Chapter 6 Music Review

A reconstruction of John Cage's '4'33' by David Tudor-https://www.lionsroar.com/433/

"In a world of peace and love music would be the universal language"- Henry David Thoreau

        Music is a powerful subject in humanity that is found in a variety of ways in a variety of elements. As said by Thoreau, music is a universal language in all cutures, even in the context of a supposed perfect world. Two cultures to thank for the development of music is the ancient egyptians and Greek. A popular theory of music came from Greek culture, specifically Plato who describes music as "... the heavens as divided into eight spheres ,on each of which a siren sings a note of astounding sweetness."  ( Janero & Altshuler , The Art of Being Human: The Humanities as a technique for living, 2011, p.156). 

     These ideas of music reformed in western culture in the form of guidelines in music are tone, scale, rhythm, melody, harmony, the orchestra , and silence. An example of one of these guidelines is John Cage's 4'33 which demonstrated silence. This is four minutes and thrity-three seconds of literal silence. 

Portrait of  Lugwig Van Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_van_Beethoven

"We need only listen to the D minor performed on an organ to be astounded that one pair of hands could master so difficult a composition"- ( Janero & Altshuler , The Art of Being Human: The Humanities as a technique for living, 2011, p.165)

     Music has a variety of styles from past and present as well as figures that pioneered certain music. Two well known figures in music is Johann Sebastuan Bach and Ludwig Van Beethoven. Bach is known for his complex yet improvised forms of music with an emotion style. Similiary ,Beethoven is known for his symphonies that conveyed intricate and complex rhythms , harmonies , dissonance. Beethoven is also notablefor losing his hearing but still composing music during his music career.

    The quote above from the text talks about how complex the D minor is and how amazing it is for one person to compose it. People don't think much of this fact but music in general is complex. Common people focus on more on how music sounds rather than how it's made in most cases.

Photo of Beatles-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles

" A hundred years from now, people will listen to the Beatles the same way we listen to Mozart"- Sir Paul McCarttney

    In music , we have several different genres. These genres include art songs, folk, spiritual, gospel, ragtime, jazz, blues, rock, hiphop, contemporary non- western music, and the musical Avant-Garde. The most interesting of these to me are the Blues, Rock, and Contemporary non-western.

   The blues was predominantly African American music style with origins in ragtime and jazz. This was a style for composers to convey sadness and tragedy. This form of music was pushed by soloist with a variety of problems in their life such as addiction and social discrimination.

 Alot of early rock songs were able to hit mainstream and become what is known as popular songs. These are songs that can make an impact in some way to a culture. Rock'n' roll introduces a new bounc sound to a generation. This movement brought around big names like Elvis Presley and The Beatles. This can be linked back with the quote above by Mcartntney since a bug name like the Beatle indeed would be remembered because of the culture shock they were during there time. They brought up not only a new sound of music but a new way of how people interacted with popular musician, especially with how it effected the younger ones of that time period.

Contemporary Non-Western music refers to music of other cultures other than the traditional western along with a variety of sounds. An example is with Algerian musician Khaled for his popuar jazz hits. This spread of this music is supported with he internet.

Conclusion

 In conclusion, this chapter explores the idea and variety of musical sound as well as its heritage throughout the world. It talks indepth about what makes music music and the genres explored through music. Some genres more mainstream than others  but music nonetheless.