Colton Ladd
3 December 2017
Music 110
Mrs Jeans
How Classical Music Shaped Us
The Medieval era (450-1450) was a spark to light the fire of musical creation. It began when the church told musicians to play in church and to dedicate it to God without musicians getting credit. These musicians made some amazing things in this era like: melodic compositions, harmony, musical staffs, syllable names for notes and music notation. The Medieval era began with “Plainchant”/”Gregorian Chant”, named after Pope Gregory I (who is believed to have collected and codified this music). Plainchant was monophonic (one melody without accompaniment) and sung mostly by church representatives and not professional musicians. It was transferred by memory until the early 9th Century when the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne arranged for it to be noted and distributed across Europe to monasteries and churches. This was the era when the staff was created. The followers of Guido de Arezzo are the creators the four line staff (now it is a five line staff). They made this staff for Pope John XIX. It is a way to spread music to other people and to future generations without memorization. This era also introduced syllable names for notes which made a way to practice singing and to enable sight singing. The Guido de Arezzo made the Guidonian Hand. It was a technique to help singers to learn sight singing (singing without preparation) by making syllable names. The way we do this today is the Solfege Method which most people know as “do re mi fa so la ti da”. This is a practice to train a person's voice to do the major scale, going from low (do and re) to high (ti and da). This era is also when secular (non-religious) Troubadors and Trouveres from France set their own poems to music in simple rows of pitches without rhythm. Polyphonic settings (more than one melody at the same time) began in the 10th Century. Leonin created the technique of organum by taking a slowed down plainchant (tenor) and adding a rapid, high pitched musical line to it. In the 13th Century, motets were created by adding words to rhythmic passages of organums.
The Renaissance era (1450-1600) used the tools from the previous era except now people were making more homophonic music and working for other people than the church. The Renaissance is most well known for the polyphonic settings of the Ordinary of the Mass. A cyclic mass was when each movement began with a similar melody. A parody mass was when the melody was taken from a plainchant or secular song. In this era, slow moving tenors began to be replaced by lower voices that moved more quickly. In the Renaissance, people started to become more independent so the church didn't rule all of the music. During this era, the madrigal was developed. This was secular vocal music, typically set in Italian, intensely emotional with four or five voices and no instrumental accompaniment. Madrigals eventually became more harmonic and incorporated musical devices to project the meaning of the piece. Madrigals and Motets started to include text and some dance into their music. Instruments such as the recorder and the lute became very popular.
The Baroque era (1600-1750) kept on with the Renaissance by taking some of the power away from the church, creating more freedom for music. In this era, there was an increase in solo voices and instrumental music. The opera was formed from the Florentine Camerata in Florence, Italy. It was stage music which used a soloist against an instrumental background to have an expressive power like Greek tragedies. This also spawned the development of the aria, a self-contained passage that illustrated the mood of the character singing it. Opera became popular using counterpoint and polyphony. Religious polyphonic vocal music continued in this era and Martin Luther collected hundreds of tunes for devotional hymns. Elaborated from these hymns, multi-movement works called cantatas were created from German composers. Oratios, written works on secular topics and performed in secular settings, were performed in concert halls during this time. Dancing music became much more popular in the Baroque era through their suits and concertos. This era also had the creation of equal temperament to tune their keyboards.
The Classical music era (1750-1820) brought several trends: reform opera, changes in the style of the solo keyboard and the introduction of the symphony. Reform opera was more natural, directly expressive and contained less showy ornamentation. Musicians began to use less harpsichord and more clavichord and fortepiano. This allowed them to play more softly or loudly depending on the force with which they played. The symphony was a multi-movement work for orchestra. The piano also gained in popularity during this era. Classical music started to be more public so the middle class person could listen and relate to the music. This lead to music being performed more frequently in concerts and organized events. Composers started to have their own personality rather than following the majority. This is what lead to there being many different genres today. Opera continued to be more popular, with almost every composer having at least one opera. Composers started to not only work for one person but also started to open their own concerts. This paved the way for modern day musicians to either work for a patron or independently.
The Romantic era is when people made music with more emotion, including sadness and depression. To show how deep it was, there would be more complicated rhythms. The composers started to become more like celebrities and they would start to go on tours. They followed the composers from the classical era by being independent.
Classical” music has greatly shaped the music we listen to today. Musicians have not only built on the techniques learned from each era but also sample from music created during those times. An example of how modern day artists have sampled from previous musical eras can be heard in “I Can” by the rapper, Nas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvVfgvHucRY) where my favorite classical song, Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” is sampled.
My favorite era from this semester is the Classical era. I liked how in this era the music was more simplistic and easy to understand. One of my favorite songs is Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mVW8tgGY_w). Another thing that I liked was how the mood would change throughout the piece. I also like the introduction of the Fortepiano and the amount of string instruments that were used. Some of the earlier eras were slower and did not use certain instruments which caused me to not like those eras. I don’t like Romantic era music because I feel like there's too much emotion in the pieces making it all seam too happy or too sad. The Contemporary Classical can be really weird. I don’t like serial music because of the lack of central tone.