As you read Chapter 7, be sure to make the distinction between color of individual instruments and color of groups. Copland refers to these as single and mixed tone colors, respectively.
Chapter 8: Musical Texture
Assignment
In What to Listen For in Music, by Aaron Copland, read Chapters 7 & 8 before coming to this class. As you read, be sure to listen to the musical excerpts provided within the chapters (below on this page). Listen to them as you encounter them; then continue reading.
An aside: Instrument Tuning
In class, a student asked about the relative tuning of various instruments. Perhaps the student had heard that a trumpet is a Bb instrument, and a French horn an F instrument.
When a piano plays the note C, does it correspond to the C of the violin, oboe, trumpet, french horn? If the orchestra is to sound a C, do all instruments finger their C and produce the same note, or must different instruments play different notes on their own that have the same pitch as the C of the piano?
The answer: When is comes to tuning, there are two types of instruments -- non-transposing and transposing instruments. All the strings are non-transposing, which means their C is the same as C on a properly tuned piano (call it concert C). Many of the wind instruments are transposing, which means that their natural key is not C. The trumpet is a Bb instrument, which means that when the trumpeter fingers and blows C, we hear Bb, an interval of one major first lower than C. So to play a concert C, the trumpet must finger and blow D, one major first above C. The natural key of the French horn and English horn is F, a major fifth below C. So to play concert C, these horns must finger and blow G, a major fifth above C.
Question: Just before beginning to play a musical piece, the orchestra usually tunes to concert A, at 440 Hz. Usually a violin plays its A, and then an oboe, which is easier for the other players to hear, matches it, plays it louder, and everyone else tunes to match the note. What note must each of the following instruments play to match this pitch and hear whether they are in tune? The Bb trumpet? The F French horn? The Eb alto saxophone? The C flute?
Don't peek until you have tried to answer.
(Answers: to play concert A, each instrument plays as follows: trumpet, B; French horn, E; alto sax, F#; flute, A)
For more, see Instruments and Transpositions.
Try to answer this question with a web search: Why are some instruments designed in keys other than C? So far, I have not found an answer that I find satisfying.
Don't Forget to look at the bottom of the page for student suggestions, questions, and comments.
••••••••
In 2019, I expanded discussion of jazz with the following material:
Jazz: A Case Study
Using what we have learned about rhythm, melody, and especially harmony, we will listen to and discuss some jazz, emphasizing what is going on, and what to listen for, during improvisation.
Listen to the two jazz pieces below.
In each piece, pay particular attention to the theme, a relatively simple tune played as the first verse. Then try to keep that tune in your head while you listen to how it is modified in subsequent verses, when various players play improvised solos. The theme returns at the end. Can you keep singing the theme over the improvisations? It's not easy.
Woody Herman's Band, Tunin' In
The Woody Herman piece gets its name from its lengthy introduction (before the theme is stated), which sounds like a band tuning up by playing the note called "concert A". Once they break into the tune, they state the theme clearly, in aaba form.
Thelonius Monk Trio, Blue Monk
The Monk piece states its theme (form is aab) clearly right at the start, and then each player gets an extended solo, featuring improvisations that range far from the theme, but keep to the same chord progression. As is typical, the theme returns at the end. Can you keep singing the theme over the improvisations? (This one's harder !)
Now listen to this little survey of piano styles, all played by Oscar Peterson:
Then we will resume our trip through the text.
An Aside: Perfect Pitch?
What does it mean to have "perfect pitch"? Is it common among musicians? Is it a necessary part of musical ability?
If you are curious about this ability, read these entries at Wikipedia:
1) Absolute Pitch
2) Relative Pitch
Understanding absolute and relative pitch should help you to distinguish various pitch-related talents and skills found in the population, and their relationship to musical ability.
Listen !
Here are videos of the musical excerpts in the text, followed by suggested listening.
Excerpts performed and recorded by Adam Matlock.
Chapter 7 (tone color)
Excerpts for Chapter 7
No musical excerpts in Chapter 7
Copland's Musical Recommendations for Chapter 7 (tone color)
1) Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34, by Benjamin Britten -- with Peter Pears (illustrated)
This version allows you to navigate easily to any instrument or group you want to hear. Just below the video, click "Show More" to show the links. This provides a nice way to hear instruments playing alone. Photos of each instrument accompany the music and narration.
2) Mozart—Sinfonia Concertante for Solo Winds and Orchestra
and Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra
3) Ravel—Bolero
This version focusses sharply and closely on each instrument as it enters the piece, which begins with quite snare drums, and adds instruments step by step until the music reaches a full throated, but still very precise, conclusion. Pay attention to how Ravel intensifies the music as the theme is repeated. Note how player intensity grows, and player techniques change to produce more and more violent music. The producer choses cameras and camera angles as the piece progresses ---- do you think the producer is reading the score?
Additional, Chapter 7 (tone color)
Pay particular attention to tone color in these three versions of the same work.
• Debussy -- The Girl with the Flaxen Hair (piano)
• Debussy -- The Girl with the Flaxen Hair (string orchestra)
• Debussy -- The Girl with the Flaxen Hair (trumpet and piano)
* Also see Additional, Chapter 8, below, The Composer's Voice
• Duke Ellington, with Ella Fitzgerald -- Take the A Train,
Try to figure out what instruments are playing in each stanza.
• Duke Ellington -- It Don't Mean a Thing If if Ain't Got That Swing
A little blurry, but you can see the voices here. A whole album of Ellington video HERE.
• Beatles -- A Day in the Life
---- Notice the two "noise passages" that follow the line, "I'd love to turn you on." What's going on?
---- This is a simple example of sectional form (more in Chapter 9 and following): first section, ending with the "noise", second second, a different melody, "noise", then repeat of first sections (different lyrics). We can call this form A-B-A. Why?
---- Musically, how might the melodies of this song be related?
• Here are some additional tone-color listening suggestions. Thanks to clarinetist (and OLLI instructor specializing in mathematics) Steve Schiffman for providing them.
1) Stravinsky: Octet for Winds - wind instrument tone color (cool rhythms, too!):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YyqLnP0hOnI
2) Wagner: Siegfried Idyll - orchestral tone color. Holy mackerel:
3) Vaughn Williams: Serenade to Music - vocal tone color. Each of the 16 solo voices has its own tone color (VW knew the singers who premiered the work). Reputedly brought Rachmaninov to tears when he heard it at its premier (on a concert in which he played his second piano concerto in the first half!):
• Special demands of the cello. (Watch beginning at 3:40 and ending at 4:30.)
••••••
Chapter 8 (musical texture)
Excerpts for Chapter 8
Page 83
Score for above; click to enlarge.
Page 84
Score for above; click to enlarge.
Suggested example of polyphony:
Page 85, “ Here we must confine ourselves to a single illustration: Bach’s well-known chorale prelude Ich ruf zu Dir, Herr Jesu Crist.”
Copland says that learning to listen to polyphonic (many-voice) music is the most difficult, and requires repeated listening. Listen to this Bach prelude once while following the top line of the score, or simply listening to the highest voice. Then listen again, following, or just listening, to the faster-moving middle voice. Most difficult (for me, at least), is to listen a third time for the lowest voice, whose pace is more like the highest voice.
You might be able to hear the voices better in Stokowski's orchestral version that Copland recommends in the book (p. 86). You'll need pretty good speakers to hear the bass line in this version and the one above.
Page 88
Score for above; click to enlarge.
Copland's Musical Recommendations for Chapter 8 (texture)
1) Gregorian Chant—The “Sarum” Liturgy
2) Medieval Polyphony—Music of Johannes Ciconia
3) Bach—Mass in B Minor
Click SHOW MORE below the video window to see a set of links that take you to the beginnings of movements. This allows you to sample the music in each part of this work, which is almost two hours long. This is just the thing for a snowy Sunday afternoon by the fire, with a new issue of Scientific American.
4) Beethoven—Symphony No. 7. Or listen to the allegretto movement only, as discussed by Copland on pages 89-90:
Additional, Chapter 8 (texture)
A Composer's Voice: Tone Color, and Texture
Can you hear the composer's voice in these two, very different arrangements of this music.
• Copland -- Quiet City, orchestral version
• Copland -- Quiet City, original chamber version written as incidental music for the play Quiet City, by Irwin Shaw.
The Science of Music 4
How musical instruments make sound
2. String instruments
END OF RESOURCES FOR CLASS 4, SPRING 2019
••••••
Below is material from the 2018 course, with a guest musician demonstrating the saxophone as an example of tone color, and of the special opportunities and constraints that a specific instrument offers to the composer.
••••••Special Program
As part of our treatment of tone color, today's class will begin with demonstration and discussion of the clarinet, featuring clarinetist Steve Schiffman. He will play for us and talk about the clarinet, including the special opportunities it offers to the classical composer, and particular demands it makes on the artist. On pages 67 through 69, Copland does a similar sort of thing, using the piano as his one example. He mentions that a book on orchestration would contain this kind of discussion of every instrument. So we will have the clarinet as add one more detailed example.
The clarinet is a wind instrument that is essentially a closed tube. Remember, that means closed at one end, in this case, at the upper end (where it has a mouthpiece, but no opening like that of a recorder; see Science of Music, Unit 3).
Read more about the clarinet HERE.
Learn more about any instrument that interests you by looking it up in Wikipedia.
Additional Listening Suggestions
The following works were mentioned during Steve's presentation. You might enjoy them.
• A. Copland -- Clarinet Sonata This was Steve's composer puzzle at the beginning of class. The clarinet in this performance is custom made of boxwood. If you know Copland's most popular work, "Appalachian Spring", you will hear reminders of it in this beautiful piece. Steve's performance was my first experience of this musics, and I tickled that he brought it to our attention.
• A. Copland -- Clarinet Concerto, Benny Goodman, clarinet
• W. A. Mozart -- Clarinet Quintet and Clarinet Concerto, Benny Goodman, clarinet
• R. Strauss -- Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (watch for clarinet parts -- staying with this score is tricky!
• O. Messiaen -- Quartet for the End of Time Look up the history of this piece at Wikipedia. Movement 3 is the one that Steve mentioned after describing Messiaen's fondness for bird songs.
And here are a few more clarinet pieces that Steve sent to us:
And here are a few more clarinet pieces that Steve sent to us:
Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet (first movement). Harold Wright (died in 1994) of the Boston Symphony, one of the best clarinetists of all time.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nEmX2dE3iSQ
Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet (second movement). Note especially the “gypsy” middle section.
“Abyss of the Birds” movement from Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time”. (Great register leaps are approximately 4 minutes in, but other amazing effects abound).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_XYZKGklT20You might enjoy this video about the clarinet, featuring the principal clarinetist of the Nashville Symphony. Here and in Steve's demonstration, you will see that, as with all musical instruments, there is more to it than plug and play.
