Chapter 7
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The composer must decide what he or she
wants to say and the best musical means to
express it.
The Elements: the basic building blocks of
music
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Form
Melody
Timbre
Rhythm
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Form is the structure and design of a
composition. (review)
◦ Use of repetition, contrast, unity and variety.
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Listening Activity “Rock Around the Clock”
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Melodies may be flowing or angular, narrow
or wide-ranging , short or long.
Melodies are almost always built on one
musical scale or another.
Major Scale-
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Minor Scale- sequence of eight pitches built
on the pattern of:
◦ whwwhww
◦ Playing any major scale from LA to LA instead of DO
to DO give you the relative natural minor.
LA TI DO
RE
MI
FA SOL
LA
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Listening Activity: Change Major to Minor
◦ Symphony No. 1 in D Minor by Gustav Mahler
◦ Symphony: an extended work for orchestra with
several contrasting movements
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Timbre- tone color, tone quality. (review)
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Listening Activity The Sound of the Pipa
◦ Tibetan Dance
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Rhythm deals with fast or slow, and patterns
of beats.
Felt Time- an aspect of music that controls
the listener’s sense of how much time has
passed.
Listening Activity:
◦ Adaigo for Strings
◦ Badinerie
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Listening Activity
◦ America the Beautiful by Ray Charles.
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Arranger: a musician who reworks existing musical
material
◦ The arranger adapts a composition written for one
performance medium to another or recomposes a work to
suite different circumstances.
◦ Composers and arrangers both deal with music
composition but their roles are completely different.
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Listening Activity “What’s New?”
◦ Three different arrangements
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Transcription: arrangements of music
transferred from one medium to another
◦ Example: Original keyboard piece then score for stringwind-percussion instruments...the music stays the SAME,
it’s just written for another group to play it.
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Listening Activity; Compare an original with a
transcription
◦ Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C Major for Organ and then
transcribed for Band by Johann Sebastian Bach.
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Explain the difference among composing,
arranging, and transcribing.
Read through the interview and answer the
question above on the back of your handout.
Make sure to cite details from the interview.
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Theme and Variations: a musical form in
which a melodic idea is stated then varied in
a succession of statements
◦ The theme can be
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Ornamented
Tempo altered
Harmony changed
Texture transformed
Rhythm revamped
Change the form
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Listening Activity: Mozart Theme and
Variations
◦ How is the Melody or the THEME changed in each
variation?
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Listening Activity: “American Salute” by
Morton Gould
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Using Harmony to Create Variations:
Harmony: the vertical blocks of different tones
that sound simultaneously.
◦ Chords! Three or four notes that form a harmonic unite
 Major/Minor Chords
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Primary Chords: harmonies built on the first (DO),
the fourth (FA), and the fifth (SOL) degrees of the
scale.
Do
Re
Mi
Fa
Sol La
Ti
Do
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Describe the expressive qualities:
Compare Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with
Carmen’s “All By Myself” performed in Spanish by
Celine Dion.
◦ What orchestral instrument plays the main theme that
Carmen borrowed?
◦ Why would the style of “romantic” music be appropriate for
both pieces?
◦ In reference to these two pieces, how would you describe
the way music is able to express and touch our feelings?
Can it do so even if you do no understand the lyrics in
Spanish?
◦ Would you say the musical link between these pieces is
close or remote? Why?
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Conductor: the director of an orchestra,
choir, band or other performing group.
Responsibilities:
◦ The conductor must know the music well enough to
hear any error by a single musician.
 Select the music
 Rehearse the musicians for the performances
◦ The conductor is also responsible for making
expressive musical decisions on how the music will
be performed.
 Tempo, dynamics, spirit, and phrasing.
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Of the many decisions a conductor makes,
tempo is on of most important:
Rubato: the free treatment of tempo within a
musical phrase.
Listening Activity: Blue Danube Waltz.