Oral and Aural Assesment
Aural Exam
1) Short Ride on a Fast Machine - John Adams
2) Bolero - Maurice Ravel
3) Appalachian Spring - Aaron Copland
4) Moon-fleck - Arnold Schoenberg
5) Jupiter - Gustavo Holst
6) Contrary Motion - Phillip Glass
7) Mars - Gustavo Holst
8) Rite of Spring - Igor Stravinsky
9) In the Hall of the Mountain King - Edvard Grieg
10) Stars and Stripes Forever - John Phillip Sousa
Book, Score, & CD Tour
Daphnis et Chole
Almost an hour long, Daphnis et Chloe is Ravel's longest work and is distinguished as one of his most famous works for its lush harmonies. Daphnis et Chloe is a ballet that tells the story of, "...a boy (Daphnis) and a girl (Chloe), each of whom is exposed at birth along with some identifying tokens. A goatherd named Lamon discovers Daphnis, and a shepherd called Dryas finds Chloe. Each decides to raise the child he finds as his own. Daphnis and Chloe grow up together, herding the flocks for their foster parents. They fall in love but, being naive, do not understand what is happening to them. Philetas, a wise old cowherd, explains to them what love is and tells them that the only cure is kissing. They do this. Eventually, Lycaenion, a woman from the city, educates Daphnis in love-making. Daphnis, however, decides not to test his newly acquired skill on Chloe, because Lycaenion tells Daphnis that Chloe "will scream and cry and lie bleeding heavily [as if murdered]." Throughout the book, Chloe is courted by suitors, two of whom (Dorcon and Lampis) attempt with varying degrees of success to abduct her. She is also carried off by raiders from a nearby city and saved by the intervention of the god Pan. Meanwhile, Daphnis falls into a pit, gets beaten up, is abducted by pirates, and is very nearly raped. In the end, Daphnis and Chloe are recognized by their birth parents, get married, and live out their lives in the country." (Quoted from Wikipedia). The soundtrack of the piece is really amazing, and there are piano transcriptions of the suite which are really awesome as well! The transcriptions sounds like other piano masterpieces that Ravel composed - Like Gaspard De La Nuit, Sonatine, or Jeux Deau.
Symphony of Pslams
This was my first time listening to Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms and it sounds like a pretty interesting piece. The piece is scored for 5 flutes, 4 oboes, 3 bassoons and contrabassoons, 4 trumpets, a piccolo trumpet, 4 horns in F, 3 trombones, 2 pianos, a harp, timpani, bass drum, tuba, and a four part chorus. I was really interested by the piece because of how many different musical techniques from separate time periods of history Stravinsky employs in the piece. He uses the octatonic scale in the piece (used in early 20th century music by composers like Scriabin), while using more traditional art forms like constructing the piece fugal counterpoint (a technique that was practiced by the church in the late Baroque and Renaissance Era). He combines these elements to create a religious yet atonal psalm which is something that I don't hear very often.
A Ceremony of Carols
This piece is written by Benjamin Britten, who was a famous 20th century classical composer. The cantata is made up of 11 movements. The instruments used are interesting; there are 10 movements for voice and harp, and one movement for solo harp. I enjoyed this composition a lot because of the beautiful harmonies that the chorus has to give. The Ceremony of Carols sounds like it was written in the Renaissance or Baroque era and without knowing who the composer was, I would've assumed that.
Period Projects
Content and Midterm Reflection
1) In the early 20th century, the new technological innovations really helped usher the Avant-Garde and Expressionist movement. For instance, musicians could make mimic animals and screech into a recording device which could be used for a piece that required such. Electronic devices like the theremin were released as well, which gave composers a larger variety of instruments to choose from. Originally, sounds could be recorded by using wax cylinders, but by the 1930s sound could be recorded using magnetic-tape recording. One of the biggest changes for music in the 20th century would be the release of the personal computer - the internet offered a variety of composition and recording programs that could be downloaded and used. The internet also offers availability and publicity to any forms of music, composers and artists could upload their own pieces online for the world to see. MIDI files are electronic programs that can play entire compositions on computers and other electronic devices. Because of digital recording new genres of music have been born from it like electronic music.
2a) I've really enjoyed the course so far, and my achievements would be learning a ton of new concepts in more contemporary music styles like jazz, electronic, and late modern music. The course provides a lot of in depth information in each subject which is what makes this class very interesting.
2b) One of the goals I had for this year was learning about more people and repertoire in the 19th, 20th, and 21st century, I can definitely say that this goal has already been achieved. I really began learning a lot of new things in the electronic music section and jazz music section.
2c) I had a lot of background knowledge with 19th century and 18th century composers, but I have been able to stretch myself to learn new concepts and composers in the 20th and 21st century.
2d) Listening to new repertoire from composers that I have learned about in this course is very refreshing, I really enjoy constantly listening to new styles and forms.
2e) There isn't anything that really distracts me when working on the course, the only thing that I could think of would be having internet issues occasionally.
3a) I'm pretty satisfied with my work flow for the course so far, I have turned in all of my units on time of before the deadline.
3b) For the later units I feel like my biggest strengths would be being able to provide a lot of information and details about composers and music styles.
3c) One thing I could improve on is making sure that I have everything 100 percent completed in the units, I sometimes miss a few things resulting in a few points off of my grade for a unit.
3d) I think I'll be doing more work at my house for the next half of the semester so that I can finish more units at a quicker pace.
5a) A big area of improvement for me could be me explaining information more thoroughly in some sections of each unit. Overall, I think that all of my work is pretty organized and easy to read for each of the five units.
5b) Yes, I plan to put in more time at my house as well to work on units for the next half of the semester as well.
6) I'm really not sure what feedback I could provide to improve the course, I think that the course presents information really well with a lot of videos, documentaries, readings, etc.