other aspects of the accompaniment. These are specified later by an arranger or improvised by a performer or rhythm section, a lead sheet is often the only form of written music used by a small jazz ensemble. Similarly, a sufficiently skilled jazz pianist should be able to accompany a singer, lead sheets are also called fake sheets and collections of lead sheets are called fakebooks. Together, the melody, lyrics and harmony define what a song is, in the music industry and entertainment law, a lead sheet is the document used to describe a song for legal purposes. Or if a song is considered for an Academy Award or a Grammy, the song is submitted for consideration in the form of a lead sheet
Lead sheet
–
A lead sheet
45.
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time. He was almost 50 before he embarked on the career on which his reputation chiefly rests today. His debut, Hippolyte et Aricie, caused a stir and was fiercely attacked by the supporters of Lullys style of music for its revolutionary use of harmony. Rameaus music had gone out of fashion by the end of the 18th century, today, he enjoys renewed appreciation with performances and recordings of his music ever more frequent. The details of Rameaus life are obscure, especially concerning his first forty years. He was a man, and even his wife knew nothing of his early life. Rameaus early years are particularly obscure and he was born on 25 September 1683 in Dijon, and baptised the same day. His father, Jean, worked as an organist in churches around Dijon. The couple had children, of whom Jean-Philippe was the seventh. Rameau was taught music before he could read or write and he was educated at the Jesuit college at Godrans, but he was not a good pupil and disrupted classes with his singing, later claiming that his passion for opera had begun at the age of twelve. Initially intended for the law, Rameau decided he wanted to be a musician, and his father sent him to Italy, on his return, he worked as a violinist in travelling companies and then as an organist in provincial cathedrals before moving to Paris for the first time. Here, in 1706, he published his earliest known compositions, the works that make up his first book of Pièces de clavecin. In 1709, he moved back to Dijon to take over his fathers job as organist in the main church, the contract was for six years, but Rameau left before then and took up similar posts in Lyon and Clermont. During this period, he composed motets for church performance as well as secular cantatas, in 1722, he returned to Paris for good, and here he published his most important work of music theory, Traité de lharmonie. This soon won him a reputation, and it was followed in 1726 by his Nouveau système de musique théorique. In 1724 and 1729, he published two more collections of harpsichord pieces. Rameau took his first tentative steps into composing music when the writer Alexis Piron asked him to provide songs for his popular comic plays written for the Paris Fairs
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
Jean-Philippe Rameau, by
Jacques Aved, 1728
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
The Cathedral of Saint-Bénigne, Dijon
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
Bust of Rameau by Caffieri, 1760
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
Portrait of Rameau by
Carmontelle, 1760
46.
Claude Debussy
–
Achille-Claude Debussy, known since the 1890s as Claude-Achille Debussy or Claude Debussy, was a French composer. He and Maurice Ravel were the most prominent figures associated with Impressionist music and he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1903. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Debussys music is noted for its sensory content and frequent usage of nontraditional tonalities. The prominent French literary style of his period was known as Symbolism, Debussy, the oldest of five children, was born Achille-Claude Debussy on 22 August 1862 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France. His father, Manuel-Achille Debussy, owned a shop there, his mother. The family moved to Paris in 1867, but in 1870 Debussys pregnant mother fled with Claude to his aunts home in Cannes to escape the Franco-Prussian War. At the age of seven, he began lessons with an Italian violinist in his early 40s named Jean Cerutti. In 1871 he drew the attention of Marie Mauté de Fleurville, Debussy always believed her, although there is no independent evidence to support her claim. His talents soon became evident, and in 1872, at age ten, Debussy entered the Paris Conservatoire and he also became a lifelong friend of fellow student and distinguished pianist Isidor Philipp. After Debussys death, many pianists sought Philipps advice on playing his works, Debussy was experimental from the outset, favouring dissonances and intervals that were not taught at the Academy. Like Georges Bizet, he was a brilliant pianist and a sight reader. However, Debussy never once won a competition, and his personal opinion on competitions are that it is rather. The rules are taught in places called Conservatories, Art Schools, the contests, preceded by strict training, take place once a year and the umpires of the game are members of the institute —Monsieur Croche. The pieces he played in public at this time included sonata movements by Beethoven, Schumann and Weber,2, a movement from the Piano Concerto No. 1, and the Allegro de concert, during the summers of 1880,1881, and 1882, he accompanied Nadezhda von Meck, the wealthy patroness of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, as she travelled with her family in Europe. Despite von Mecks closeness to Tchaikovsky, the Russian master appears to have had effect on Debussy. In September 1880 she sent his Danse bohémienne for Tchaikovskys perusal, a month later Tchaikovsky wrote back to her, It is a pretty piece. Not a single idea is expressed fully, the form is terribly shriveled, Debussy did not publish the piece, and the manuscript remained in the von Meck family, it was eventually sold to B
Claude Debussy
–
Claude Debussy in 1908
Claude Debussy
–
Debussy at the
Villa Medici in Rome, 1885, at centre in the white jacket
Claude Debussy
–
Debussy, by
Marcel Baschet, 1884
Claude Debussy
–
Debussy's last home, now 23 Square Avenue Foch, Paris
47.
Olivier Messiaen
–
Olivier-Eugène-Prosper-Charles Messiaen was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is complex, harmonically and melodically it often uses modes of limited transposition. Messiaen also drew on his Roman Catholic faith for his pieces and he travelled widely and wrote works inspired by diverse influences such as Japanese music, the landscape of Bryce Canyon in Utah and the life of St. Francis of Assisi. He said he perceived colours when he heard certain musical chords, combinations of these colours, for a short period Messiaen experimented with the parametrisation associated with total serialism, in which field he is often cited as an innovator. His style absorbed many global musical influences such as Indonesian gamelan, Messiaen entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 11 and was taught by Paul Dukas, Maurice Emmanuel, Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupré, among others. He was appointed organist at the de la Sainte-Trinité, Paris, in 1931. He taught at the Schola Cantorum de Paris during the 1930s, the piece was first performed by Messiaen and fellow prisoners for an audience of inmates and prison guards. He was appointed professor of harmony soon after his release in 1941 and his many distinguished pupils included Quincy Jones, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Yvonne Loriod, who became his second wife. He found birdsong fascinating, notating bird songs worldwide and incorporating birdsong transcriptions into his music and his innovative use of colour, his conception of the relationship between time and music, and his use of birdsong are among the features that make Messiaens music distinctive. Olivier-Eugène-Prosper-Charles Messiaen was born December 10,1908 in Avignon, France and he was the elder of two sons of Cécile Sauvage, a poet, and Pierre Messiaen, a teacher of English who translated the plays of William Shakespeare into French. Messiaens mother published a sequence of poems, Lâme en bourgeon, the last chapter of Tandis que la terre tourne, Messiaen later said this sequence of poems influenced him deeply and he cited it as prophetic of his future artistic career. At the outbreak of World War I, Pierre Messiaen enlisted, there Messiaen became fascinated with drama, reciting Shakespeare to his brother with the help of a home-made toy theatre with translucent backdrops made from old cellophane wrappers. At this time he adopted the Roman Catholic faith. Later, Messiaen felt most at home in the Alps of the Dauphiné and he took piano lessons having already taught himself to play. His interest included the recent music of French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, around this time he began to compose. In 1918 his father returned from the war and the moved to Nantes. The following year Pierre Messiaen gained a teaching post in Paris, Messiaen entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1919, aged 11. At the Conservatoire, Messiaen made excellent academic progress, in 1924, aged 15, he was awarded second prize in harmony, having been taught in that subject by professor Jean Gallon
Olivier Messiaen
–
Olivier Messiaen in 1946
Olivier Messiaen
–
Messiaen with his mother and father in 1910
Olivier Messiaen
–
Paul Dukas 's composition class at the
Paris Conservatoire, 1929. Messiaen sits at the far right; Dukas stands at the centre
Olivier Messiaen
–
Église de la Sainte-Trinité, Paris, where Messiaen was titular organist for 61 years
48.
Maurice Ravel
–
Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, in the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as Frances greatest living composer. After leaving the conservatoire Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity, incorporating elements of baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with form, as in his best-known work, Boléro. He made some arrangements of other composers music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgskys Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known. As a slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, many of his works exist in two versions, a first, piano score and a later orchestration. Some of his music, such as Gaspard de la nuit, is exceptionally difficult to play. Ravel was among the first composers to recognise the potential of recording to bring their music to a wider public, from the 1920s, despite limited technique as a pianist or conductor, he took part in recordings of several of his works, others were made under his supervision. Ravel was born in the Basque town of Ciboure, France and his father, Pierre-Joseph Ravel, was an educated and successful engineer, inventor and manufacturer, born in Versoix near the Franco-Swiss border. His mother, Marie, née Delouart, was Basque but had grown up in Madrid, in 19th-century terms, Joseph had married beneath his status – Marie was illegitimate and barely literate – but the marriage was a happy one. Both Ravels parents were Roman Catholics, Marie was also something of a free-thinker, a trait inherited by her elder son and he was baptised in the Ciboure parish church six days after he was born. The family moved to Paris three months later, and there a younger son, Édouard, was born and he was close to his father, whom he eventually followed into the engineering profession. Maurice was particularly devoted to their mother, her Basque-Spanish heritage was an influence on his life. Among his earliest memories were folk songs she sang to him, the household was not rich, but the family was comfortable, and the two boys had happy childhoods. Ravel senior delighted in taking his sons to factories to see the latest mechanical devices, in later life, Ravel recalled, Throughout my childhood I was sensitive to music. My father, much better educated in art than most amateurs are, knew how to develop my taste. There is no record that Ravel received any formal schooling in his early years
Maurice Ravel
–
Ravel in 1925
Maurice Ravel
–
Joseph Ravel (1875), Marie Ravel (1870) and Maurice Ravel aged four (1879)
Maurice Ravel
–
Piano class of
Charles de Bériot in 1895, with Ravel on the left
Maurice Ravel
–
Gabriel Fauré, Ravel's teacher and supporter
49.
Alexander Scriabin
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Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist. Scriabin, who was influenced early in his life by the work of Frédéric Chopin, later in his career, independently of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed a substantially atonal and much more dissonant musical system, which accorded with his personal brand of mysticism. Scriabin was influenced by synesthesia, and associated colours with the harmonic tones of his atonal scale, while his colour-coded circle of fifths was also influenced by theosophy. He is considered by some to be the main Russian Symbolist composer, Scriabin was one of the most innovative and most controversial of early modern composers. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia said of Scriabin that, No composer has had more scorn heaped on him or greater love bestowed, leo Tolstoy described Scriabins music as a sincere expression of genius. Scriabin had a impact on the music world over time, and influenced composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev. However Scriabins importance in the Russian and then Soviet musical scene, according to his biographer Bowers, No one was more famous during their lifetime, and few were more quickly ignored after death. Scriabin was born into a family in Moscow on Christmas Day 1871. His father and all of his uncles had military careers, when he was only a year old, his mother—herself a concert pianist and former pupil of Theodor Leschetizky—died of tuberculosis. Scriabins father would remarry, giving Scriabin a number of half-brothers and sisters. His aunt Lyubov was an amateur pianist who documented Sashas early life until the time he met his first wife, as a child, Scriabin was frequently exposed to piano playing, and anecdotal references describe him demanding that his aunt play for him. Apparently precocious, Scriabin began building pianos after being fascinated with piano mechanisms and he sometimes gave away pianos he had built to house guests. Lyubov portrays Scriabin as very shy and unsociable with his peers, another anecdote tells of Scriabin trying to conduct an orchestra composed of local children, an attempt that ended in frustration and tears. He would perform his own plays and operas with puppets to willing audiences. In 1882 he enlisted in the Second Moscow Cadet Corps, however, Scriabin won his peers approval at a concert where he performed on the piano. He ranked generally first in his class academically, but was exempt from drilling due to his physique and was given each day to practise at the piano. Scriabin later studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Anton Arensky, Sergei Taneyev and he became a noted pianist despite his small hands, which could barely stretch to a ninth. Feeling challenged by Josef Lhévinne, he damaged his hand while practicing Franz Liszts Réminiscences de Don Juan
Alexander Scriabin
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Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin
Alexander Scriabin
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A young Alexander Scriabin (late 1870s)
Alexander Scriabin
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Zverev's students in the late 1880s. Scriabin, with military attire, is the second on the left. Rachmaninoff is the fourth from the right.
Alexander Scriabin
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Scriabin (sitting on the left of the table) as a guest at Wladimir Metzl's home in Berlin, 1910
50.
French (language)
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
French (language)
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The
"arrêt" signs (French for "stop") are used in
Canada while the international stop, which is also a valid French word, is used in France as well as other French-speaking countries and regions.
French (language)
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Regions where French is the main language
French (language)
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Town sign in
Standard Arabic and French at the entrance of
Rechmaya in
Lebanon.
French (language)
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An obsolete 100
Lebanese pound note with the French language inscriptions "Banque du Liban" and "Cent livres".
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. ≈ 60 bpm), Tempo di marcia (speed of a march, 
