Intro to Jazz Study Guide Free Essays

What shaped American Music? * People: conglomeration of cultures. The Elements of Popular Music * Harmonic Progression * Chords that are changing in harmony * Call and Respond * A musical phrase in which the first and often solo part is answered by a second and often ensemble part * Rhythm Four Basic Qualities of Musical Sound * Duration: how long or short * Intensity: how loud or soft * Pitch: how fast or slow the sound vibrates; how high or low * Timbre: distinctive â€Å"color† of the sound; ex. Sax vs. We will write a custom essay sample on Intro to Jazz Study Guide or any similar topic only for you Order Now Violin The combination of these four musical elements are what help to organize the music. Duration - Rhythm (mixture or long and short notes) Intensity - Dynamics (pp p mp mf f ff) Pitch - Melody and Harmony * Melody is one note at a time * Harmony is chords where you have notes stacked up together; notes sounding simultaneously Timbre becomes Instrumentation * Tessitura: how an instrument sounds in different ranges Previous Exam Question Rhythm Section – developed in America and set the foundation of today’s music 1. Chord Instrument 2. Bass Instrument 3. Percussion Instrument Texture – How the music is â€Å"interwoven† * Classical and Jazz: counterpoint * Rock Styles: homophonic Counterpoint vs. Homophonic * Counterpoint: a contrapuntal texture, 2-3 or more melodies work together to create the rhythmic energy in piece. * Homophonic: where the bass line coincides with chords (provides roots) Terms to Know Tempo: speed of the beat (think of a metronome) Surface Rhythms: faster rhythms that are emphasized over the basic tempo Measure: a group of beats delineated barlines which separate measures. Meter/Time Signature: how many beats within a bar (3/4, 4/4) The Basic Rhythms * Quarter-notes * Eighth-notes * Triplets * Sixteenth-notes Evolution of rhythm in Twentieth-Century Pop Music 1920’s – Foxtrot, two-beat (half-notes) 1930-40’s – Swing, four-beat (quarter-notes) 1950-60’s – Rock n’ Roll (eighth-notes) 1970-80’s – Latin-Rhythms in pop music and disco (sixteenth-notes) 1990’s – Techno (thirty-second notes) Backbeat- something is struck on beats TWO and FOUR * found commonly in almost all American popular music Melody * The horizontal organization of pitches Involving Shape and Rhythem * Riff based melodies * Repetition or Development Scale * the â€Å"normal† scale – technically known as Major Scale * Octave 1-8 * â€Å"Key† * major and minor * Seven chords in a key Previous Exam Questions * three most important chords – I IV V * Most common progression in jazz – II V I American Music Heritage Previous Exam Question: * Three Main Sources * The European Heritage (Classical Music) * Anglo-American Folksong (Folk Music) * African Heritage * Western Music * Carefully crafted melodies * High point/low point in line. Careful text setting * Syllabic vs. Melismatic * Syllabic – one syllable of text for every note. * Melismatic – melody covered several notes for one syllable of text * Harmony – sophisticated hierarchy of chords * Ex: I ii iii IV V vi vii * Form – teleological form/goal-oriented forms/sectionalized * Ex: sonata form, minuet and trio form etc. AABA and ABAB * Westerns favorite forms that had chunks * Notation – music of extreme specificity * Created the orchestra – establishment of ensemble units, orchestration Neumes’ * how high or low the melodies are. Two most common forms in Jazz * AABA * ABAB Anglo-American Folk Song * Lots of repetition with no variation * Little harmonic variety * Verse-chorus form African-American Heritage * Percussion plays continuously with a vocal line sung or spoken over top of the drums * Rhythm and Texture: syncopation, complex rhythmic layering, vocals and non-pitched instruments, smooth continuum between speech and song. * Form: stasis; not goal-oriented, not sectionalized * Harmony: no chord progression, harmonic stasis Call and Repsonse Griot and the Kora African story teller and west African harp Previous Exam Question: * Between 1750 and 1843, over 5,000 theater and circus productions included blackface (mockery of the African-American race and culture) – turned into musical shoes – minstrelsy Stephen Foster * The most famous songwriter of the nineteenth-century American popular music. * Foster composed both minstrel and parlor songs Words to Know Arpeggio – color of an instrument – acoustic principle make it sound different Tempo – speed of the beat Meter – how many counts per measure Riff – short, repeated pattern The Blues * A feeling indicated by the lyrics * A style of various types of inflections: bent notes, rough voice, cracked notes etc. * A form – 12-bar blues * Perpetual noodling/riffs over the blues scale * Blue notes (note not within the major scale * Read/Repeat/Rhyme lyrics * Two types of blues * Country Blues * Oldest type of blues * Work songs, evening entertainment * Urban Blues * Forms and harmonic pacing are much more fixed than the country blues. Cyclical Form Blues would loop around the circle of I IV V chords Bessie Smith * In the 1920’s massive migration of Afro-American to the north * â€Å"Empress of Blues† * Rough Style * Blues on Stage – vaudeville troupes W. C. Handy – Father of the Blues. First to publish a blues song. – St. Louis Blues – combine fox-trot beat with blues form! Dominate Chords in Jazz * I IV V Lyric/Poetic Form (Read/Repea t/Rhyme) Previous Exam Question * Line 1 (Statement), Line 2 (Repeated), Line 3 (Varied with end-rhyme) Words to Know Pentatonic Scale – doesn’t always have a sharp 4 Blues – Form of music. Form relates to lyrics and chord progression. Lyric Form – State, Repeat, Rhyme Country Blues – Free in Form Urban Blues – 12 Bar Blues Ragtime – Syncopation * Piano Rags * Ragtime Songs Marching Music * John Phillip Sousa becomes the greatest conductor and composer of his time for march music. * Woodwinds * Brass * Percussion * Sectionalized form * 16 Bar Strains * The â€Å"C† portion is the â€Å"Trio† and is played in softer dynamics * Two-beat feel – low brass playing beats 1 and 3 * Cymbals on the backbeat. * How to cite Intro to Jazz Study Guide, Essay examples