Sound, Silence, and Noise in Music
Sound, Silence, and Noise
Music, with its throbbing rhythms, is created by humans, who possess rhythm, expression, and the ability to imitate.
Music is sound, and the absence of sound is silence. Sound is created by air vibrations reaching the eardrum, which our brain interprets. Vibrations with regular frequencies are perceived as sound, while irregular vibrations are perceived as noise. Today, many composers, across various styles, incorporate noise into their music, including electronic music.
Read MoreTraditional Music Around the World
Ethnomusicology: Traditional Music of the World
Ethnomusicology is a branch of musicology that studies the traditional musics of the world. It considers folklore, namely the people (set of customs and traditions), and documents for traditional music, which is a collective, rural, functional, and oral creation.
Asia
- Music is closely tied to religion.
- Eastern music systems are often based on sacred texts.
- Improvisation is dominant.
- Rhythmic and melodic patterns are common.
- Characteristic vocal timbres are
West African and Caribbean Music: Highlife, Afrobeat, Reggae
West African and Caribbean Music
Mami Wata – Kwaa Mensah, Ghana. West African pop Palmwine – Ghanaian highlife and Nigerian juju music. Two-finger guitar style of Liberian Kru sailors, (mostly Caribbean) and local musical elements. Mami Wata is a water spirit.
Taxi Driver – Bobby Benson (1950s) Nigeria. Classic in West Africa, Golden Age of dance-band highlife in Nigeria. Jazz swing instrumentation and big band Caribbean rhythms (calypso). Benson – multi-instrumentalist, composer. His Trumpeter –
Read MoreMedieval Galician-Portuguese Lyric Poetry
The medieval Galician-Portuguese lyric was born from the confluence of two currents. On the one hand, the popular songs of oral tradition linked with agricultural tasks, dancing, and the various seasons of the year. On the other hand, the knowledge that, thanks to the existence of the road to Santiago, will be taking a literary fashion, “Troubadour Lyricism,” which had its center of influence in Provence, southern France. This confluence of indigenous popular poetry and Provençal literature was
Read MoreMusical Forms Through History: Troubadours to Lieder
1. Troubadour
The troubadours were poet-musicians of the Early Medieval period. They created secular songs performed in the vernacular. Their minstrels were of the lower class.
The troubadour movement originated in southern France in the 11th century and extended across Europe. The troubadours created a type of song that spoke of refined and cultured courtly love and praised the lady, the spirit of chivalry, and heroes of the Crusades. The language used was from the region itself rather than Latin
Read MoreMusical Genres: Jazz, Rock, Pop, Opera, and Folklore
Musical Genres
Jazz
This style emerged in the early twentieth century in New Orleans within the community of African slaves brought centuries ago. The African slaves had their own songs for work, in addition to religious songs and the greatest contribution to the birth of jazz: the blues.
From the interaction of these manifestations and European music tradition was born what we now know as jazz.
We can summarize the main characteristics of jazz as follows:
- It is a style which mainly uses improvisation,