Thelonious Monk... What else can I say.

"Monk and Dizzy Gillespie"

   

    In 1944 Monk made his first studio recordings with the Coleman Hawkins Quartet. Hawkins was among the first prominent jazz musicians to promote Monk, and Monk later returned the favor by inviting Hawkins to join him on the 1957 session with John Coltrane. Monk made his first recordings as leader for Blue Note in 1947 which showcased his talents as a composer of original melodies for improvisation.

    In August 1951, New York City police searched a parked car occupied by Monk and friend Bud Powell. The police found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell. Monk refused to testify against his friend, so the police confiscated his New York City Cabaret Card. Without the all-important cabaret card he was unable to play in any New York venue where liquor was served, and this severely restricted his ability to perform for several crucial years. Monk spent most of the early and mid-1950s composing, recording, and performing at theaters and out-of-town gigs.

    After his cycle of intermittent recording sessions for Blue Note during 1947–1952, he was under contract to Prestige Records for the following two years. With Prestige he cut several highly significant, but at the time under-recognized, albums, including collaborations with saxophonist Sonny Rollins and drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach.


    Miles Davis found Monk's idiosyncratic accompaniment style difficult to improvise over and asked him to lay out (not accompany), which almost brought them to blows. However, in Miles Davis' autobiography Miles, Davis claims that the anger and tension between Monk and himself never took place and that the claims of blows being exchanged were "rumors" and a "misunderstanding".


    In conclusion Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the jazz standard repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser" and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed over 1,000 songs while Monk wrote about 70. Monk was often regarded as a founder of bebop, Monk's playing later evolved away from that style. His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, and are consistent with Monk's unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations. Monk's manner was idiosyncratic. Visually, he was renowned for his distinctive style in suits, hats and sunglasses. He was also noted for the fact that at times, while the other musicians in the band continued playing, he would stop, stand up from the keyboard and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano. One of his regular dances consisted of continuously turning clockwise, which has drawn comparisons to ring-shout and Sufi whirling.

	Thelonious Monk - Monk's Mood .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Surrealism

Surrealism is a movement that occurred in the early 1900’s. The music focused on tonality as compared to earlier music which focused on harmony and melody.

The main person behind this whole movement was a man named Arnold Schoenburg. Schoenburg used Hexatonic, whole tone, and 12 tone scales/ chords in his writing.

The 12 tone scale was based upon a chromatic scale which used tone rows, an ordering of the 12 pitches. All 12 notes are given equal importance, and the music avoids being in a key. The technique was influential on composers in the mid-twentieth century and today.

Surrealism never really became main stream. Most people who listen to this music think of it as something that their little kid can do... when in reality only a select few musicians in the world can really perform it.

There are still musicians who perform this style of music... but usually (from what ive seen) the surrealism/ avant garde music that is performed in todays culture is based off of free from improvisation. Such as Keith Jarrett.

http://www.amazon.com/Solo-Wounded-CD-Yasunao-Tone/dp/B000003YU8 

Romantic Period of Music

The Romantic Period of Music started somewhere around 1815- 1910 and was an evolution from the Baroque and Classical periods of music.

Several aspects that were incorporated in the Romantic Period of music that were significant changes include:

1.      Chromaticism

2.      Dissonance between notes

3.      Diminished 7 Chords

4.      Future Jazz Chords

5.      Increase of Melodies, Harmonies, Motifs etc.

6.      Different form of “songs”

7.      Lyrical emphasis

8.      Rhythm

9.      Expansive use of Orchestral instruments

10.  Technical (playing value) Savant

The beginning of the Romantic Period of music started with Beethoven's First Symphony and especially his fourth piano sonata. Beethoven's impact influenced and inspired composers in the following generations such as his fellow Vienna citizens Schubert, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Bruckner, Liszt and Wagner.

As the 19th century moved into its second half, many social, political and economic changes set in motion in the post-Napoleonic period became entrenched. Railways and the electric telegraph bound the European world ever closer together. The nationalism that had been an important strain of early 19th century Romantic music became formalized by political and linguistic means.
The dramatic increase in musical education brought a still wider sophisticated audience, and many composers took advantage of the greater regularity of concert life, and the greater financial and technical resources available. These changes brought an expansion in the sheer number of symphonies, concertos and "tone poems" which were composed, and the number of performances in the opera seasons in Paris, London and Italy.
During this period, some composers created styles and forms associated with their national folk cultures. The notion that there were "German" and "Italian" styles had long been established in writing on music, but the late 19th century saw the rise of a nationalist Russian style (Glinka, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and Borodin), and also Czech, Finnish and French nationalist styles of composition. Some composers were expressly nationalistic in their objectives, seeking to rediscover their country's national identity in the face of occupation or oppression, as did for example the Bohemians Bedřich Smetana and Antonín Dvořák, and the Finn Jean Sibelius. Johannes Brahms used an advanced form of Beethoven's motivic development that accommodated not only the formal frameworks of the Baroque era, but a rich and expressive vocabulary that focused on arpeggiation, rhythmic obfuscation, and advanced harmonies rivaled only by Wagner.

Different Song Types with brief explanation:

Keyboard Forms

     There were various musical forms that were composed for the piano. Some of the popular compositions were etudes, character pieces , variations , and stylized dances.

Etudes
     The etude was a study that showed off the performer’s technical ability using arpeggios , octaves, scales, and chords.

Character Pieces
     The character piece was a short programmatic work that had      descriptive titles, such as nocturne, ballade, rhapsody, intermezzo,      and songs without words.

Variations
      A variation is a virtuoso piece that states a theme and then modifies it through changes of rhythm, meter, and structure.

Stylized Dances
     Stylized dances were popular dance forms such as the waltz , mazurka , polka , and the gallop

Instrumentation

Woodwinds
     The woodwind section grew to include two or more bassoons, oboes, flutes, and clarinets. Additional color instruments such as the contrabassoon, the bass clarinet, the piccolo, and the English horn were added.

Brass
     The brass section began to utilize instruments with valves, which gave this section a wider range and versatility. This section included trumpets, horns, trombones, and tubas.

Percussion
     In addition to the use of timpani, there was now the use of percussion instruments such as bass and side drums, xylophones, celestas, gongs, cymbals, castanets, harps, bells, triangles, and chimes.

Strings
     While no additional string instruments were invented during this era, the number of string instruments used in an orchestra increased in size to balance out the addition of the larger brass and woodwind sections.

Orchestration

     New musical ideas were expressed through the use of additional solo parts into an orchestral work. A woodwind instrument or horn was favored for a solo part. Additionally, the string section experimented with, created, and used mutes, tremelo , harmonics, pizzicato , and double stops.

Forms

Symphony
     Symphonies were composed by a number of Romantic composers. These symphonies were very different from the ones written during the Classical era. These differences included:
           1. Freer form of the internal structure of the movement
           2. Variation on the number of movements
           3. The symphony evolved from a formal design to a creative means of expression
           4. The inner movements had more contrasting keys within them
           5. Solo voices and choral sounds were added to the symphony.

Concerto
     A concerto was an extravagant showpiece for a virtuoso soloist and orchestra. The violin and piano were the instruments of choice. This form had three movements, which was similar to that of the concerto of the Classical era.

Symphonic Poem (Tone Poem)
     This form was introduced in the mid 1800s by the composer Franz Liszt. It was a one movement, programmatic work based on a literary work or legend and usually had a descriptive title. Examples included Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain, Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn, Smetana’s The Moldau.

Concert Overture
      This form was a single movement work and was usually found in sonata-allegro form. It was somewhat programmatic and usually had a descriptive title. It was not an orchestral introduction to an opera. A few examples were Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, Mendelssohn’s Fingal’s Cave Overture, and Brahms Academic Festival Overture.

Symphonic Variations
      Very few orchestral works were written in variation form. A few examples of this form are Brahm’s Variations on the Theme of Haydn, Franck’s Symphonic Variations for piano solo and orchestra, and Elgar’s Enigma Variations.

Symphonic Suite
     These are programmatic works in several movements which do not follow the symphonic form. Examples of this were Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, Rimsky-Korsikov’s Scheherazade, and Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite.

Dances
     Orchestral music written in dance forms in pieces composed by Johann Strauss Waltzes, for example.

CHAMBER MUSIC

     During the Romantic era, chamber music became increasingly obsolete. Chamber music did not possess the size, color, and sound of the symphony and could not match the piano’s warmth or versatility in range and expression. As a result, almost no new chamber music was written by composers, and virtually no program music was written for chamber ensembles.

The movie Amadeus has somewhat of an accurate portrayal of the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Though some parts of the movie were used primarily to sell better "marketing decision". Ex. Mozart’s laugh in the movie…

The aspects of reality in the movie include his behavior of being a "vulgor man", him being a protégé at composing music, and being a depressed drunk.

The aspects of fiction include: Mozart having only one kid, his laugh, Salieri essentially killing Mozart, and Salieri trying to commit suicide.

EX. Fiction

Salieri comes up with a complex plan to gain ultimate victory over Mozart and over God. He wears a mask and costume similar to one he had seen Leopold wear and commissions the composer to write a requiem mass, giving Mozart a down payment and the promise of an enormous sum upon completion. Mozart begins to write the piece, the Requiem Mass in D minor, unaware of the true identity of his mysterious patron and his scheme: to somehow kill him when the work is complete. Glossing over any details of how he might commit the murder, Salieri dwells on the anticipation of the admiration of his peers and the court, when they applaud the magnificent Requiem, and he claims to be the music's composer. Only Salieri and God would know the truth—that Mozart wrote his own requiem mass, and that God could only watch while Salieri finally received the fame and renown he deserved.

Mozart's financial woes continue and the composing demands of the Requiem and The Magic Flute drive him to the point of exhaustion as he alternates work between the two pieces. Constanze leaves him and takes their son with her. His health worsens and he collapses during the premiere performance of The Magic Flute. Salieri takes the stricken Mozart home and convinces him into working on the Requiem. Mozart dictates while Salieri transcribes throughout the night. As Constanze returns that morning, she tells Salieri to leave. Constanze locks the manuscript away despite Salieri's objections, but as she goes to wake her husband, Mozart is dead. The Requiem is left unfinished, and Salieri is left powerless as Mozart's body is hauled out of Vienna for burial in a pauper's mass grave.

Baroque Music:

The word Baroque derives from the Italian word barocco, meaning bizarre.Music before the Baroque period was very primitative in sense that there wasn’t much melody and harmony. The Baroque period of music however; is the complete opposite. Baroque music contains several different aspects of music including polyphony, a broad understanding of melodic and harmonic ideas and also a classy/ crisp sound.

Several of the composers that came out of the Baroque period are known by people today. Not only do they live on in history, but their music lives on as well. People still study Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel’s works through transcribed notations that have either been lost and found, or documented and re- transcribed into modern notation.

Opera was also a new aspect/ genre of the Baroque period. “[Baroque opera was] Written initially to celebrate specific events (usually royal or vice-regal) this rôle was taken over by the serenata and the developing larger cantata forms and the operas became entities in themselves, drawing large audiences at the many theatres which appeared, creating an almost 'popular culture' with the Europe-wide distribution of new works, and importantly for the later development of singing, creating a need for virtuoso performers which was fulfilled by singers like Farinelli, La Romanina, Bordoni, Cuzzoni, Senesino, Cafarelli, Carestini and those who followed.”

Claudio Monteverdi’s opera L'Orfeo became a landmark which demonstrated the array of effects and techniques that were associated with this new school, called seconda pratica, to distinguish it from the older style or prima pratica. Monteverdi was a master of both, producing precisely styled madrigals that extended the forms of Luca Marenzio and Giaches de Wert. But it is his pieces in the new style which became the most influential. These included features which are recognizable even to the end of the baroque period, including use of idiomatic writing, virtuoso flourishes, and the use of new techniques.

Quick Facts/ Information about the Baroque period:

·         AABB was the essential song form of the Baroque period.

Basso continuo - a kind of continuous accompaniment notated with a new music notation system, figured bass, usually for a sustaining bass instrument and a keyboard instrument

·         Monody - music for one melodic voice with accompaniment, characteristic of the early 17th century, especially in Italy

·         Homophony - music with one melodic voice and rhythmically similar accompaniment (this and monody are contrasted with the typical Renaissance texture, polyphony)

·         Text over music - intelligible text with instrumental accompaniment not overpowering the voice

·         Vocal soloists

·         Dramatic musical expression

·         Dramatic musical forms like opera, dramma per musica

·         Combined instrumental-vocal forms, such as the oratorio and cantata

·         New instrumental techniques, like tremolo and pizzicato

·         Clear and linear melody

·         Notes inégales, a technique of playing pairs of notes of equal written length (typically eighth notes) with a "swung" rhythm, alternating longer and shorter values in pairs, the degree of inequality varying according to context. Particularly characteristic of French performance practice.

·         The aria

·         The ritornello aria (repeated short instrumental interruptions of vocal passages)

·         The concertato style (contrast in sound between orchestra and solo-instruments or small groups of instruments)

·         Precise instrumental scoring (in the Renaissance, exact instrumentation for ensemble playing was rarely indicated)

·         Idiomatic instrumental writing: better use of the unique properties of each type of musical instrument

·         Virtuosic instrumental and vocal writing, with appreciation for virtuosity as such

·         Ornamentation

·         Development to modern Western tonality (major and minor scales)

·         Cadenza- an extended virtuosic section for the soloist usually near the end of a movement of a concerto.

Genres from the Baroque Period:

Vocal

• Opera
• Zarzuela
• Opera seria
• Opera comique
• Opera-ballet
• Masque
• Oratorio
• Passion (music)
• Cantata
• Mass (music)
• Anthem
• Monody
• Chorale

Instrumental

• Chorale composition
• Concerto grosso
• Fugue
• Suite
• Allemande
• Courante
• Sarabande
• Gigue
• Gavotte
• Minuet
• Sonata
• Sonata da camera
• Sonata da chiesa
• Trio sonata
• Partita
• Canzona
• Sinfonia
• Fantasia
• Ricercar
• Toccata
• Prelude
• Chaconne
• Passacaglia
• Chorale prelude
• Stylus fantasticus

Overview of Music History

There are several genres and periods of music that one could study in a class such as Music Appreciation. But, the main periods of music that I am going to analyze in this blog include; Ancient, Medieval,  Renaissance,  Baroque,  Classical period,  Romantic,  20th century, and Contemporary music.

            Ancient Period of Music:

The Ancient Period of music dates back before AD 500. The Ancient period of music spreads from geographical areas such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, India, China, Greece and Rome.  It is possible that early humans were impressed with the power of communication and found the sounds of the instruments to be pleasing. As hunter-gatherer groups evolved into agrarian cultures, music had a place in religious ceremonies and farming.

            Medieval Period of Music:

The Medieval Period of music dates back to 500–1400. The Chant is a monophonic sacred form that represents the earliest known music of the Christian church. The Jewish Synagogue tradition of singing psalms was a strong influence on Christian chanting. Chant developed separately in several European centres. Although the most important were Rome, Hispania, Gaul, Milan, and Ireland, there were others as well.

 By the end of the ninth century, singers in monasteries such as St. Gall in Switzerland began experimenting with adding another part to the chant, generally a voice in parallel motion, singing mostly in perfect fourths or fifths above the original tune (see interval). This development is called organum and represents the beginnings of harmony and, ultimately, of counterpoint.

           

              Renaissance Period of Music:

                                                

• A rebirth of classical learning
• The gradual change from the feudal system to the modern state
• A change in people's views of the earth and the cosmos
• Increased interest in humanist learning
• Increased patronage of music
• Territorial expansion and increased wealth
• The composers of the Renaissance concerned themselves with three different areas of music
• All are unified by many shared musical features

Baroque Period of Music:

• A time of experimentation
• Expanding roles for music
• A growing awareness of national styles
• The full equality of instrumental music

Classical Period of Music:

• The Industrial Revolution
• The philosophy of the Enlightenment
• The political ideals of republican government
• Art and "Nature"
• The social role of music
• The concept of nature in the arts
• Simpler textures
• Simpler melodies
• The piano
• Simpler, rational forms

Romantic Period of Music:

• Increased interest in nature and the supernatural
• The rise of program music
• Nationalism and exoticism
• Changing status of musicians

20^th Century Period of Music:

• Ambivalant attitudes toward the musical past
• A widening gap between "art" and "popular" music
• The advent of sound recording
• The birth of a "World Music" culture

            Contemporary Period of Music:

During the mid 20th century, music evolved in many different directions. Some composers took Schoenberg's "serial" system to new limits. The rise of jazz, as well as an increasing awareness of non-Western music, provided additional inspiration for many, while others ventured into electronic music by manipulating sounds and noises recorded on tape - a style known as musique concrète.

In the 1930s and 1940s, many composers returned to forms and techniques of the Baroque and Classical eras. This "Neoclassical" style was a reaction to the emotional, dramatic character of Romanticism. The Neoclassicists wrote for small chamber ensembles and preferred a tightly knit treatment of thematic material. They did not copy 17th and 18th century forms, but took elements, such as the fugue, and added their own modern harmonies and rhythms. An example of this is Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress (1951).

The rapid advances in technology during the late 20th century are partly responsible for the emergence of a wide variety of musical forms. Electronics played an important role in the development of music, both classical and popular, from the 1960s onward. The ability of the synthesizer to generate artificial tones and sounds attracted composers such as John Cage, Edgard Varèse, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Beginning in the 1970s, the use of computers, with their ability to memorize and play back whole compositions, discouraged live performances. Many composers turned to writing film scores, for which the precision of computerized music is ideally suited.

Minimalism, which emerged in the 1960s, focuses on the development of a single aspect of music, such as pitch or rhythm, while keeping other elements constant. This approach owes much to Indian raga music, in which the pattern of music changes very little.

I personally like the music of the Romantic Period and want to learn more about it than what I already know. The music that came from the Romantic Period is very complex in several different aspects including; rhythmically, melody, harmony and texture. One of my favorite composers from the Romantic Period is Claude Debussy who wrote an incredible solo piano song entitled Claire De Lune.