The enlightenment was an extremely fascinating era, if not for it's musical output, then because of it's architecture, art, or philosophy. However, the most fascinating aspect of the Enlightenment era is when you step back and realize the connections and similarities of all four of those feature.
The similarities between architectural features and enlightenment music is particularly fascinating. Elements of grandeur exist in both-- walls of moving sound compared to a towering wall of a building. And in this case, size really does matter. But it wasn't necessarily the whole picture. Grandiose facades and chord progressions were juxtaposed with ornamentations designed to add color and detail to what would otherwise be a blank canvas.
For example, the walls of a building might be towering and massive, but it will usually have some unique architectural details at the top (or anywhere for that matter) which will make each inch of the structure inherently unique, despite it's size. Likewise, an Opera may have a song composed of the same phrase repeating many times, yet each phrase is embellished in a unique and different manner each time. This practice, while first used during the enlightenment, is now a common feature in many parts of modern society (including music and architecture).
Moving away from comparisons between architecture and music, the ideals, and thoughts of the Enlightenment are a fascinating thing to behold. For one thing, it was one of the first times in world history that science was accepted as an alternative to religious beliefs as the answer to many of the world's unanswered questions. I find it all particularly fascinating, especially in the fact that today, hundreds of years later, some of the ideas and scientific progress of that era are still being explored.
The Enlightenment Era was also the rise of the middle class, and the significance of that on today's society cannot be understated. As I delve further into the music of the Enlightenment in the coming weeks, it will be fascinating to learn about and further understand the impact the middle class had on the music of that time.
Anyone who has ever studied folk music knows it is both a vast and ambiguous genre of music-- in fact, "genre" may be too narrow a narrow of a term to describe folk music. It's really more of a category, and a massive one at that.
When most people think about Folk Music, the first thing usually comes to mind is usually acoustic guitar, blended with vocals and other instruments such as a banjo or violin. However, upon further investigation, it is so much more than that.
For one thing, it is far more diverse than the instrumentation described above. In fact, the instrumentation and characteristics of the folk music tends to vary based on where it was created in the world.
The word folk is an alternate word for "People," (usually in the plural sense). In this way, I think it is the easiest to define folk music-- music by people, for people.
Of course, that definition could apply to nearly any genre of music, but there are other differentiating factors that render folk music unique. For one, all folk music is storytelling. Whether through the lyrics of Bob Dylan or an instrumental banjo number, hell-- even through a hip hop street performance; all folk music is sending some time of message and telling some kind of story. In fact, for the most part at least, most most folk music tends to put lyrics (or the content thereof) at the forefront of the arrangement. An instrumental folk song, on the contrary, while not technically able to do so, may have a story that inspired the song OR, simply tells the story of the composer based merely on the textures of the piece.
The second factor that makes up folk music is the impact of the culture in which it was created, and how that impacts the story being told. Many stories have great significance to the culture and time that it was made, while in others the culture plays a major role in the sound which the music has.
With these two factors, the potential for what folk music is and could be is as wide open as ever. There is really no specific sound that is uniquely folk music-- rather, it could be anything from a street rapper in Chicago, to a violin and guitar duo in Nashville. As long the artists are writing music influenced by their culture that tells a story then any possible type of music could be folk music.
In a 1962 essay on folk music, Bruno Netti compared and contrasted folk music with that of 'art music"-- classical arrangements performed by orchestras and symphonic ensembles. He calls that music "cultivated," referring to folk music as a"simple." Netti also considers folk music to be narratives, while calling art music "functional."
These words could be considered insulting and demeaning to folk music, and even the word "art music" as the title for the music that ISN'T folk music is an insult to the art and craft that is a folk song itself. And so while there is no denying that folk music is an art in and of itself, Some of Netti's categorizations are somewhat accurate.
For example, while folk music may certainly have complex musical elements and themes, in essence it truly is a simple genre. It is music for the people, by the people, telling stories influenced by the people who live where it was made. Also, it isn't created for any other purpose besides self expression or the expression of an idea, thought or emotion. It is not created without it's individual significance readily known by it's creator.
The so-called "Cultivated" term also used by Netti to describe art music gives the impression that Folk music is some sort of loose, unstructured hiccup of unintended sound. This is absolutely false, yet a shred of truth does lie in the fact that Folk music is often created at the spur of the moment and without planning and be completed without slaving away in the studio. This is due to the nature of folk music itself.
In that way, then it is agreeable that most folk music is not "cultivated," instead, folk music is dynamic, human, and real. It brings people together, and allows people to express themselves however they please. Despite the social expectation for folk music to contain an acoustic guitar, harmonica and violin, it really could sound like anything.
Any song created to communicate or share a story in the style of the culture it was created in is a folk song, and that song is just as significant and artful as one of Beethoven's symphonies as far as I'm concerned.
A Festival of American Piano Music performed by the studio of Jennifer Hayghe
It's an interesting thing to walk out of your bedroom, meander down a path for 2 minutes, and suddenly find yourself inside a recital hall where extremely talent musicians perform for you (at no cost). As strange as it may be, that is what I did on Thursday at 6:35pm-- I got up and walked for two minutes into the Hockett Family Recital Hall in the Whalen Center for Music here at Ithaca College.
The concert in question-- a piano "festival" of sorts, lasted about an hour and a half, and consisted of five pianists each performing an individual performance of various classical arrangement or Opus', arranged in vaguely chronological order through history.
I'd like to go back to the first piece performed in the recital: Ramble on Love from Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier (1922).
The piece was delicate-- the Pianist who performed it, Jonathan Vogtle, used intricate ornamental touches throughout the piece. Overall, the biggest impact from his performance was the silence when he was not playing. Some of his runs could almost be described as a rambling of sorts, so the moments when he held back and instead released a mere touch of sound after several seconds of only reverberation were by far the most impactful. In many ways the title of the piece was beyond accurate for the way Jonathan performed it-- a delicate and emotional ramble on love.
The next excerpt to be performed was the Suite for Piano, Op. 13 (1978), a three movement piece composed by Robert Muczynski. The pianist, Melody Zimmerman, talked to us for a minute before she began playing to talk about what to expect for each of the three movements. The first movement was hyper with "in-your-face" clusters of notes causing confusion for myself and I'm sure most other listeners. The title of the first part was, aptly enough, "Festival." The second part, "Vision" was far more downtempo, containing much more space sonically speaking. There was a dreamy atmosphere and single note melody which never contained more than one note playing at a time. What really set this movement apart was the juxtaposition of staccato (short) and legato (elongated) notes which formed the foundation for the slow and abstract melody. The third and final movement, "Scherzo" was similar to Festival, except with less confusion and while containing fewer notes. The melody was also more structured, even though this part shared many other characteristics with it. There was an urgent pulse within the rhythm of this movement that seemed to urge me as a listener to complete some sort of action or decision. This feeling ended when the piece ended on an abrupt note.
Jumping ahead to the fourth piece, "Toccata for Piano" (1979), performed by Jennifer Pham-- this was for me the most impressive and fascinating performance of the night. It began with a whirlwind of murky harmonies and then Jennifer actually stuck her hand into the piano to mute certain strings, allowing her to create a clicking/ tapping sound which seemed to replicate raindrops or footsteps in quick succession. She used silence to her advantage here, outputting quick bursts of staccato rhythm followed by several seconds of silent, letting the notes reverberate. As the piece began to draw to a close she began playing the piano in a way I had never seen before-- she stood up and began to bang on the innards of the piano creating pounding beat and using the strings in a guitar-like way. This part was frantic and almost aggressive-- she utilized almost every surface to create a sense of turmoil and even legitimate concern, before ending the piece.
Overall, the recital was phenomenal and I couldn't be happier that I went. There were many moments where my mind was opened by the diversity of sound and musical flexibility of the piano. I left the concert in a positive mood, and I will surely be back for another.
As a fan of music and cool things in general, learning that the town of Ithaca has an annual folk music festival called "Porchfest," left me ecstatic and quite bewildered; I'm not used to living near a town with any cultural significance, let alone an entire folk music festival. I'm far more accustomed to Amish buggys and the smell of manure, than banjos and the sound of acoustic guitars. Needless to say, Porchfest had me brimming with anticipation and expectations that couldn't be higher.
Porchfest turned out to simultaneously be everything I did and didn't expect it to be. As far as my expectations are concerned, the location and aesthetics were exactly as I envisioned. On the north end of town, dozens of brightly colored houses scattered over several blocks contained a diverse mix of bands playing anything from "The Clash"-esque rock, to a genre of alternative that sounded like it belonged in a shampoo commercial and not on the porch of some stranger's house.
The Geronimo Line
The first porch that we wandered upon was home to a band called The Geronimo Line-- and the experience here set the tone for what was going to be an awesome day unlike any I'd had in a long time.
We arrived right as they were finishing a song-- they had a unique sound that caught our attention from across the street. Their sound resembled the Clash many ways, but had some key textural differences which immediately set them apart from the 80's punk rock band.
The instrumentation (and therefore texture) of The Geronimo Line consisted of drums, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and some sort of string plucking instrument which I am unfamiliar with. Despite the fact that the instrument was somewhat exotic, it gave off a fairly familiar sound, like that of an electric acoustic guitar. Thus, the texture is mainly that of 3 different sounding guitars strumming in some sort of repetitive pattern, while the drummer keeps a fairly basic pulse underneath. The song itself seems dark in tone-- there is certainly an abundance of minor chords there. The tune bounces back and forth between open and closed chords, until finishing on a closed chord.
The audience around me was small in comparison to some of the more mainstream sounding groups down the road. Regardless, the small but enthusiastic audience seemed to really dig the abstract sound, some people almost seemed hypnotized by the guitar riffs.
After they were done playing, the band was kind enough to give away their self-titled album to me for free, along with a sticker.
After leaving The Geronimo Line, we walked down the street and came upon another band, whose name I unfortunately forgot to write down. They were playing a harder brand of rock, catering to a larger audience than the previous group that we had just heard.
They had an interesting sound-- upbeat tempos with a more positive sound, yet they still maintained a similar texture as The Geronimo Line, albeit with a sound that is easier for the average listener to swallow. This was most likely due to the chord progression being more in tune with what most people would expect from a rock band.
This song follows the structure of a Half Cadence in the first phrase, to a Perfect Authentic Cadence in the second phrase. This is easily distinguishable merely by the ear-- the first phrase of vocals ends on a V chord, and it feels incomplete. In fact, if the song ended right after that chord, it would have left most people feeling uneasy and the song seeming unresolved. That's why, in the second phrase, there is cadence that is built off of the root, leaving the listener of a much more stable and relaxed environment. This second cadence, a Perfect Authentic Cadence, to be specific, resolves the tension created in the first phrase.
It was difficult, however, to find a song that followed this open/closed Cadence structure.
For one thing, most songs that I would have liked to talk about were too complex harmonically, and simply did not follow such a basic structure. Many of those songs actually included many "Open" phrases, before only resolving the tension with closure in the chorus, if at all.
In fact, almost every Alternative rock song that I explored from the past 5 years followed some other structure, or in the very least did not begin with an open chord cadence (Imperfect Authentic/ Half Cadence), followed immediately by a closed chord cadence (Perfect Authentic Cadence) in the next phrase.
To finally find the song I chose, I had to travel back to 1999, when Travis released this song from the album "The Man Who." The 15 year age of this song may have been one reason that it contained this simple structure, as most other songs from today did not yield such good results. Another potential explanation could be the genre difference, as this song is considered Soft Rock, and only other music I searched through was Modern Alt. Rock.
Regardless of the reasons why this structure has become seemingly less common, it is certainly an essential tool for songwriters in delivering good hooks in their music, and for capturing the eager ears of listeners who simply want the previous open phrase to be resolved!
Red Rabbits is one of those songs that almost no one knows but everyone has heard and can recognize. It's hard to dislike the soft reverberations and ethereal raindrops that make up the soundscape of this 2007 composition.
The meter is a gentle pulse of four beats per measure. Each quarter note gets the beat, bringing the meter to a fairly simple 4/4 time signiture.
It's pretty easy to distinguish this song's quadruple pulse-- after all, each phrase of the bubbly synthesizer melody is completed in four counts. This is further confirmed by trying to count the song in measures of three, which yielded no positive results for any triple time signature: the song is written in phrases of four beats.
The texture joins in conjunction with the meter as the primary vessel to convey the song's meaning to the listener. James Mercer, the singer of the Shins is well known for his cryptical and poetic lyrics, and the ones in this song live up to that reputation. In essence the song represents a contemplative sigh of a couple in a broken relationship. Alternating verses are spoken from the perspective of both the man and women, each indicating the thoughts being had about the past and future of their situation. This cognitive process is translated musically by ambient bubbly textures, providing the visualization of a slow hot spring or an ocean tide rising and falling in hypnotic rhythm. There is a sort of melancholy chill present, but that tone is held in check by the warm strum of an acoustic guitar, which adds a positive and almost optimistic feel to the composition.
Regardless of it negative meaning, Red Rabbits is one of the Shin's best song's, but a lot of the nice relaxed feeling that come along with it can be tied to the meaning of the song itself-- a contemplative reflection of melancholy thoughts, tied together with a 4/4 pulse to provide the song with a heartbeat.
