Tuesday, January 19, 2016

World Music

Aural Analysis
- Listen first (and listen often)
- Read
- Explore
- What do you need to know for quizzes?
• Country? Instruments? Context?
- Tuning System (the entire selection of frequencies)
• The octave is fairly universal through all tuning systems
- (when you double the cycles per second, you get an octave)
- In Western music, the octave is divided into 12 equal parts, but there are a lot of
other ways to divide the octave.

- The Pentatonic Scale divides the octave into 5 equal parts

- Indian Ragas divide the octave into 7 parts but not equally. “Sa, ri, ga, ma, Pa,
dha, ni, Sa”
- Scale is something more specific than tuning system. A scale is a collection of
pitches used during a specific moment (long or short).

- Rhythmic Density - the quantity of notes between particular units of time - is

described as thick or thin

• Thin - Much of classical music fits in this category. There aren’t a lot of different
rhythms going on at the same time.

• Thick - Lots of different rhythms going on at the same time

- Phonic Structure (texture) - (e.g. monophony, polyphony, homophony)
• Monophony - one voice, can be in octaves
• Polyphony - more than one pitch class happening at the same time. Melody plus
chords can also be called polyphony.

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- Homophony - a type of polyphony… Melody plus chords. We will call this
polyphony in this class.

• Heterophony - The same melody, but different versions of it happening

simultaneously
- The interest is not harmonic, but melodic, in many cultures (e.g. Thai)
- Makes the melody very rich
- Organology - the study of instruments
• Sachs-Hornbostel system - classifies the instruments based on how they make
noise. Includes subcategories.
- Aerophones - Uses a column of air to make sound
• Flutes - air passes through a pipe (organ fits here)
• Reeds - air vibrates a reed
• Trumpets - spitting noise into the instrument
- Chordophones - make noise by a string being plucked, rubbed, hit. The player
interacts with the string, the string vibrates, and the rest of the instrument
projects the vibration.

• Lutes - Think guitar, violin, etc. Strings on a neck

• Zithers - The strings are parallel to the resonating chamber (piano fits here)
• Harps - The strings are perpendicular to the resonating chamber
- Idiophones - The instrument itself is both resonating chamber and the thing that
vibrates

• Shaken - e.g. shakers, etc.

• Plucked -
• Struck - e.g. marimba, etc. You hit the bar and the bar itself vibrates
- Membranophones - We think of them as drums, but the kazoo also fits here.
• There are lots of ways to classify membranophones
- Body shape (hourglass shape, barrel shape, etc.)
- Single or double head

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- Definite or indefinite pitch
- (Electrophones) -