Well Tuned Piano

Marche Diabolique is composed by Brian Balmages. Brian Balmages is an award winning composer and has bachelor’s degree in music from James Madison University. He has composed pieces that have been performed worldwide. He has also won awards like the Albert Austin Harding award from the American School Band Directors Association.

The beat of the song is regular , even and repetitive as well, the rhythm is so energetic and danceable. The song has a steady beat and the speed is allegro which means it is at a jogging pace. Talking about dynamics , the volume is not consistent . It is loud at the beginning and it goes quitter at the end. The drop in dynamics does add to the interpretations of the song. And the texture of the song is homophonic and it does not change throughout the

Become Ocean was performed by the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Delta David Gier. This evening was dedicated to being the 95th anniversary of the South Dakota Symphony. The theme for the evening related to water, whether that be the rolling tides of the waves, a bird swooping down to catch something, or a personal reflection that people made through associative listening. The music played had a serene and airy feeling that helped enhance the depiction of becoming one with the ocean.

The opening of the piece contains several parallel voicing changes as he uses the G major pentatonic scale. He emphasized the use of fourths and fifths among the voicing to create a very open ambient sound world to set up the world around the piece. In measure three he then combines the same scale over F

Penny Lane released as double side with strawberry fields forever in February 1967 by the Beatles during the Sgt, Pepper sessions (Penny Lane | The Beatles Bible. (n.d.). It was originally written by Paul McCartney but credited to Lennon -McCartney song writing partnership. The song was about a street near Lennon 's childhood home in Liverpool, England. Penny Lane is in the key of B Major with 108 BPM and a time signature of 4/4. Paul McCartney accomplishes a difficult song writing task as he places the verses In the key of B and choruses in the key of A, then changes back to B using ' 'E ' ' as the pivot chord.

Instruments are introduced at the beginning of new sections, such as the pre-chorus and chorus.

It features two main themes, plus many melodic episodes. The structure - in A-B-A form - is clearly identifiable through the themes that mark each of the sections: the lyrical melody that opens the work, the exciting piu animato that ends with a demanding cadenza, and the final recapitulation that is followed by a cheeky and vivacious codetta that brings the work to a dramatic close. Possessing a memorable melodic theme, the piece tests the performer through the unending phrases, virtuosic c and the resultant nimble fingerwork required. It has remained one of the great standards amongst the

The introduction of the piece is the same as that of “The Raiders March”, but with strings playing in the background. The A melody begins with the trumpet as the strings fade out (0:07). The first minute and a half of the song is played the same as that of “The Raiders March”, though due to differing sound equalization, some parts stick out more or less than they do in the original. For example, in the third repetition of the A melody, one can more clearly hear the xylophone accompanying the melody here than in “The Raiders March”. The piece begins to differ more significantly after the break following the third repetition of the A melody when the piece modulates down a half step instead of up like in the original (1:37). This fourth instance of the A melody is otherwise played the same as in “The Raiders March” until the last two bars, where it immediately jumps into what was the coda of the original piece (1:53).

For assignment 2, I choose the piece “Lohengrin: Act III: Prelude” composed by Richard Wagner. This piece is located in the “Types of Listeners I: Introduction and Casual Listeners” section.

On November 15, 205 at 2pm I was able to see the Rutgers Percussion Ensemble. I was very interested in this show, because I have never been able to see a group of only percussionists perform in the same space. The first piece they did was called Ionisation, which was written in 1929. There were thirteen musicians on stage playing various instruments. This song began with a rolling unpitched sound coming from four snare drums with the claves. This idea was an interesting start, because it caught the audience’s attention to really listen to what was going to happen next. Then the song, went into a lighter more atmospheric section, where there were many crescendos and decrescendos. The instruments in the piece included the chimes, maracas, timpani,

Richard Strauss (1864-1949), was a leading German composer and conductor. His orchestral compositions and operas have made him one of the best known composers of the late Romantic and early modern eras. While Strauss did not pay much attention to his chamber music in his later life, in earlier years he tried to compose several different types of chamber works such as a string quartet, two piano trios, a piano quartet and several instrumental sonatas. Now I will introduce his last work of chamber music, the violin sonata.

The Mexican expressionist composer Silvestre Revueltas, now well known for his incessant rhythms, wanted to change the state of authentic, Mexican-based classical music, from nationalistic folk-based sounds, to his more urgent and dissonant style of expressionism.

A comparison of the Beijing Opera and the Italian Opera reveals a significant contrast in almost all fundamental areas of music between the two examples. Because of cultural influences, the two performances share little commonalities, as the timbre, medium, elements of pitch, rhythm, dynamics, form and phonic structure are definitely not similar. For instance, the musical and physical performance dynamics of the Beijing opera music are forceful, the timbre is loud, tinny and harsh, the rhythm is lively and vigorous, while the Italian Opera music has a gentle dynamic, steady and rolling rhythm and an emotionally deep timbre. One commonality that is noted for both examples, is the powerful delivery of the entertainment.

I attended to a concert performed by the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra on November 13th this year. This concert took place in the Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. I chose to attend to this concert because I have never been to a performance by any youth orchestra, I was curious to see how their performance would compare to other orchestras.

Dr. Sheri Neill introduces herself and explains that she has different degrees in music and education from Texas Tech University, Stephan F. Austin University, and University of Missouri. Then she introduces Cheryl Lemmons, which is the pianist that was sitting at the piano located right front of the stage. There was a choir that was located center stage with the conductor directly in front of them. The choir consist of only women, which seemed to be alto and soprano singers. They began with their first piece “Wir Eilen Mit Schwachen, Doch Emsigen Schritten” written by S.J Bach. The song starts with the piano playing a nice melody as an introduction, which has a steady beat as well as steady tempo. Then the sopranos began singing softly with the altos following behind imitating and singing the words with a lower pitch. The piece seemed mostly polyphonic, yet there are many times when it is homophonic and