Music Appreciation for the 21st Century: Chapter 1

This chapter defines vocabulary terms that are useful in considering

broader questions about mindful listening, music’s benefits to the health of
individuals and society, etc..

Journal prompt 1: What is music? Before reading on, think about this a bit.
How do you think of music? How would you define it?
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Some people think of music as what they hear on their media—“songs.”

Some think of music as a form of communication. Do you? What does music
communicate? If music has words, is the main message contained in the words,
or does the musical background sometimes belie the words? If music has no
words, how do you know what its message is?

For example, imagine a piece of music that has no words, that seems to
move very slowly with few changes. What might that communicate?
_____________________Peace? Sadness? What other things could it
communicate? Suspense? Restfulness? A fast-moving piece, with lots of
activity, rhythm and notes: What would it communicate? Happiness?
Nervousness? Fear? Being busy? What else? _________________________.

Some people think of music as sound. Some say the sound has to be
organized to be music; others say the sound can be completely random, as in
just stopping whatever you are doing to listen to whatever sounds are going on.
In this definition, music would never be repeatable in exactly the same way. It
would always have the random element of whatever was happening when
somebody listened.

Journal prompt 2: Stop right now, and listen to whatever sounds are going on
around you, for at least 30 seconds. Describe what you hear.
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For organized sound, some means of organizing is necessary. Many terms
discussed in this chapter describe ways in which the music is organized, and are
useful when listening to, thinking about, and writing about music.
Terms for some ingredients to listen for in music:

Technology: What kinds of instruments and inventions are used to produce the
sounds? Voices? Electronics? Amplification? Synthesized sounds? Drums?
Drum tracks? Looping? Microphones? Echo-effects? DJ effects? Digital
reproduction? Analog sound sources? Acoustic apparatus, chambers or halls?
Are the instruments built as aerophones (air resonating in a cylindrical chamber,
as with wood flutes and brass trumpets)? Chordophones (strings like violins or
guitars vibrating by being plucked or bowed)? Metallophones (cymbals,
triangles, chimes, and other metal percussion)? Membranophones (drums with
heads made of skin or plastic membrane)?

Genre: The general type of music that we are hearing. Examples include
Church hymns, rock and roll, hip hop, symphony, opera, jazz, etc. Genre is
often identifiable by the venues, the performing forces (kinds of instruments),
and the purpose of certain music.

Purpose: Some music is for expressly religious purposes (hymns, religious

chants, etc.). Some is for entertainment (EDM, etc.), for political protest and
resistance, or for community cohesion. Music may help with education, physical
health, mental health. It may also help support or induce spiritual experiences,
relieve the tedium or physical pain of work, or serve other purposes.

Duration: Is a tone held for a long, long time, or is it one of many quick notes
that succeed each other. Does a piece go by in radio’s standard three minutes, or
does it last several hours, as some operas do?

Rhythm: This consists of impulses of various durations over steady pulses or

beats. Like duration, rhythm is a way of organizing time. If steady pulses are
grouped into sets of 2, 3, 4, etc., this is called
duple, triple or quadruple meter
(measure), respectively. When the rhythm emphatically and systematically
sounds notes between the steady beats, this is called syncopation.

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Journal prompt #3: Tap along with a pop song you like, and see whether you
can tell whether the beats come in groups of 2, 3, or 4 (duple, triple or quadruple
meter). Write down the piece, the meter, and what this exercise was like for you.
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Melody: The easiest way to define melody is to say it is the tune of a piece. If
you can hum it or whistle it, that is a tune. Melodies may be as simple as “Jingle
Bells” but they can also be very complex, as when a pop star spins elaborate
phrases. Melodies can have a simple contour, for example, rising from a lower
to a higher pitch very gradually, staying on the same note, or falling gradually.
Or, they can rise and fall repeatedly in a more complex set of curves. Melodies
that range from very low notes to very high notes have a wide range (Star
Spangled Banner); those that stay very close to the same note have a narrow
range (“Mia”). If each syllable of lyrics gets one note, that is called “syllabic”
(Mary/Lamb); if each syllable gets multiple notes, that is called

“melismatic.”

Tempo: Is the music fast, slow, or in between? The speed of music is often
called “tempo.”

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Dynamics: Is the music soft, loud, or a combination? Are the shifts in volume
gradual, or sudden?

Timbre: Pronounced “tamber,” this French word means tone quality. It refers to
the unique sound of a voice or instrument. Human voices may be thin, reedy,
shrill, nasal, clear, rich, bell-like, soft, deep, gruff, booming, raspy, etc. in
timbre. Instruments and synthesized sounds have unique timbres too. Think of
how different a trumpet sounds from a violin; a saxophone from a guitar; a
piano from an organ; drums sound from a flute. The unique character of each
instrument or voice is seen in plots of the sound waves they produce, as
differently shaped waves.

Journal prompt #4: Exploring vocal timbre. Is your voice high compared to
your peers, average, or low in its pitch range? Hum and place your fingers on
the bridge of your nose to hear the vibration it produces.
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Range: Both instruments and voices have certain ranges—how low or high they
go. Voices and instruments that sound in the highest ranges are called soprano
(flutes, women opera singers); the lowest ranges are called bass (tubas, bass
guitars); above basses are tenors, and above tenors but below sopranos, altos.

Texture: This is a function of how many different layers of sound are going on
at once. If only one instrument plays just one melody—a voice, flute, or a
violin—that is considered “monophonic”— “mono” meaning single, “phonic”
meaning sound. “Polyphonic,” thus, means “many sounds,” and refers to
multiple melodies sounding at the same time. Maybe you sang a “round” as a
child, like “Row Row Row Your Boat,” where a lone melody starts and then a
few moments later another voice starts the same melody, overlapping; this is
polyphony.

“Homophony” is another texture. It is music which involves chords along

with a melody.

A solo trumpet playing a bugle call would exemplify monophonic texture.

Journal prompt #5: Listen to your favorite sound track of the moment. Describe
the timbres, the tempo, the texture, the dynamics, the melody, the rhythm, the
genre, the technologies and the style, to the best of your ability. For example:

Timbres: what kinds of instruments do you hear? What kinds of voices do you
hear (or not?)

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Tempo: does the speed seem excited, fast, laid back, mellow, slow?

Texture: how many melodies are there? How many different tracks? Would you
call it homophonic? Heterophonic? Other?
Technology: are the instruments acoustic ones, or electric? Is the sound
DJproduced or instrumentally produced? Is it streamed, recorded or live?

Dynamics: is this music intended to sound loud or soft (if you were in a setting
where the artist was there performing it for you?)

Melody: does the melody stay on mostly the same tone, such as in rap, or does it
move over a wide range?

Rhythm: does the rhythm drive the music, or is it in the background? Does it
count in 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, other, or can’t tell?

Genre: does this conform to a genre you can identify? Hip hop? EDM?
Symphony? Etc. Style: within the genre, is this a particular style? Fusion?
Romantic? Etc.
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Form: I once met a visiting Architecture professor from Egypt, the home of
great pyramids. When I told him I teach Music, he said “Well, music and
architecture, they are really the same things, right?” His comment is especially
interesting in light of the musical quality called “form.” Form is like the
“architecture” of music.

We think of architecture in regard to structures in spaces; however,

musical architecture unfolds in time rather than in space. A twelve-story office
building occupies space according to a structure of 12 floors stacked on top of
each other. In music, we have structures like the twelve-bar blues.

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 Twelve-bar blues divides a piece into twelve equal time segments called
“bars” (or measures). The first four bars include a line of text, often a problem
statement. The next four bars, bars 5-8, repeat the first line of text. The last four
bars, 9-12, conclude with a new line of text, which often describes action to be
taken in response to the problem statement. So there is a definite structure, but it
organizes time rather than space.

Harmony: As an ingredient of musical sound, harmony deals with “two or

more pitches (notes) sounding at the same time.” When this happens, the
resulting sound is called a chord. Harmony is a sequence of changing chords,
and deeply characterizes the sound, feeling, and form of a piece of music.

Musicians have devised a way to refer to chords, based on the musical

scale “Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do.” A chord that is built on Do is called I, a
chord built on Re is called II, and so on. Basic chords are formed by three
pitches sounding together. A “I” chord would have “Do” as its lowest tone,
sounding simultaneously with “Mi” and “Sol.”
Journal prompt #6: Use the scale sequence “Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do”:

What would the lowest tone be for a “II” chord? _Re_ What would the tone two
higher be for a “II” chord? _Fa_ What would the tone 2 higher than Fa be? ___.

What would be the lowest tone be for a “III” chord? Do or Mi? _______ What
would the tone two higher be in the “III” chord? _______ What would the third
pitch sounding in the “III” chord? __Ti___

(Answers: The II chord is based on Re, and also sounds the tone two higher, Fa,
and the tone 2 higher than that, La. The III chord is based on Mi, and the tone 2
higher is scale degree 5, Sol, and 2 higher again is Ti.)

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 Ways to listen to music:
Think about this for a moment. If you are taking this course, you probably enjoy
at least some music. How do you normally hear it? Live performances? Or?

Sometimes music is playing without our even being aware of it. For
example, in movies and retail stores the soundtrack is often selected to induce
certain behaviors and emotions. The music is meant to be experienced only
subliminally, below the threshold of awareness, and not as the main event. Film
music can make people think something boring is exciting, or something
important is boring.

Try experimenting with mindful listening--paying attention to the music

you hear. Sometimes, just listen, without doing other things. Listen for specific
ingredients in the music such as melody, timbre, or tempo. Relax and pay
attention to how a piece of music impacts your motivations, thoughts and
emotions. See what new aspects of the music become apparent.

Another kind of listening is dropping pre-conceived notions of how music

is “supposed” to sound. The American composer Aaron Copland wrote about
this in his book, How to Listen to Music. People often assume that music will
sound like something they have heard before. Yet music from another culture or
genre may not do so, leading us to prematurely dismiss the music. An attempt to
listen with “open ears” and an “open mind” may reveal insights, even treasures.

Suggested Listening Technique: A technique for listening to musical examples

begins with eliminating external activities and noises as possible. Then, set
intentions for listening: to see how it feels, or to identify specific ingredients
such as srhythm, loudness, etc. Then, take some deep breaths and let them out
slowly. This helps to physiologically calm and relax the mind. If the example is
a Youtube, try listening to it at least once with eyes closed, before watching.