AS MUSIC TECHNOLOGY Listening & Analysing
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West Coventry Academy AS MUSIC TECHNOLOGY Listening & Analysing Name: Class: Teacher: Target Grade: 2 AS Music Technology Unit 2: Listening and Analysing As well as testing your practical skills, you will also be marked on how well you can listen to music and analyse both musical and technological features. There are two parts to the exam. In section A you will be asked to answer short questions and multiple choice questions about a selection of pieces of music. These could be any style of popular music composed between 1910 and now. In section B you will have to answer longer questions on two specific styles of music, and will be expected to talk about the features and development of these genres in depth. In order for you to revise you need to keep your notes and practice questions together in your folder. This booklet will give you an overview and is a good starting point for you to do more research on your own, but on it’s own will not be enough for you to get a good grade. You will be given resources in your lessons that you can use as a starting point for your own research. Make sure you keep all of these resources together, in conjunction with your own study notes. What do I Need to Learn? Section A: Popular Music Styles (40 marks) You will study the development of popular music styles from 1910 through to the present day. This is not intended to be a comprehensive and in-depth study of every popular, jazz or rock music style but an overview of the main styles and trends during the development of popular music. Students are expected to have an understanding of these styles and an overview of: • The principal fingerprints of the style in terms of melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and structural elements, • The key features of its instrumentation and arrangement and the technological processes of its recording and production • The main artists, performers, composers, producers and arrangers. Section B: Special Focus Styles (40 marks) Two special focus styles will be selected each year for more in depth study. For 2014 the chosen styles are Heavy Rock, and Ska, Reggae and Dub. In addition to the main fingerprints of the style, you need to have an extended knowledge and understanding of context, which might include: • The origins and development of the style, including the social and cultural conditions that might have influenced this development • Specific musical and technological characteristics associated with the style — melody, harmony, structure, instrumentation, arrangement, production etc • The influence of the style on other artists. 3 Audit of Knowledge Quite a lot of the work that you will complete with me this term will need you to understand some music theory. Use the list below to map things you can already do, and things you need to work on. Please answer these honestly. Know a Need to Skill Confident bit about work on INSTRUMENTATION I can read guitar tab, and know about performance techniques specific to the guitar or bass guitar (e.g. palm muting, slides) I can read drum notation and know about performance techniques specific to the drums (e.g. rolls, damping) I know about performance techniques specific to orchestral instruments (e.g. pizzicato - strings, flutter-tonguing – woodwind) I understand chord notation. NOTATION I can read treble clef notation confidently. I can read bass clef notation confidently. I can read alto or tenor clef notation confidently. HARMONY I can harmonise a tune using simple primary triads. I can harmonise a tune using a mixture of primary and secondary triads. I can harmonise a tune using primary chords, secondary chords and other chords (e.g. diminished, chords with added notes). I understand what an inversion is. I understand what a cadence is and can describe four different types of cadence. SCORES I know what the elements of music are, and can use them to describe music. I know how to transpose. I can follow a score or lead sheet as I listen to a piece of music I am good at listening to melodies and writing them down or playing them I can write phrasing and articulation (e.g. legato, staccato) in a score 4 Recognising Musical Styles: Overview You will be expected to recognise a number of different musical styles in your exam, and you should be able to give examples of musicians who perform in each of them. Fill in popular music timeline below, and for each style give an example of a performer and a brief description of its main characteristics – you can use the internet to research any style that you don’t know. GENRE ARTISTS MAIN CHARACTERISTICS TIME PERIOD Dixieland Original Dixieland • earliest recorded style of jazz Pre WW2 was Jazz Jazz Band • instruments, front line melody (clarinet, very popular, still (New trumpet, trombone) and rhythm (guitar, popular in New Orleans Louis Armstong banjo, bass, piano drums) Orleans today Jazz) All-Stars (be • take a standard and improve around it careful here, Louis giving a polyphonic feel (everyone Armstrong is doing different things) famous for lots of types of jazz) Big Band and Benny Goodman • Much ‘tighter’ , more organised feel Swing than New Orleans jazz. The years Count Basie • Popular as dance music during the around the Orchestra war and up to the 1950’s. Second World • Swing revival in 90’s / 2000’s (Robbie War, up to early Frank Sinatra Williams, Swing When You’re 60’s. Winning, Music to Watch Girls By Revival recently album) (e.g. Music to • Post swing era singer (e.g. Sinatra) Watch Girls By, kept the swing style bands as Swing When accompaniment, and incorporated You’re Winning) many ideas for swing into their music Blues Rhythm & Blues 5 Rock and Roll Soul Country 60’s British Music – The ‘British Invasion’ bands 6 60’s American Rock and Pop Psychedelic Rock Progressive Rock Heavy Rock 7 Glam Rock Disco Funk Ska, Reggae and Dub 8 Punk New Wave Synth Pop Hip-Hop 9 Indie Rock Electronic Dance 10 JAZZ In your listening and analysing exam, the primary focus will be on popular music after 1950. There will only be one question on early 20th century music so please bear this in mind when revising. Regardless of this, it is very important to have a broad understanding of the development of the earlier musical styles because of the influence they had on the later styles. You will need to have a more detailed knowledge of the styles that start with the rock and roll era, when the sound of popular music, and the technology started to change rapidly. The origins of popular music can be said to have begun with Jazz music. Jazz music spans over 50 years (from late 1800’s to the 1950’s) and covers a wide range of musical styles. It originated in the American Deep South in cities like New Orleans and St Louis. Key features of Jazz are: • Originally performed by black Americans (African American slaves) • Improvisation (Music created at the time of the performance. ‘On the spot’.) • Technically demanding soloing – often brass players like Sax and Trumpet, however other instruments used for solos could have included piano, guitar, clarinet, trombone, flute and vibraphone. • Some styles of jazz used vocals, whilst others are purely instrumental • The use of blue notes (and the blues scale). These are notes that are flattened or raised to give music a ‘blue’ sound. The blues scale in C uses the notes C, E flat, F, F sharp, G, B flat and C. • Modal scales (ancient scales) and chromatic movement (notes that don’t belong to the key). • Use of extended chords – 6ths, 7ths (dominant and major), 9ths, 11ths and 13ths. These are chords that build on top of a normal triad. • Use of augmented (raised 5th) and diminished (flattened 5th) chords. • Swing rhythms (long short long short) also known as a shuffle rhythms. • Polyrhythm (many layered rhythms) • Syncopation (Off-beat rhythms) Instrumentation: • Big Band, Swing and New Orleans styles used large ensembles with big brass sections, drums acoustic bass, piano and sometimes guitar and/or banjo • Bebop and cool jazz used smaller combos of drums, acoustic bass (usually), piano and one or more lead instrument such as sax or trumpet. • Stride (ragtime) and sometimes Boogie Woogie was for solo piano 11 Stylistic Fingerprints for New Orleans/Dixieland Jazz Instrumentation: • Brass Band or Marching Band instruments • Trumpet • Trombone • Clarinet • Double Bass (or tuba in place of this) • Drums • Guitar • Banjo • Piano • Sometimes Vocals Performance and Arrangement Features: • Lively and fast tempo • Use of a backbeat (emphasis on beats 2 and 4) • Guitar, banjo or piano often play chords in a simple 4/4 style • The harmonies used are much simpler than later jazz styles • Bass line often avoids a walking bass style, playing 2 beats to a bar. (Walking bass line is when the bass line moves up and down the notes of a chord.) • Not much syncopation is used. • Use of a ‘head’ structure. The head refers to the main tune/melody followed by sections where melodies are improvised over the chord progression of the head. • Improvisation usually occurs between 2 or more soloists, with long scalic quaver runs and very few rests. • There is some use of blue and chromatic notes, but not as much as later jazz. Technology and production features: • ‘Victor’ recording company made the earliest recordings of jazz in 1917. • This was done using a process called mechanical recording, known as acoustic recording. This is a process of recording that involved a live recording of a performance directly on to the recording medium.