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  • Prof: Good morning, let us begin.

  • Today we're going to move away from the first dimension of

  • music that we've been looking at,

  • which is duration, or time, and begin to work with

  • the second, which is pitch, and melody.

  • And here's an initial question for you.

  • Think of the texture of music and think of these strands of

  • high and low.

  • Where does melody sit in the texture?

  • Is it high, middle or low?

  • Where is it?

  • If you think about it conceptually,

  • try to figure out, well, I got this board up here,

  • this tapestry, or whatever,

  • where's my melody going to be in the texture:

  • high, middle or low?

  • Michael?

  • Student: It would be high.

  • Prof: Yeah, usually high.

  • Now, here's an interesting question for you,

  • why is it usually high?

  • There's an acoustical reason for this.

  • Why does the melody show up in the high range?

  • Student: >

  • Prof: I beg your pardon?

  • Student: It's easier to hear.

  • Prof: It's easier to hear in a high range.

  • Why is it easier to hear in a high range?

  • What about the acoustics here?

  • Once again, the laws of acoustics.

  • Why is it easier to hear in a high range?

  • I could play for you, for example,

  • a little bit of Mozart.

  • It would sound like this.

  • >

  • You like that?

  • >

  • Sounds better up there, doesn't it?

  • Why is that the case?

  • Yeah.

  • Student: Maybe you can put the frequency of the higher

  • pitches as high so you can detect the sound quicker and

  • >.

  • Prof: That's it exactly.

  • In a melody, we tend to have a lot of

  • rhythmic activity there.

  • It's got to have activity to play itself out as melody.

  • But because the way sound waves operate, we have these low sound

  • waves taking a very long time to clear.

  • The higher frequencies take a lot shorter time to clear.

  • They're short sound waves.

  • They clear very quickly.

  • So, we can hear a melody--we can hear a melody more clearly

  • in this higher register and therefore,

  • there is always the tendency to have the bass play long,

  • low notes because those sounds take a long time to clear and

  • melodies play faster notes because those sounds clear

  • quickly and we can hear and enjoy the melody.

  • All right, that's just an opening thought about why

  • melodies show up in the top part of the texture.

  • Let's talk about melody here and let's talk about pitch.

  • We said before that in Western music we have musical notation.

  • And musical notation is relied on more in Western music than

  • any other musical civilization around the world.

  • And in the West, this whole idea of pitch

  • notation goes back to the ninth century,

  • when the monks and nuns in Benedictine abbeys in

  • Switzerland and France and Germany and northern Italy

  • started doing this; they started marking on

  • parchment or slate the general course of a melody.

  • Eventually, what they did was to separate these lines into

  • more discreet places, or more discreet pitches.

  • Then around one thousand in northern Italy,

  • an enterprising fellow named Guido of Arezzo came along and

  • said, "Well, you know what?

  • I can get this to show us how far up we are supposed to go,

  • by placing it on some kind of grid here,"

  • and this is this-- as I said before,

  • the beginning of the first graph in the history of the

  • West.

  • This grid of horizontal lines (and we will know that if we're

  • going from here to here), it's got to be exactly this

  • frequency, or at least this space.

  • So, initially they came up with four lines and then eventually

  • five and even six, and then they went back to five

  • by the fifteenth century.

  • What they also did around the year one thousand was to

  • identify--to label--these particular spots--spaces and

  • lines.

  • So they began to call this A and this B and this C and this D

  • and this E, this F, this G.

  • When they got up here, they stopped.

  • Why did they stop?

  • Why didn't they keep right on going with G,

  • H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P?

  • Why don't we sing Ms and Os and Ps today?

  • Why did they stop?

  • Any ideas?

  • >

  • Roger?

  • Student: >

  • Prof: Yeah, they had this thing--they hit

  • this thing called the octave.

  • And, of course, there's this--another

  • acoustical phenomenon here we've talked about before,

  • what's the relationship within an octave?

  • The string is vibrating higher when it's exactly twice what the

  • lower one is .

  • So, they heard this and they heard this as essentially all

  • one sound.

  • So, if it's a duplication of sound, let's duplicate the

  • letters.

  • But you can look at manuscripts of the early eleventh century

  • and see people singing Ps and Ls and Os and Ms and things like

  • that.

  • But eventually, they began to uniformly adopt

  • this system of what's called "octave duplication."

  • And every musical culture around the world--

  • and I've talked with ethnomusicologists about this

  • particular point-- every musical culture around

  • the world, Chinese, Japanese,

  • Indonesian, Indian, African whatever,

  • they all use this phenomenon of octave duplication in their

  • music-- octave duplication in the music.

  • But how they divide up this sonic space within the octave

  • can vary rather considerably.

  • Some Arabic music seems to have as many as fourteen gradations

  • within the octave.

  • Now, we're going to listen to a piece of music here from the

  • tradition of classical India and I thought we might have a sitar

  • player in here.

  • Somebody--I got wind of the fact we might have a classical

  • Indian musician in our class, somebody that had studied the

  • sitar and might be able to come in and play one for us.

  • But we don't have that, so we're going to use something

  • on our CDs by the world famous sitarist, Ravi Shankar.

  • Okay, you've probably heard of him.

  • He's actually quite old now.

  • He must be--surely he's in his eighties.

  • He was very famous when I was in graduate school tons and tons

  • of years ago.

  • So--but he is the venerable sitar player.

  • And here is the pattern, the raga.

  • We'll call it a scale.

  • It's not really a scale but a raga that he is using.

  • It's got only six notes within the octave.

  • >

  • Prof: And the six notes are-->

  • --that particular pattern.

  • Doesn't sound like any scale we've ever heard of.

  • So, let's listen to Ravi Shankar play a bit of a raga

  • using a six-note scale.

  • >

  • Okay, so that gives you a flavor of that and you have

  • that, of course, on your CD number six,

  • fifteen.

  • So that's a bit of sitar music.

  • Now, we're going to play another six-note scale.

  • Let's go onto that one when Lynda gets set.

  • And this, of course, is sung by Nora Jones.

  • And, as you know from reading the textbook,

  • why do I mention Nora Jones?

  • Or why do we play Nora Jones right after Ravi Shankar?

  • Student: It's his daughter..

  • Prof: It's his daughter.

  • Isn't that interesting?

  • Every Saturday morning I'm going through Stop 'N Shop and

  • there's Nora Jones in the background playing.

  • I'm going down the pasta aisle or whatever, and I have the

  • daughter of Ravi Shankar over my shoulder.

  • What a world, huh?

  • So, we're going to listen to just a couple of seconds here of

  • a blues tune sung by Nora Jones.

  • >

  • Okay, so we'll just cut off here.

  • But what she's working off of here--we're not going to listen

  • to the whole thing--is this idea of a blues scale.

  • >

  • And so on. How's that operate?

  • One, two, three, four, five, six.

  • With this one, sometimes major and sometimes

  • minor.

  • We'll come back to that part.

  • So, that's another six-note scale but a different sort of

  • pattern, a different kind of pattern.

  • It's a blues scale pattern.

  • It's kind of between the major and minor that we'll talk about

  • a little bit later on.

  • So, two different forms of a six-note pattern,

  • let's go to a five-note pattern.

  • If you've ever visited parts of Indonesia--

  • which I have not--and if you've ever visited parts of China--

  • which I have not--I am told that you will hear this kind of

  • music.

  • It's played by a traditional Chinese instrument called the

  • erhu.

  • This I have seen around the world many times and heard.

  • It's a two-stringed instrument that produces a particularly

  • beautiful, vibrant tone.

  • So, we're going to listen to an erhu playing.

  • I think this is track--if you want to pursue it,

  • it's track--six-CD--track sixteen.

  • Let's listen to an erhu play a melody by a traditional Chinese

  • composer-- we call him in English

  • "Abbing" and you can read about him

  • there in your textbook.

  • >

  • Okay, so let's see--let's pick that up.

  • >

  • Five notes within the octave just there.

  • So, it's a penta--what we call a pentatonic scale.

  • And that's used in a lot of Far East cultures--the pentatonic

  • scale, just a five-note scale there.

  • Okay, so we have--there's a whole idea of octave

  • duplication--sometimes six notes, sometimes five notes.

  • We in the west have settled on a seven-note scale.

  • Why did that happen?

  • Well, we have this idea of a seven-note major and seven-note

  • minor.

  • Why seven notes?

  • Well, for the answer to that we have to go back to ancient Greek

  • music theory, and when you read about

  • this--it's really turgid stuff-- but believe it or not,

  • I teach a course on this at the graduate level.

  • We have to read--poor Lynda has to take this kind of

  • stuff--reading Aristoxenus and things like this.

  • So, what we're dealing here with is a situation where the

  • ancient Greeks were very much into mathematics as a way of

  • explaining the world and explaining music in particular .

  • And they thought these ratios were primary.

  • So, they had the ratio of two to one,

  • which gave them the octave, and three to two,

  • which gave them the fifth, and four to three,

  • which gave them the fourth.

  • They also, because the system worked out better for their

  • purposes, then jumped to nine to eight, which gave them the whole

  • tone.

  • So, they started out there and let's say they were working down

  • here.

  • They filled in the octave up above and then they filled in

  • the fifth and then they filled in the fourth and then they came

  • down a whole step and then they went up a fourth from that whole

  • step and then up a fourth from that,

  • and they were filling in in this fashion.

  • Interestingly enough--and you ever wonder this?--sometimes

  • somebody will wander by a keyboard and say,

  • "That's odd."

  • What's the great oddity about the keyboard?

  • What's strange about this keyboard?

  • It's very asymmetrical, right?

  • Marcus?

  • Student: It's missing >.

  • Prof: Yeah, it's missing some notes in

  • here.

  • It's missing something in here, and it's missing--well what

  • these are were the cracks.

  • After the Greeks laid out their fifths and fourths and whole

  • steps, they had these little leftovers.

  • They called them leimmas.

  • They had these little leftovers in there and that's why we end

  • up with these small distances between B and C

  • >

  • That's a big step.

  • >

  • That's a small step there.

  • So, the scale is actually not equal.

  • A to B is one distance, which is a large one,

  • and B to C is only half that distance,

  • and that's because of the way the Greeks laid this thing out

  • with their two to one ratios, three to two ratios and so on.

  • But in any event, we end up with this.

  • Now, the Greeks had a whole series of patterns.

  • They called them mixolydian, and hypomixolydian and phrygian

  • and hypophrygian and stuff like this.

  • A lot of different patterns.

  • But in the course of history, we settled beginning in the

  • sixteenth and seventeenth century,

  • down into just two patterns: what we call the major pattern

  • and the minor pattern.

  • So, let's talk about that just for a moment.

  • And before we do it, I should add one other thing:

  • how, then, do we get these other notes up here,

  • we get these other notes up here?

  • Well, what we now call the black notes--

  • although historically keyboards could be either way--

  • you could have these added notes black or white and then

  • these underneath would be black.

  • So we filled these out.

  • In the fourteenth century, all of this got filled in.

  • These between B and C and E and F didn't get filled in because

  • they were already just the smallest amount that they wanted

  • to deal with, just half steps.

  • So, we end up here within an octave--

  • we end up with twelve equal pitches,

  • but we still use this term a 'seven-note scale' because we

  • have seven notes within the scale of the major scale and

  • seven notes within the scale of the minor scale.

  • All right, so let's talk about major and minor now.

  • And we've put those patterns up here.

  • This is given for you in your textbook.

  • This is something of a review.

  • Let's start with a major scale on a C.

  • So, here is the symbol for C and the staff here is where C

  • would be located on the keyboard.

  • We're going to start here and we have this pattern of the

  • major that goes whole, whole, half,

  • whole, whole, whole, half step.

  • So, we start on C and then we go up to D--a whole step.

  • I'm going to write that in here.

  • That's good, then we go D up to E;

  • that's another whole step.

  • Now, I have a half step.

  • I got to go up just a half step there, I'm on E.

  • But it's just--F is just a half step away, so that's good.

  • I don't need to do anything more than that.

  • Now, I'm on F here.

  • Well, I need a whole step.

  • There's my one.

  • I need a whole step.

  • I got to go up to G and then another whole step up to A and

  • then another whole step up to B.

  • And the last one in the major pattern is a half step from B to

  • C.

  • There we are, and that's good.

  • So, we've got our major scale.

  • Let's talk a little bit about the minor scale.

  • Now, it's got a different pattern.

  • It's got a different pattern.

  • They like melodies to go this way.

  • They like melodies to go this way.

  • Let's start on the same pitch, C.

  • Let's go up a whole step.

  • What's a whole step above C?

  • Up--just D.

  • Now, we need, according to our pattern,

  • to go up just a half step.

  • What's a half step above D?

  • Well, then we have to think about it.

  • We've got to get into these black notes, which can be called

  • sharps or flats.

  • They're called sharps if they're up above the note in

  • question.

  • This would be some kind of D sharp.

  • They're called flats if they're down below.

  • So, flats are below, sharps take you up a half step.

  • So, we went C to D.

  • We need this pitch, here.

  • What are we going to call it?

  • Student: >

  • Prof: Or, we are going to call it D

  • sharp?

  • Well, we should call it E- flat.

  • We should call it E-flat and put it up on the E line because

  • there's kind of rule here that you have to use up each letter

  • name in turn, each letter name in turn.

  • We can't go C, D, D-sharp, F.

  • We got to go C, D, some kind of E,

  • F.

  • So, you've got to go up the alphabet here.

  • All right, so there we are, but is this,

  • from D to E, a half step?

  • We need a half step here.

  • What we've written is a whole step, so we've got to indicate

  • that this is just a half step away in that fashion,

  • D to E-flat.

  • Now, what do we do above E flat?

  • Well, a whole step here--there's one half,

  • there's another half, would take us to F,

  • whole step above F, would take us to G.

  • What am I going to write here?

  • From G I need a half step.

  • Here is--it doesn't--here's the pattern up here.

  • We'll focus on this one.

  • I need a half step above G.

  • What's a half step above G?

  • Student: >

  • Prof: A-flat.

  • Okay, I need, now, a whole step above A-flat.

  • Hmm, nice and loud please, Edward?

  • Student: >

  • Prof: B-flat, okay.

  • And then at the end of the process I have another whole

  • step from B-flat back to C, and that gets me back to my

  • octave in that fashion.

  • Okay, well, I think that's straightforward enough.

  • If you're unsure about that, check out, of course,

  • chapter three in the textbook, where these issues are

  • addressed.

  • Okay, we've been talking about scales, these ideas of major and

  • minor scales.

  • We said there are seven notes in each of these two scales,

  • twelve pitches all together within the octave.

  • But within the scale, all notes are not the same.

  • There's one note that's the primary note,

  • right?

  • What's the primary note called, the note around which all of

  • the others--all the others gravitate?

  • Student: >

  • Prof: Tonic note, okay?

  • Then there's one other that we have to know about,

  • it's called the leading tone.

  • And what it does is pull into the tonic.

  • Let's say we're in the key of C here.

  • The leading tone is always the seventh degree.

  • It's always a half step--always a half step--seventh degree,

  • right below, right below the tonic.

  • You might say, "Wait a minute,

  • I thought the tonic was down here."

  • Well, you got one, two, three, four,

  • five, six, seven and eight.

  • Eight is a duplication of one.

  • Eight and one are the tonic.

  • So, seven pulls up into eight.

  • It pulls up into eight--the tonic.

  • <<plays piano and sings>>

  • That's the leading tone.

  • Where's it want to go?

  • Student: >

  • <<sings while playing piano>>

  • Prof: You can hear it pulling in there.

  • Opera singers love this.

  • They love to kind of luxuriate in the opportunity to show off

  • their voice on a leading tone, build up expectation,

  • make you wait even more for that tonic.

  • Let's listen to Luciano Pavarotti sing a leading tone,

  • and as by coincidence, it happens to be the one-year

  • anniversary of Pavarotti's death this week.

  • So, here's Luciano Pavarotti singing a leading tone.

  • The tempo here is very slow and he slows it down even more and

  • then it just sits out there, this huge wonderful voice that

  • he had, on the leading tone.

  • <<Pavarotti singing>>

  • Prof: Okay, and you can hear him sort of--

  • he didn't go-->

  • He went-- >

  • You could hear him slide that leading tone up into the tonic

  • in that case.

  • Okay, so we've got across the idea of tonics and leading

  • tones.

  • Did we do tonics?

  • Do we know what a tonic is?

  • >

  • Sing it.

  • >

  • So, given the set-up, you kind of feel what you're

  • missing, you know, what this home pitch is--the

  • pitch to which you are gravitating.

  • Most of our popular music, folk songs and things like

  • that, are written in duple meter and in a major key.

  • Occasionally, you get things written in

  • triple meter and in a minor key--minor key.

  • >

  • That's Gershwin: Porgy and Bess,

  • in minor.

  • Folk song--<<plays piano>>

  • Old Civil War song.

  • And so on it goes.

  • Occasionally, you do run into pop pieces,

  • folk songs, in minor, but most of them are in

  • major--probably about eighty percent in major.

  • Same thing in the classical realm.

  • Lynda, what would you say, what percentage of classical

  • pieces are written in minor keys?

  • Student: Very small.

  • Prof: Well, give us a number,

  • take a-- Student: Five percent.

  • Prof: Only five?

  • Student: It's classical?

  • Prof: Classical, maybe a little more than that,

  • but not all that many.

  • Here's-- Student: >

  • Prof: I don't know, we should do a survey sometime.

  • Go through the literature, see what--but mostly,

  • for the most part, it shows minor--major.

  • Occasionally, minor is chosen.

  • Here's a good example of a minor from the second movement

  • of Beethoven's Third Symphony.

  • >.

  • But from Mozart, major--difference between major

  • and minor.

  • >

  • Lovely major.

  • >

  • So, we're used to making associations with major and

  • minor.

  • Major: happy, bright, optimistic,

  • a day like today.

  • Minor: somber.

  • >

  • Why is that the case?

  • Is there anything in the physics of this music?

  • No, not really.

  • There's nothing in the laws of acoustics here that cause that

  • to be the case.

  • If you look back over it, there was no major or minor in

  • western music up until about sixteenth century,

  • and then people started writing these things called madrigals,

  • that were tied to texts.

  • And they got in this habit of, every time they had a bright,

  • happy text, they'd set this in one kind of mode or key--

  • a major mode--and every time they had a sad one,

  • they'd set it in minor.

  • We got used to hearing it that way,

  • so it's kind of--every time, you know,

  • Schumann wants to write about the merry farmer--

  • >

  • But every time Chopin wants to write a funeral

  • march--<<plays piano>>.

  • And there's a tendency also--minor: low,

  • major: high kind of thing.

  • So, we get used to this.

  • And this point-- that it is culture rather than acoustics--

  • was brought home to me once in a discussion with a student here

  • at Yale who said to me, "Yeah, but over there at

  • the Slifka Center, we Jews have lots of happy

  • melodies and they are all in minor--

  • what you would call minor."

  • And so I thought about that, "Yeah, that's probably

  • true."

  • Even the-- <<plays piano>>

  • Isn't that the Israeli national anthem?

  • I think so.

  • Is that right? What is that?

  • What? Yes or no?

  • Student: Yes.

  • Prof: Okay, but it may be--how many

  • national anthems around the world do we have in minor keys?

  • And what does this say about the tradition of Jewish music?

  • Is it really Western or is it Eastern European or even with

  • some Asian influences?

  • Interesting issues--issues that can be brought home.

  • This kind of ambiguity sometimes you encounter in

  • klezmer music.

  • What's klezmer music?

  • Traditional Jewish folk music, a lot of it coming out of

  • Eastern Europe.

  • So, we're going to listen to a kind of souped up,

  • or rocked up, version of some klezmer music

  • here, and they have a strong bass,

  • electric bass underneath.

  • And we're going to listen to-->

  • A minor melody with a leading tone thrown in that gives it

  • this kind of exotic feel and then it will switch to major.

  • So, let's listen to this bit of klezmer music go back and forth

  • between minor and major.

  • >

  • Okay, so that's the intro.

  • Now, we're going to go onto the shift to major here,

  • another little clip.

  • >

  • So, there it's in major.

  • Let's listen a little bit more.

  • It's going to go back to minor and then I think shift back to

  • major.

  • We'll be able to hear the shift.

  • Turn it down just a little bit, Lynda, please.

  • >

  • Major or minor?

  • Raise your left hand if you think it's minor.

  • What about this: major or minor?

  • Right hand if it's major, left if it's minor.

  • This is major.

  • >

  • Okay, that's a little bit of this ambiguity between major and

  • minor in a piece of traditional Jewish music.

  • Let's see, we've talked about--let's talk about hearing,

  • how we hear these melodies.

  • The reason that we hear these as distinctly different,

  • I think, happens rather early on in the scale.

  • Let's think about this for a minute.

  • We've got this scale up here.

  • >

  • If you go over to this scale.

  • >

  • Does that sound dark?

  • I don't know.

  • Five hundred years ago, that wouldn't have sounded

  • dark.

  • Now, that sounds dark to us, ominous.

  • >

  • But that darkness occurs very early in the scale.

  • As you can see there, it's the third note.

  • We'll be talking about the fact that this is an interval of a

  • third; it spans three letter names a

  • little bit later on.

  • So, that minor third can show up very early in the scale.

  • That's a critical moment in any scale, determining how we're

  • going to feel about it.

  • We can just play with that particular interval to change

  • entirely the way we feel about particular melodies.

  • Here is a Christian song.

  • I guess it's--<<plays piano>>

  • "Joy to the world, the Lord has come,"

  • don't we sing it as a Christmas carol, or some can sing it as a

  • Christmas carol?

  • >

  • Not much joy there.

  • You like that one?

  • How about-- <<plays piano>>

  • Or my favorite is-->

  • You know, you can turn this whole thing into a Jewish bar

  • mitzvah or something like that.

  • You were singing with the Coen Brothers down somewhere in,

  • you know, in Appalachia.

  • What was the wonderful movie that had the Coen Brothers and

  • all that great American folk music in it?

  • You Are My Sunshine, Brother, Where Art Thou?

  • Wasn't that what it was called?

  • Brother, Where Art Thou? Yeah.

  • So, just that little turn of a switch there.

  • You can do some great things with changing the mode.

  • So, we've got scales that are in the major mode;

  • we've got scales in the minor mode.

  • We also have scales in the chromatic mode and that's when

  • we don't have just seven pitches within the scale.

  • We're going to use all of the pitches,

  • all twelve here.

  • Chroma is the Greek word for color.

  • So, this is a more colorful scale.

  • What does it do for us?

  • >

  • Well, that's a chromatic scale.

  • We had an example of that the other day working with the

  • Mozart--where was that?

  • In the Requiem.

  • Oh phooey.

  • Yeah, remember we had--he was coming up a minor scale.

  • >

  • And then he, at the top of it--<<plays

  • scale>>

  • --switched over into a chromatic scale.

  • Here's the score.<<plays piano>>

  • Minor.<<plays piano>>

  • Now chromatic.

  • >

  • What does this do to us?

  • Why did he do that?

  • Well, chromaticism adds tension to music and especially

  • chromaticism that's pulling up.

  • Scales that go up add tension.

  • Music goes up generally in tension--

  • but if you can double that, combine that with chromatic

  • music, then you've got a sort of super

  • whammy of tension, and that's what he's doing

  • there--trying to build tension as the Just rise from the graves

  • at that particular point.

  • Entire compositions are rarely written in the chromatic scale.

  • Yeah, it's kind of a color that you throw in from time to time

  • for special effect.

  • So, we've got the major/minor scales;

  • we've got the chromatic scales.

  • We also have what we call conjunct melodies.

  • >

  • Melodies that are just running up and down a scale--

  • neighboring tones.

  • >

  • Those are two Christmas carols that are very conjunct in

  • nature.

  • A good example--we used it a moment ago--of a disjunct melody

  • is-->

  • Can we all sing that?

  • Here we go.

  • Ready, sing, "Take me out to the

  • ballgame.

  • Take me out to the park, etc…"

  • It's amazing that that melody has become as popular as it has

  • given the fact that it's really hard to sing.

  • It's a very disjunct melody.

  • It's got all these odd leaps to it.

  • >

  • Sounds like Schoenberg almost.

  • It's sort of off the map here in terms of disjunctness.

  • But nonetheless, we have been able to absorb all

  • of that.

  • So, melodies can be conjunct or disjunct.

  • And possibly the most conjunct of all melodies in the history

  • of music was the melody that we looked at very briefly in the

  • first gathering, and that is Beethoven's famous

  • Ode to Joy.

  • Now, Ludwig van Beethoven was in his fifties when he was

  • working on his last symphony-- what would prove to be his last

  • symphony-- his Ninth Symphony,

  • and he'd been tinkering with this particular melody all the

  • way back to probably 1803, so it's about twenty years or

  • so.

  • Ninth Symphony is 1823-1824.

  • As early as 1803, we know he's working

  • on-->

  • Trying to get this to work just right.

  • And eventually, over this twenty-year period he

  • did get it to work just right.

  • Let me swing this board around.

  • Here's the famous melody.

  • I've put it in the key--what's called the bass clef here--and

  • it's in a major key.

  • We don't need to know what the particular notes are,

  • but let's look at this just for a moment because it works well

  • as a prototype of melody.

  • It does something that a lot of melodies do.

  • First of all, as you can see by the

  • trajectory here, it's very conjunct,

  • right, all neighboring notes here.

  • If you look at the German of the text, it has to do with

  • >

  • . The millions be embraced.

  • And this, I believe, is the sort of national anthem

  • for the United Nations.

  • So, this has to be something that we can all sing.

  • And if you have conjunct motion, that makes it easier.

  • It's also very symmetrical.

  • As you can see, it's nothing but a pattern of

  • four bars plus four bars plus four bars plus four bars.

  • And, as we said before, music has a syntax so that

  • these phrases have to be in a--arranged in a particular way

  • that makes sense.

  • So, we start out here with an opening phrase.

  • >

  • Is that the tonic?

  • Student: No.

  • Prof: Can anybody sing the tonic?

  • Student: >

  • Prof: Yeah, yeah-- >

  • Prof: The tonic is actually over here.

  • It's a little bit lower than that.

  • That was a really hard question.

  • I'm amazed that anybody got it.

  • Good for you.

  • So, what happens here is this opening phrase,

  • that we'll call A--musicians like to label stuff just with

  • alphabetical labels to keep it simple.

  • We'll call this phrase A.

  • It sort of opens things up, and we refer to this as the

  • antecedent phrase.

  • The next phrase, B-->

  • is very similar, but here it takes the

  • deviation--<& lt;sings>>

  • And gets it back--gets us back to the tonic.

  • Now, we could walk out the door at that point,

  • right?

  • >

  • We're feeling tonally stable there.

  • We've got it all together for the rest of the day.

  • However, it would be a pretty short melody.

  • So, what he then does is write an extension.

  • We'll call this C.

  • >

  • Very interesting.

  • Put an asterisk by this.

  • Beethoven, in a way, saved this melody.

  • He rescued this melody, which was in danger of becoming

  • excessively four-square, by doing what?

  • If I had been writing it-->

  • What did Beethoven do here?

  • We talked about it last time, a rhythmic device.

  • Syncopation.

  • He brings his opening note, that F-sharp,

  • in a beat early.

  • This should, you would think,

  • be a half note and this would start on the downbeat,

  • over here.

  • But he brings, in effect, the sound of the

  • downbeat in a beat early, gives it a little bit of pep

  • there at that particular point.

  • And then what is this here?

  • >

  • Well, of course it's a replication of B.

  • We've got to end on the tonic.

  • All pieces, classical or pop, one way or the other,

  • end on the tonic.

  • Okay, so let's have us, now--let me put a fermata over

  • this.

  • Let's all sing this.

  • I think it--we don't have to read the notes.

  • You don't have to sing any texts;

  • we're just going to sing "la."

  • I'll conduct in four, so sit back.

  • >

  • Everybody vocally prepared here?

  • Here we go.

  • I'll give you one, two, ready, sing.

  • >

  • Louder, louder.

  • >

  • Good.

  • >

  • We'll put a big ritard on it there.

  • So, we wanted to bang that syncopation and then,

  • of course, there's no sound on the downbeat over here to make

  • the syncopation work.

  • So, that's the melody.

  • Seems very simple, but took Beethoven a long time

  • to iron all this out and make this perfect melody,

  • the prototypical melody in a way.

  • And then in the early eighteen twenties, he decided to

  • incorporate this as the main theme of the last movement,

  • the finale of his last symphony.

  • So, this is some of the last music that Beethoven wrote in

  • the setting that we're about to listen to.

  • So, let's listen, we're not going to--I think

  • Lynda has it set here.

  • We're going to hear the beginning of this and he

  • presents this as a series of variations.

  • So here is the first presentation of our melody.

  • >

  • Nice and loud.

  • >

  • Student: >

  • Prof: That's okay.

  • >

  • Prof: And then he repeats C and B.

  • >

  • Okay, now let's pause it there.

  • Let's pause it right there.

  • Now, we're going to go on to the second presentation of the

  • theme, and I have three questions for you as we do so.

  • Where has the theme--the melody--gone here?

  • Is this a motive or a theme, by the way?

  • Student: >

  • Prof: Theme, it's not a motive.

  • It's way too long.

  • It's a good example of a theme.

  • It's way too long for a motive.

  • Motive would only go about four, five, six notes.

  • So, we have this beautiful theme here and as we listen to

  • this next presentation, where has the theme,

  • or melody, gone?

  • What instruments are playing it now?

  • What is the texture like?

  • How many lines can you hear in this texture?

  • How many strands of music do you hear--can you pick up?

  • And thirdly, what is this texture called?

  • Last time we said we had three kinds of texture in music which

  • are: monophonic, homophonic and polyphonic.

  • Which is this particular texture?

  • Okay, here we go.

  • >

  • So, what do you think?

  • How many lines--first of all, where has the melody gone--the

  • theme?

  • Student: >

  • Prof: It's gone up a little bit and it's being played

  • by what instruments?

  • Yeah, strings, violins, violins,

  • but not the top part of the violin family,

  • kind of second violin, middle range of the strings

  • here.

  • How many parts do you hear in it?

  • How many separate musical lines there?

  • Marcus?

  • Student: Three..

  • Prof: Three.

  • Tell us about those three.

  • We've just talked about one of them--the melody and the violins

  • up above.

  • Can you tell us about some of the others?

  • Student: >

  • Prof: Okay, they're doing like a

  • counterpoint, right.

  • They're doing-- yeah, okay.

  • It's too easy. I'm sorry.

  • I had to go for that.

  • They are playing a contrapuntal line.

  • But you're absolutely right, that's the key point and that

  • then answers, Marcus, what's the texture.

  • If you've got a--Marcus, please?

  • Student: Polyphonic..

  • Prof: Yeah, polyphonic.

  • So, this is polyphony here.

  • What was the third voice?

  • If we had melody up above in kind of a counterpoint,

  • as Marcus says, there, in the middle,

  • what was the--we had one other part, and what was that?

  • Well, let's listen a little more.

  • We've identified the melody.

  • Let's just see if we can pick up what the missing third part

  • here.

  • It's a bassoon playing the contrapuntal line.

  • >

  • Prof: So, what is the third part there?

  • The bass, yeah.

  • Usually, you're going to have a melody and you're going to have

  • a bass, so the bass is doing stuff--<<plays

  • piano>>

  • --underneath there.

  • So, there's the melody up above, this bassoon playing the

  • counterpoint, kind of in the middle,

  • and then the bass playing these notes quietly underneath.

  • It's a little bit hard to hear.

  • I think we have time.

  • Let's just continue right from there a little bit more.

  • >

  • Can you hear the bass, now?

  • >

  • There's the bassoon, counterpoint.

  • >

  • Okay, and let's listen to just a little--we're going to pause

  • it there.

  • Now, let's listen to, must be, what,

  • the third presentation, here, of the theme.

  • Where's the theme now?

  • Now, how many parts are there in the texture?

  • >

  • What about that?

  • Well, it's a little bit hard to tell exactly,

  • isn't it?

  • It's hard to tell.

  • What could you say for sure about it?

  • You've got a melody.

  • Where's it going now?

  • It's going up.

  • It's all now in the first violins.

  • What else is in there?

  • Student: >

  • Prof: A bass, yeah, we got a bass.

  • And now we--what else?

  • Some other stuff in the middle, all right?

  • And that's--that may be about as much as we can do with that.

  • I mean, really, myself included.

  • I could sort of sit there and try to track the lines,

  • but I'd have to repeat it.

  • So, I think if we said we've got melody, we've got theme,

  • we've got bass, we've got a bunch of other

  • stuff in the middle, that's just fine and dandy.

  • But the idea that they're all kind of independent,

  • points out once again that they are playing polyphonic texture.

  • Let's listen to the end of the polyphonic texture,

  • then Beethoven, and we'll stop with this.

  • Beethoven was like a military general, interesting the way he

  • operated, always setting up these battles.

  • And indeed, he wrote something called a Battle Symphony,

  • and you can just see him, how he's kind of marshalling

  • particular forces to do particular things at particular

  • times.

  • So, held back here the heavy artillery.

  • The heavy artillery in the orchestra is what?

  • The brass and sometimes percussion.

  • So, it's the brass he's going to bring in at this point.

  • So, we'll listen to the end of the third presentation of this

  • with the contrapuntal idea dominated by strings,

  • melody, bass, other stuff in the middle and

  • then he will bring in the brass for the final statement of this.

  • And I think our time is about up, so we'll listen to this and

  • you can go out as we hear the fourth statement of this.

  • >

Prof: Good morning, let us begin.

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