MUSIC & ARTS 10 - 4th QUARTER HANDOUTS

Landscape Art
Landscape art is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers,
and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged
into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still form an
important part of the work. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather is often an
element of the composition. Detailed landscapes as a distinct subject are not found in all artistic
traditions, and develop when there is already a sophisticated tradition of representing other
subjects. The word landscape is from the Dutch, landschap originally meaning a patch of
cultivated ground, and then an image.
History
The earliest forms of art around the world depict little that could really be called
landscape, although ground-lines and sometimes indications of mountains, trees or other natural
features are included. The earliest "pure landscapes" with no human figures are frescos from
Minoan Greece of around 1500 BCE.
Jazz Music
Jazz can be described generally as music rooted in improvisation and characterized by
syncopated rhythm, a steady beat and unique tone colors and performance techniques. Although
the term jazz became current in 1917, the music itself was probably heard as early as 1900.
Roots of Jazz
Early jazz blended elements from many musical cultures, particularly West African,
American and European. West African influences included an emphasis on improvisation,
drumming, percussive sounds and complex rhythms as well as a feature known as call and
response. In much West African vocal music, a chorus repeatedly answers a soloists phrases;
similarly, in jazz, call and response occurs when a voice is answered by an instrument.
Types of Jazz
1. Cool Jazz - (emerged in the late 1940s and early 1950s) was related to bob but far
calmer
and more relaxed.
2. Free Jazz - created in 1960s, a style that was not based on regular forms and
established
chord patterns.
3. Jazz Rock - a new style integrating the jazz musicians improvisatory approach into a
style
employing rock musical forms, rhythms and tone colors.
Ragtime (1890s-1950)
A style of composed piano music developed primarily by black pianists who played in
southern and Midwestern saloons and dance halls. It is generally in duple meter (2/4 time
signature) and performed at a moderate march tempo.
Blues
Blues refers to a form of vocal and instrumental music and to a style of performance.
Blues grew out of African American folk music such as work songs, spirituals and the field hollers
of slaves. It is uncertain exactly when blues originated but by around 1890s it was sung in rural
areas of the south. The original country blues usually performed with a guitar accompaniment
was unstandardized in form or syle.

Swing
A new jazz style called swing developed in the 1920s and flourished from 1935-1945. It
was played mostly by big bands; the typical swing band had about fifteen players in three
sections - saxophones, brasses (trumpet and trombone), and rhythm (piano, percussion, guitar
and bass).
Bebob (early 1940s)
Bebop, or bob, was a complex style, usually for small jazz groups and meant for attentive
listening rather than dancing. It had sophisticated harmonies and unpredictable rhythms and its
performers were a special in-group. A typical bebop ensemble might have saxophone and a
trumpet supported by a rhythm section of piano, bass and percussion.
Rock Music
The mid-1950s saw the growth of a new kind of popular music that was first called rock
and roll and then simply rock. Though it includes diverse styles, rock tends to be vocal music
with a hard, driving beat, often featuring electric guitar accompaniment and heavily amplified
sound.
History of Rock
Early rock grew mainly out of rhythm and blues, a dance music of African Americans that
fused blues, jazz and gospel styles. Rock also drew upon country and western; a folk like, guitarbased style associated with rural white Americans and on pop music, also listened to by a
primarily white audience.
Elements of Rock
1. Tone Color - The electric-guitar sound of rock is very different from the brass-woodwind
sound of
the big band heard in earlier popular music. Rock music is powerfully amplified,
and
the guitar (typically the leading instrument) is often manipulated electronically to
produce a wide range of tone colors.
2. Rhythm - Rock is based on a very powerful beat in quadruple (4/4) meter with strong accents
on
the second and forth beats of the bar. The rhythmic excitement heightened because
each beat is subdivided into two equal notes. This produces 8 faster pulses which are
superimposed on the 4 basic beats.
3. Form, Melody and Harmony - The earliest rock music was often in 12-bar blues form, in 32bar AABA
form, or in a variant of these forms. Other common popular music structures include
strophic and verse-chorus forms. Strophic form, in which the musical
accompaniment remains the same for each stanza of the lyrics.
The Beatles have so far been the most influential performing group in the history of rock. The
group are composed of members such as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison,
and Ringo Starr.