There's a Song For That (eBook)

II. Exposition

“Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn’s got a winning team, Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland.” —Billy Joel

What exactly is music? At its simplest definition, music is a series of sounds and silences. My mentor, colleague, and friend, Barbara Crowe (2004) described “the phenomenon of music” as “an acoustic event involving specific combinations of sound moving over time.”

Music is form, harmony, and expression. It is notes on a page, tempo, and dynamics, as instructed, articulated, and delivered. It is performed with various instruments and vocal techniques. It is an art form and a cultural activity. Music can be divided into multiple genres and sub-genres. We hear music live at concert and theater venues, and as an integral part of most media.

Music is one of the universal cultural aspects of all human society. It is a defining element of worship, ritual, and healing. Music is interchangeable with learning, history, and social identity. Consider how cohorts of abysmally treated individuals have bonded through the blues or spirituals. How folk music can bring fractured souls together to support and heal. How protest songs tell the ugly stories of unimaginable truths.

Music-effected benefits result from music’s multiple functions. Crowe identified the following purposes of music: for pleasure/entertainment, aesthetic response (a response to “the beautiful” in art and nature), as a support to basic humanity, to touch the Divine, for communication, for its effects on activity level, and for support of human culture.

Music is both a process and a product. It is a function of nearly all aspects of everyday life, which we will examine further in later chapters. Let’s first take a look at some basics.

A few definitions: Pitch refers to the high-low quality of a musical sound, determined by the frequency of its tone. Rhythm is a pattern of time, a recurring movement of sound, the relationship of tones over time (involves duration, beat, meter, tempo, and accent). Melody is a sequence of tones, a contoured movement of pitches and durations that form the main part of a piece of music. Harmony is the simultaneous occurrence of musical tones; it is the relationship of notes to each other, whether consonant (pleasant) or dissonant (tension-inducing). Form is the overall design of the music and how it progresses. Most world music traditions have culturally determined forms, including Western music with its sonatas and symphonies (overture, development, exposition, recapitulation, finale…wait a minute, this sounds familiar…) Timbre is also known as tone color—the unique character or quality of the sound as it relates to resonance and overtones. Dynamics is the variation in sound intensity or loudness—how quietly or loudly music is played or performed (pp or pianissimo is very soft; ff or fortissimo is very loud). Dynamics give music, particularly live music, its variety and personality.

I promised a painless history lesson, so let’s explore the genres and artists. The following compilation is an extremely abbreviated history of music periods, popular genres, composers, and artists, reflecting significant events and innovations. This is by no means comprehensive and does not reflect any biases, although I can honestly say I have heard of every one of these composers/artists and I possess a majority in my music library. Apologies if I inadvertently omitted any of your favorites. Write me and set me straight!

Countless synapses were firing (as were the wiki searches) in generating this list of music factoids. So much peripheral yet relevant information…the evolution of instruments…current events and politics in the chronology…recording and playback technology…pop culture…. Had to reign it in and narrow my focus.

We begin way back at the beginning of humankind and briefly review everything in between through 2020-ish. The last century is broken down by decade. Here, I use the term “artist” as an umbrella for composers and performers alike, in all genres of “popular music.”

Origins of Music

Many historians believe music existed before man existed and there are numerous theories about when and where music originated. Generally speaking, there are six identified periods of music in human history: Medieval Times/Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and the Twentieth Century. Each period has a specific style and is a major contributor to what music is today.

Medieval Times/Middle Ages, 500-1500 AD

Monophonic and Polyphonic were the two general types of musical styles.

• 590-604—The main forms of music included Gregorian Chant and Plainchant or Plainsong, a form of church music that involves only chanting or singing with no musical accompaniment.
• Around the fourteenth century, secular music became increasingly prominent.
• 850—The vocal structure of Gregorian Chant used in the Roman Catholic Church evolved from simple chants to parallel intervals, which was the development of Polyphony and eventually Harmony.
• 1000-1100—The Troubadour and Trouvere developed traditions of secular song about chivalry and courtly love.
• 1150-1250—Rhythmic music notation appeared.

Renaissance, 1400-1600 AD

The Church’s control of the arts had weakened. Composers effected many changes in the way music was created and perceived by using instruments and creating more elaborate music forms for up to six voice parts. Modal characteristics of music evolved into Tonality with the increased use of fifths in root motion.

• 1584—A work titled, “A New Account of the Science of the Pitch-Pipes” by Chu Tsai-yu, was published in China, but would have a profound effect on Western music. Tsai-yu essentially solved the problem of equal temperament in that the natural seven octaves and the twelve perfect fifths equal temperament do not fit. They do not work mathematically or tonally. Tsai-yu determined that the fifths can be tempered not by relative lengths of the pipes, but by the ratios of their sizes. He calculated a formula that yielded a scale of evenly spaced notes where the semitones fit properly into the octave. What we call equal temperament today is a tuning system which approximates intervals by dividing an octave or other interval into twelve semitones of equal size. (Nerd alert!) The ratio of the frequencies of any adjacent pair of notes is the same, which is an equal perceived step size as the logarithm of frequency is perceived as pitch. This corrected the flaws in earlier tuning systems that were based on acoustically pure intervals—those which occur naturally in the overtone series.
• 1598—The first Italian Opera was produced, Jacopo Peri’s Dafne.

Notable Composers of the Renaissance Period:

• Gregorio Allegri
• William Byrd
• Pierre de La Rue
• Orlande de Lassus
• Claudio Monteverdi
• Jacopo Peri
• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
• Josquin Des Prez
• Thomas Tallis
• Tomas Luis de Victoria

Baroque, 1600-1750

The Baroque Period is characterized by strict musical forms and highly ornamental works in Europe. The word “baroque” evolved from the Italian word “barocco,” which means bizarre. During this period, composers experimented with form, musical contrasts, styles, and instruments with the development of instrumental music and opera. Music became homophonic, meaning a melody was supported by a harmony. Counterpoint and orchestral color made a stronger appearance. Prominent instruments in Baroque compositions featured violin, viola, double bass, harp, and oboe.

• 1620—Belgian mathematician Simon Stevin died. In his papers was the formula for equal temperament by Chu Tsai-yu from1584. Equal temperament was still an issue with the advancements in harmony and composition. It would still be many years before the issues were fully resolved; not until the era of Beethoven was the equally tempered scale fully adopted by Western composers.
• 1725—Antonio Vivaldi composed The Four Seasons.

Notable Composers of the Baroque Period:

• Johan Sebastian Bach
• Arcangelo Corelli
• George Frideric Handel
• Claudio Monteverdi
• Johann Pachelbel
• Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
• Henry Purcell
• Jean-Philippe Rameau
• Antonio Salieri
• Alessandro Scarlatti
• Domenico Scarlatti
• Georg Philipp Telemann
• Antonio Vivaldi

Classical, 1750-1830

Lighter and clearer than Baroque music, classical music is less complex and primarily homophonic. (Of course, if you prefer it and it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it. So. Very. Sorry.) The music styles of the classical period are characterized by simpler melodies and forms, such as sonatas. During this time, the middle class had more access to music when it...