Aerophones

After listening to an hour of classical music, I began to hear many more aerophones in classical music than I ever have before. Since many are not very noticeable over the power of the string instrument I overlooked them before. The first piece that was played was a cello piece written by Bach, but the entire piece was played on an acoustic guitar. This song was a solo piece and did not include any aerophones. The second piece that was played was Symphony #85 written by Heiden. This piece had a few aerophones present, but not very many. I was able to hear an oboe very clearly in the piece. Since this instrument has a very distinct sound, it was easy to recognize amongst the violins. I was also able to identify a flute in a few parts of the song. Lastly I was able to identify a bassoon in this piece. Most people would overlook this instrument in this piece, but I am familiar with the sound of the bassoon since I played it in middle school and high school. The last piece of music that I listened to included a variety of different aerophones. Throughout the piece I was able to identify a french horn, oboe, bassoon, piccolo and a trombone. This was by far the most variety of aerophones in all of the songs that i listened to, but it was still difficult to identify the instruments included without listening very closely.

Keyboard's Impact on Music

With the invention of the keyboard, music changed quite drastically. I believe that the biggest change was that bands did not have to find as many musicians to create the type of music they wanted. Since there was one instrument that could produce so many different sounds, there was no need for bands to find many talented musicians. As long as there was one person in the band that was able to play a keyboard, the band could produce hundreds of different sounds to incorporate into their songs. The keyboard also changed the type of music that was being produced. Many sounds that can be produced by a keyboard would be very difficult to reproduce with actual instruments. This allowed musicians to become much more creative with the music that they were composing. The keyboard had an extreme impact on bands and the music that they created. Although some may think that the keyboard lessens the talent of music, I believe that it opened up hundreds of new doors for musicians.

The Guitar's Role in Different Genres

While listening to an hour of music in four different genres, I realized that while guitars play a key role in some music, they are not even used in other music. I decided to listen to rock, pop, country and rap. While listening to rock I found that for the majority of the songs played guitars were the main instrument, however there were still some songs that relied heavily on the piano with the guitar being used as a background instrument. I did not know what I was going to find while listening to pop music. I was surprised when I was able to hear small guitar parts mostly as background; I never noticed this before and I was expecting not to hear much guitar at all. Country was the only genre in which guitars were in every single song that I listened to. Guitars play an extremely important role in this type of music. I was able to hear acoustic and electric guitars in nearly every song, and bass guitars in a couple other songs. The last genre that I listened to was rap and I was not able to hear any guitars in this type of music, but I was not expecting to. Overall I was able to find guitars in more music than I thought. I found that when listening to music where guitars are taking a less powerful role, they are often overlooked.

Chordophones

While listening to DPR I was able to identify a variety of different instruments. Although not all of them were chordophones, each had a very distinctive sound. While listening for one hour I was able to listen to 5 or 6 different pieces. The first piece was an orchestra with two oboe soloists. In this piece I was able to hear a clavichord, and violins very easily. There were no other instruments that really stuck out but after listening carefully I was able to hear either a cello or bass. The second and last piece were performed by an orchestra. I could hear a lot of violins along with a variety of other stringed instruments like cellos. The remainder of the songs were performed on the piano. One of the songs was mainly performed on a piano with a small orchestra in the backgroud. The orchestra had a violin and a lower range string instrument. All of the songs that I listened to were performed by the newer string instruments, other than the first song that I listened to in which a clavichord was used. This goes to show that since technology is improving constantly there is no need to use instruments that are difficult to play or keep in tune.

Membranophone

For my membranophone I used a cardboard paper towel roll and wax paper. I cut the tube into 3 different lengths and pulled the wax paper tightly over the top of each one. I then put a rubber band around the tube to hold the wax paper in place. Since I have 3 different heights of drums I was able to make 3 different sounds.

Idiophone

For my idiophone I used plastic cups as the main material. Using scissors I made eleven cups of different sizes. I then connected them all together in height order. In order to make the sounds different and audible I had to suspend the cups using some cardboard and I used pencils as my mallets. I was not able to take any video of my idiophone but I have included a picture.

Better Days

I chose to describe the song "Better Days" by the Goo Goo Dolls. After listening to the song several times I was able to find out some information about the sound, harmony, rhythm, melody and form. The texture of the song was clearly homophonic in its entirety, there was one single voice with many instruments accompanying it. The harmony seemed to be in major with a diatonic key; the music harmonized well and always seemed to sound "happy." The rhythm in this song changed a few times from fast to slow and back again led by the accompanying instruments. While the lead singer was singing, the piano that was accompanying him used a lot of up to down contour along with both stepped and skipped notes. The lead singer sang the chorus nearly the same everytime, but there were a few changes to the lyrics in each chorus. The rest of the lyrics are contrasting because they are all very different from each other and the chorus. The accompanying instruments seem to be playing repeated portions, with some additional contrasting parts. While listening and trying to find details about the song I heard the song differently than I ever have before. I was concentrating on what the individual instruments were doing and how they were the same or different from how the lead singer was singing. This exercise gave me a new respect for how complicated music is.

Music All Around

It is amazing how many sources of music there are in just one day of my life. When I am not looking for music it is easy to forget about how much music is actually involved in my day to day life. As I concentrated on where I heard music I was surprised by the variety of places I found it. When I woke up in the morning, I woke up to music playing as my alarm went off. After receiving the assignment to listen to where music comes from for 24 hours, I did not think I would hear much music during the beginning of my day, I overlooked the fact that my day always starts out with music. Even while I was eating breakfast, there was music playing on the TV during commercials and the news cast. During the rest of the day I heard music from my own stereo, my roommates stereo, a house down the street and many people's cell phones ringing. There were so many sources of music that I overlooked since it is a usual occurrence in my everyday life. Music is such a big part of everyone's lives, but I do not believe people realize the impact that it has on our lives.