MUSC 309 Lecture 1: Introduction; music basics
I. Course preliminaries
A. Syllabus
1. Office hours – 8-9 daily, or by appointment
2. Office: 434 Music Building
3. Phone
4. E-mail
5. Text and CDs
a. Required
b. Readings are crucial – may not cover all of it in lecture
c. Listening equally, if not more, important
6. On-line listening
a. Not all listening examples discussed in text on the CD set
b. These pieces can be found at i. Rhapsody ($9.99) or iTunes (per track): mp3s
ii. class web site
i. Click link for appropriate chapter
ii. ID and password - daddyo
iii. To listen to them you will need to download Real Player
7. The What
a. Start with the basics – learn some fundamentals of music
b. Then survey the history of rock and roll!
c. Long range goals:
i. Sample music from all styles of rock
ii. Learn how to listen to music, rather than hear it
iii. Develop ability to intelligently discuss rock music using
proper musical terminology
8. How
a. Daily reading and listening assignments, to be done before class
i. Required as foundation for that day’s topic
ii. I don’t always lecture out of the book
b. Approach music like a foreign language
i. Review daily
ii. Apply terms and concepts right away
iii. Ask questions as soon as they come up
c. Listening logs
i. Choose stylistic list from web site
ii. Give name of artists, title of song
iii. Describe, to the best of your ability, what you hear in
proper musical terminology.
iv. Address the stylistic influences on the song,
instrumentation, texture, form, etc.
d. Midterm and final
e. Assignments and activities: TBA in class
f. Attendance – 10 %
i. critical – announcements and assignments
ii. See grade policy
8. Grade breakdown - see syllabus
9. Extra credit
i. Concert reports - go to a concert, tell us about it
ii. or report over a concert film
iii.Can turn in up to three, each report worth maximum of 20 pts
10. Syllabus itself
B. My rules of the road
1. No such thing as a stupid question – SO ASK!
2. Don’t talk while I’m talking, or music is playing
3. Don’t sit in the back of the room!
4. Think for yourself and form own opinions
5. Take responsibility for learning material
a. Get assignments, notes for lectures you miss
b. Come talk to me right away if don’t understand something, or have
problems
c. Keep on top of reading and listening assignments
d. Actively listen and be engaged in class
e. Maintain high standards of academic integrity
i. University policy on plagiarism
ii. On cheating
6. In exchange, you can expect from me
a. Accessible for comments, problems, help
b. Fair and equal treatment
II. What is music?
A. Take a couple of moments to think about
B. Best definition possible: the art of sound in time
1. Music involves sounds and silences
2. Arranged in temporal framework
3. Defined by certain parameters or characteristics
C. Somewhat easier if we begin thinking of a painting
1. What characteristics does a work of visual art have?
a. Line
b. Form
c. Style characteristics - modern? abstract? realistic?
d. foreground
e. background
f. composition
g. color
2. Music has many of the same characteristics
a. Style - of a certain historical period, composer
b. Foreground = melody, prominent sounds
c. Background = harmony or accompaniment, supporting sounds
d. Form = structure of a piece
e. Color = sound of particular instruments or groups of instruments
f. Composition
i. How the piece is put together
ii. What makes this collection of sounds different from other
groups of sounds?
3. Music, though, is different from the visual arts
a. Temporal phenomenon - only last as long as the sounds are heard
b. Notation is only instructions for how to reproduce the piece
4. Some of the unique characteristics of music
a. How sounds deployed through time = rhythm
b. How quickly or slowly the piece moves = tempo
c. How “dense” the piece is - many sounds happening at once, or only
a few? = texture
d. How the time in the piece is divided up = meter
e. How loud or soft are the sounds, and where it changes = dynamics
II. Pitch and tone color
A. Pitch = highness or lowness of a tone
1. Depends on the rate of vibration of the sound waves = frequency
2. Musical tones have pitch
a. Other sounds generally do not
b. Because the musical sounds are more focused
B. Tone color/timbre
1. Ex. - play sample of Bob Dylan tune - who?
2. Then sample of Jimi Hendrix - who?
3. Each pitch or tone has its own unique sound, depending on:
a. Frequency of the pitch
b. How the tone produced
4. Called tone color, or timbre (pronounced TAM-ber)
II. Melody
A. Definitive succession of single pitches perceived by the mind as a unity
B. Listening to melodies
1. Usually melody contains main musical ideas of piece
2. motive - short, distinctive figure that stands by itself
a. Can be rhythmic or melodic
b. motive with a distinct rhythmic profile that is repeated throughout
piece is called a riff
3. How much musical space does the melody cover?
a. What is the distance between the highest note and lowest note of
a melody?
b. Described in approximate terms
i. Narrow range - whole melody covers distance of 4, 5
notes
aa. Ex. 1: Times They Are A’Changin’
bb. Ex. 2: Anarchy in the UK
ii. Wide range – covers more than an octave
7. Easiest way to start hearing these things about melodies is to
visualize them
i. If melody were a line, what would it look like?
ii. Can get the hang of this by actually drawing melodies called graphing a melody
D. Melodic structure (The Times They Are A’ Changin)
1. Think of a melody like a sentence
2. Sentences divided into phrases - so are melodies
3. With songs, usually musical phrases coincide with phrases in lyrics
4. Phrases end in resting places, or cadences
a. Like punctuation in a sentence
b. Cadences either
i. Conclusive - sounds like the melody could end there
ii. Inconclusive - pause, like a comma in a sentence
6. Melodies tend to resolve around a certain pitch
a. Often start and end on a given pitch
b. Keep returning to that pitch
c. Called a tonic pitch
d. Tonic pitch first note of scale upon which piece is built - defines
the key
II. Harmony A. Sounds that provide support for a melody
1. Melody = horizontal aspect of music
2. Harmony = vertical aspect
B. Can also think of as simultaneous combination of notes – relationships of
intervals - and resulting chords
1. Chord - when 2 or more pitches sound at the same time
2. Chords are the building blocks of harmony
C. Basic chord in rock a triad
1. 3 pitches arranged in a special way
2. 2 intervals of a 3rd (every other note of a scale) stacked on top of each
other
3. Triads can be built on all notes of the scale
D. Rock harmonies
1. tonic chord - triad built on the tonic pitch - 1st note of the scale
a. Tonic chord in any key is stable
b. Doesn’t sound like it needs to progress to another chord
c. Most important chord in any piece
2. dominant chord - triad built on 5th note of the scale
a. “Wants” to resolve (ie: move) to the tonic
b. Movement from the tonic to the dominant creates a strong
cadence, sense of closure
3. Subdominant - triad built on 4th note of the scale
a. Frequently moves to the dominant chord
b. These three chords together define the tonality of a piece
c. IV-V-I very common pattern of chords, or chord progression
E. Hearing changes of harmony
1. Something we’ll work on
2. First step focusing on the bass line - “listening down to the bottom”
3. Usually the foundation for chords - so when it moves, harmony
generally is changing
I. Texture
A. In any given piece of music, different number of sounds occurring at same time
1. Sometimes just a melody
2. Sometimes a melody and accompaniment
3. Other times several melodies occurring simultaneously
4. Or other combinations of events
5. Term used to describe how many, and what kind, of musical events
happening in a piece of music at any given time called texture