Welcome!

Welcome to the St Edmunds Music Department Blog.

Below are a series of posts which contain key information, handouts, revision tips etc all in one place.
You can also search the blog and there are links to helpful websites.
Click on the archived posts on the left hand side if you want to see older posts, or scroll down.

Mrs Briggs

Elements of Music

Imitation

Imitation is when one instrument or voice plays a tune that has just been played by another. For example, a flute may imitate a tune just played by the oboe.

Sometimes imitations can contain slight changes to the tune, to make it more interesting. These changes might be :

  • changes in octave. It could be played higher or lower.
  • adding ornaments.
  • playing at a different speed.

Riff, ostinato and loop

These three words mean the same thing. 'Ostinato' is more often used when describing serious (classical and some world and folk) music. 'Riff' is more often used when describing pop music and 'Loop' is used in Techno or modern dance music.

A Riff or ostinato is a repeated pattern of notes.

Breaks and fill-ins

A break or fill-in is when the drums play a short solo. They may do this for one of several reasons, eg

  • To signal the beginning of a chorus, verse or section change.
  • at the beginning of the drum part to announce their entry.
  • to highlight something in the music, such as important lyrics.

Sequences

A sequence is a pattern of notes which goes up or down in pitch every time it is repeated. Sequences can be divided between instruments.

Ornaments

Ornaments are embellishments to a melody. The most common ornaments are trills and mordents. Other ornaments include acciaccaturas, appoggiaturas and turns.


Improvisation

Improvising is when a player makes up the music on the spot. It is common in jazz, popular, folk and world music.

Sometimes the musician uses the notes of a scale to improvise on, such as the blues scale or pentatonic scale.

Often, in a pop song, there will be a long improvised solo on a guitar or keyboard between verses. Jazz and blues music often contains a lot of improvisation in the form of both solos and tutti passages.


Drone

A drone is usually formed by two notes a 5th apart. For example, the notes C and G are a 5th apart.

Bagpipes always create a drone sound as an accompaniment, but drones can also be heard in early music and music from other cultures.

Pedal and ground bass

A pedal is a single note that is held on or repeated in the bass. The chords above the bass may change, but the bass note stays the same.

The term pedal comes from the days when the bass notes would be played by the pedals on an organ.

'Ground bass' is the term used in Baroque music where a bass part is repeated over and over again.

Where an ostinato pattern might be very short, a ground bass can last many bars before it is repeated.

Intervals

An interval is the distance between two notes. The smallest interval is a semitone. This is the distance between, for example C and C#.

Chords

In any major key, the 1st, 4th and 5th chords are all major. In the key of C, these are the chords of C, F and G.

All the rest are minor, except chord 7 (the notes B D F) which is diminished.

rds have notes that clash with each other. These are called discords.

Discords are often used in 20th and 21st century music and in film music to create special effects.

Phrasing

A phrase is like a musical sentence. When you talk, you take a breath after a sentence. With a musical phrase, you can almost hear a breath at the end of the phrase even when the music is played by non-wind instruments.

Cadences

A cadence is formed by two chords at the end of a passage of music.

Perfect cadences sound like the music has come to an end:

Interrupted cadences are 'surprise' cadences. You think you are going to hear a perfect cadence, but you get a minor chord instead:

Imperfect cadences sound unfinished. They sound like they want to carry on to complete the music properly:

Plagal cadences sound finished. The two chords have one note in common. Plagal cadences are often used at the end of hymns and sung to A-men

Tonality

The character of a piece of music is related to its key centre or tonality. For example, Major keys often sound happy and optimistic:

Whereas Minor keys sound sad and pessimistic:

Atonal music does not have a key centre and contains a lot of chromaticism - extensive use of sharps, flats and naturals to 'bend' it away from its key signature:

Modal music does have a key centre. Some modes make the music feel oriental or ethnic, such as this traditional Egyptian dance. Early music may also use modes such as the Aeolian mode (beginning on A) or the Dorian mode (beginning on D):


Articulation

Articulation is how smoothly or 'spiky' something is played.

Legato (Italian for 'linked together') means played smoothly.

Staccato (Italian for 'detached') means played short and sharp, and is indicated by short vertical strokes or dots above or below the note.

Orchestras

Orchestras – Quick Guide

Classical Music 1750-1800
Haydn and Mozart are the main composers from this time.
Instruments to listen for:
Strings dominated the texture and they had the tune pretty much all the time as there were loads of them.
Brass instruments were limited because they didn’t have valves so could only play notes that were naturally occurring. So if the music went into a different key with notes that they didn’t have they didn’t play.
Woodwind instruments were used slightly more but usually doubled up the string melody. Sometimes they did get the tune but rarely on their own.

Classical music had a clear simple structure: 4 bar question and 4 bar answer phrase. Everything was very calm and neat.
Classical texture was mainly tune and chords which is called homophonic texture.
Classical music used major and minor keys.
The beat is very obvious and easy to follow.

Symphonies and concertos were popular.
A symphony is made up of four movements which is played by an orchestra. Each movement is like it’s own little piece of music.
A concerto is a three movement work for soloist and orchestra. The soloist stands at the front and the orchestra accompanies them. The concerto usually had cadenzas in them which is where the orchestra stops and the soloist improvises to show how good they are.
Overtures and Suites:
These were written then also. An overture is a one movement piece for orchestra and was written as an introduction to larger works like an opera or ballet.
Classical composers were mad about getting the structure right. Their music usually follows a set plan.
First: written in sonata form
Second: written in ternary or binary form
Third: uses the minuet and trio form
Fourth: uses sonata or variation or rondo form


Late Classical: Beethoven 1800-1830

Beethoven is part classical and part romantic. He added more instruments to the classical orchestra such as cymbals, bass drum, triangle, 3 trombones, piccolo, double bassoon, extra flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon players plus a whole load of new strings to balance everything out. The new instruments didn’t play all the time just every now and again.
The melody moves from section to section sometimes two sections at the same times will be playing against each other.
Beethoven’s work sounds exciting and dramatic. He uses contrasting section so of the orchestra so the brass would be playing against the strings.
There are big variations in the dynamics.
The rhythm of the music drives it forward.
His music has powerful themes: remember the 5th Symphony which goes “da da da DA da da da DA”
Beethoven started to paint pictures with his music and recreate scenes of the countryside.



The Romantic Period 1830-1910

Romantic music describes feelings and told a story. . They told a story by using tone colours which were a birdsong like flute part or a woody clarinet part.
Again the orchestras grew in size up to 70 or more musicians. New instruments were added: piccolo, cor anglais, bass clarinet, double bassoon, sometimes even a saxophone. The tuba, cymbals, tubular bells, piano, harp and also more string players to balance it out.
Romantic orchestras were so big they had to bring in a conductor.

Everyone got to play the tune, before in Classical music the strings nearly always go to play the tune. Brass instruments now had valves and as a result could play tunes. Woodwind and brass sections were treated as separate ensembles within the orchestra, giving them important passages. To fill out the sound in loud wind passages the stings were often given fast scales and arpeggios.
Any instrument could now get a solo.

Romantic tunes sound very emotional and are usually longer than the classical ones. They used lots of chromatic notes which created emotions.

In Romantic music there was now a massive range of dynamics, expression markings, tempo changes, changes in texture.

They developed new structures:
Concert Overture: a one movement piece in sonata form
Program Symphony: a work with several movements based on a story.
Symphonic Poem: a large one movement piece often using one theme.
Incidental Music: this was played between the acts of a play.

Lots of Romantic Composers wrote Nationalist Music which meant they put folk tunes of their home countries into the music.
Romantic Period Composers: Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Bizet.


Twentieth Century -1910 onwards

Composers used orchestral instruments in new ways.

The percussion sections were very big in C20th music and the instruments were played in a different way. They used to scrape coins down the side of a cymbal, or used different sticks or brushes, sometimes they played cymbals on top of the timpani. World music instruments were introduced as well such as African drums, bongos, guiros, maracas, congos, claves etc.

The woodwind section used the following techniques:
Flutter tonguing - making a r-r-r sound while blowing
Breathy sounds
Clicking keys or rattling valves
Blowing the reed or mouthpiece separate to the instrument.
Singing at the same time as playing
Pitch bending – the note is just played above or below the proper pitch
Glissando – sliding from one note to the other
Multiphonics –playing 2 notes at the same time.
Using mutes.

The string section used the following techniques:
A mute over the bridge
Vibrato – vibrating the finger to make a wobbly sounding note
Tremolo – moving the bow incredibly fast to make a dramatic sound
Sul ponticello – playing near the bridge to create a squeaky spooky sound
Harmonics – high pitched distant sounding notes
Pizzicato – plucking the strings
Tapping the wood of the instrument

20thCentury (C20th) composers experimented with different sounds, such as tape loops or electronic sounds like typewriters or car horns.

C20th tunes and harmony are dissonant. The tunes instead of being long and flowing like the romantic period they were short disjointed fragments of tune. There are wide leaps which are dissonant.
Sometimes the pieces were bi tonal which meant 2 parts playing at the same time but in different keys. Other pieces were completely atonal which is when there is not main key – the complete opposite of tonal music which is major and minor.
The rhythm is syncopated and irregular. There can also be polyrhythms which is more than one rhythm playing at the same time. The time signature changes frequently too.

Some main styles:
Impressionism – Debussy – blurry, floaty, shimmering music
Twentieth Century nationalism – Aaron Copeland – folk tunes are used
Neoclassicism – Stravinsky (briefly) composers looked back to the classical period and recreated their music in a more modern way
Serialism – Schoenberg – tone rows, a series of 12 notes that were repeated upside down, backwards, etc
Aleatoric music-John Cage - music created by chance
Jazz influence – Gershwin’s rhapsody in blue.

Film Music

Musical Features in Film Music

Leitmotif = short piece of music, motifs which represent characters or ideas/themes eg: love, hate, the hero, the villain.
Syncopation = creates tension, rhythms on the offbeat give a sense of urgency, danger or excitement.
Dissonance = two or more notes played at the same time purposefully chosen to clash. Can sound alien like. The sound can signify danger, hint at what’s to come, aliens, monsters etc.
Atonal = you can’t tell what key it is in. Used to create tension, horror, alien music.
Electronic Effects = such as reverb and echo, using computers to alter a sound to make it sound strange.
Repetition = a passage of music that it repeated again.
Imitation = this is contrapuntal. Where a melodic idea (phrase or bit of a tune) is copied by and played by another instrument, while the first part is continued.
Pedal = a sustained or repeated note which is sounded against changing harmony.
Homophony = a texture of music where one part has all the interesting melodies and the rest of the parts move together in chords.
Polyphony = a texture made up of two or more melodies sounding at the same time.