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发表于 2007-3-7 21:49:53
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6. Music the Art of Listening (Jean Ferris)
想找一本西方音乐入门的速成读本吗？想找一本浅显但却准确的读本吗？
这本《Music the Art of Listening》是一本非常好的敲门砖。我下个学期的英语课程想多介绍些西方文化的东西，提高学员对学英语的兴趣－－毕竟语言是作为文化的载体的面目出现的。
图书馆的西方音乐入门书真是非常多，我想找一本涵盖了一般乐理，一般西方音乐史，一般流派介绍的书，希望能语言流畅，不要讲的太深入，但是要明了。。。 经过比较，我锁定这本Music the Art of Listening。。。
书中介绍了一般的乐理知识，声音的本质，最最基础的旋律和声曲式理论。再介绍了西方从古希腊以来，到文艺复兴，巴洛克，古典主义，浪漫主义等等的音乐流派。。。我看过后，觉得如果读者有一定的感性接触，再读这本书，将会对西方古典音乐有一个比较好的把握。。。
这本书不厚好像才300页，编排的很清晰。。。语言也同样和简洁，没有过多的术语。。。在此推荐！
推荐等级：3星
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PART ONE BASIC CONCEPTS
1 Sound
Among the characteristics of sound are its highness or lowness, called the pitch of the sound, and its loudness or softness, called its dynamic level.
The pitch of a sound is its highness or lowness, which depends uon the rate of vibration, or frequency, of the sound-producing medium.
A tone is a specific pitch, produced by sound waves with a constant rate of vibration. We refer to specific pitches, or tones, with letter names, using the letters A through G, a system best explained by referring to a piano keyboard.
The black keys have the same letter names as the white keys, but each is qualified as sharp (higher in pitch than the corresponding white key) or flat (lower in pitch than the corresponding white key). C sharp or D flat refers to the same black key, depending on the composer’s intention.
<Notating Pitches>
Music is written, or notated, on a staff of five lines and four spaces. A sign called a clef, placed at the beginning of the staff, indicates that a particular line represents a specific pitch , and thus fixes the position of all the pitches on the staff. The bass clef, sometimes called the F clef, indicates that the fourth line of the staff is F. the treble clef, also called the G clef, indicates the the second line of the staff represents G.
The distances, or intervals, between two tones have number names. Second, third, fourth… and so on. The interval of an eighth, as from C to C, is called an octave.
2 Rhythm
rhythm concerns the arrangement of long and short sounds in music. The cessation of musical sound is also notated, by the use of signs called rests. However, rhythmic notation does not indicate the rate of speed, or tempo, at which a piece is to be performed.
Some common tempo indication
Italian term and English meaning:
Largo- slow; “broad”, adagio- slow; “at ease”
Andante- moderately slow; “walking” tempo, moderato-moderate
Allegro – fast; cheerful, presto – very fast, vivace – lively
Molto – very(allegro molto = very fast), con brio – with spirit
Non troppo – not too much (allegro non troppo = not too fast )
Metered music – the rhythm is organized into patterns of strong and weak beats.
Duple meter - two beats per measure.
Triple meter – three beats per measure.
Quadruple meter – four beats per measure.
Measure - a unit containing a number of beats
Accent – a strong sound. Accents may be achieved by stress, duration, or position of a tone.
3 Melody
melodies are built upon the tones of a series of pattern of pitches, within the range of an octave, called a scale. A half step is the distance from any note on a keyboard to its nearest neighbor in either direction, and the smallest interval traditionally used in western music. Two half steps comprise one whole step.
The two scales most commonly used in western music – the major and minor-each contain five whole and two half steps., arranged in particular order. The ascending pattern of steps in the major scale is whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. That is, starting anywhere on a keyboard, you may play a major scale by following that particular pattern of steps. The tones of most melodies do not occur in the same order as the scale on which they are based.
The ascending minor scale pattern of steps is as follows: whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole.
The most significant difference between the major and minor scales is the third step, which is a whole step in the major scale and a half step in the minor scale.
Tonic note
The first and last note of either the major or the minor scale is called the tonic. Thus C is the tonic note of the major or minor scale that begins and ends on C. the tonic note of the scale upon which a composition is based is also the name of the key in which that piece is composed. In other words, a piece that is based upon the C major scale is said to be in the key of C major.
4 Harmony
two or more different tones sounded together produce harmony in music. It has been suggested that harmony is to music as linear perspective-the technique of intersecting lines on a flat surface so as to imply their convergence at a distant point- is to painting, since both harmony and perspective add “depth” to their respective arts.
In music, the active type of sound is considered dissonant in comparison with the passive sound, which is called consonant.
Active, or dissonant, combinations work together with passive or consonant, sounds to produce varied effects in western music. A meaningful combination of three or more tones is called a chord, and the most basic chord is called a triad.
There are three textures in music: monophony (a single melody line with on harmony), polyphony (the result of the simultaneous combination of melodic lines), and homophony (a melody accompanied by chordal harmony)
5 Timbre
timbre is the quality of sound characteristic of a particular voice, instrument, or ensemble. For example, although the range of pitches played by a flute is quite similar to the range of an oboe, the distinctive qualities of the sounds – the timbres – of the two instruments make one readily distinguishable from the other.
Timbre is largely determined by the shape of the sound waves produced by a voice or instrument.
Women’s voices generally are classified as soprano(high range of pitches), soprano (medium range), and alto or contralto (low range). The voice differ not only in their ranges but also in their characteristic timbres. For example, a soprano’s voice is often lighter and thinner than a contralto’s, which may be comparatively full and rich, as well as lower in pitch. Even between singers with similar vocal ranges – two sopranos, for example – there are distinct differences in timbre.
Tenor – high male voice; baritone – medium-range male voice; bass – low male voice
<instruments of the orchestra>
string instruments…
woodwinds: tiny piccolo, the flute, the oboe, the English horn, the clarinet, the bassoon.
(the saxophone is a reed instrument that comes in several sizes, classified, in the manner of singing voices, as sopranon… and bass. It traditionally has been utilized in the realm of popular music, especially jazz, but recently the saxophone has been included in the some important modern orchestral literature. )
Brass instruments
Percussion instruments
Keyboard instruments
Electronic instruments
5 attending Performance
the term concert usually refers to the “concerted” effort of a large group, while a recital is performed by a soloist or a small ensemble, often in a small chamber or hall.
A symphony is an orchestral piece that has several sections, or movements, separated from one another by a brief pause but related to each other in much the same way as the acts of a play, the chapters of a novel, or the verses of a poem are related. The movements differ from one another in tempo, mood, thematic material., and sometimes key; however, a symphony is conceived as an integrated work , and a performance seldom is interrupted by applause between movements.
A concerto, also a multimovement work, represents a “concerted” effort between the orchestra and an instrumental soloist, who stands or sits at the front of the stage near the conductor. The concerto soloist is not a member of the ensemble but a featured guest, whose name figures prominently in publicity for the program.
PART TWO ANCIENT GREECE, THE MIDDLE AGES, THE RENAISSANCE
7 the music of ancient Greece
Greek music, generally monophonic in texture, often was improvised at the time of performance. In involved voices or instruments or both.
8 Medieval Music
the early Christina church adopted the practice of chanting portions of the worship service, eventually acquiring a large collection of Gregorian chants, usually sung in unison with on instrumental accompaniment. Chants may be syllabic in style, whith one note of music per syllable of text, or melismatic, with several notes per syllable.
9 the renaissance General characteristics
the people of renaissance sought to understand the world as it had never been understood before. Their curiosity led artists to dissect cadavers, explorers to travel around the world, clerics and lay people to question the authority of the Church, and Leonardo da Vinci to question nearly everything. By 1450, music had joined the other arts by adopting the Renaissance style.
By the late fourteenth century, artists and intellectuals were already experiencing a rebirth-a renaissance – of interest in the arts of ancient Greece and Rome. As many important works of antiquity were rediscovered, greatly admired, and widely copied, a deep appreciation, even glorification, of the human and natural replaced the otherworldly mysticism and idealism of the middle ages. Painters and sculptors avidly studied human anatomy by dissecting corpses, and fifteenth-century artists painted the human body, often nude, not merely as a manifestation of God’s goodness, but because the body was both natural and beautiful in itself.
Several new materials and techniques enhanced the natural, realistic, “representational” style of art preferred in the renaissance. High-quality paints existed in a wide array of long-lasting colors. Painters mastered linear perspective and used it to achieve a “natural” effect in their work. Their landscape backgrounds and foregrounds reflect the renaissance love of nature, and many paintings from this period fairly glow with natural light. Madonnas and saints, for whom attractive girls and handsome youths posed as models, appear warm and breathing in renaissance paintings, in contrast to the characters in beautifully decorative but quite unrealistic medieval art. We view this not as an improvement, in any sense, but simply as a change in artistic taste and style.
<architecture>
buildings of the period also exhibit renaissance repose: their graceful columns support without obtruding, and their facades are calm and smooth. Clear windows rather than stained glass allow restful natural light to fill the interiors.
Rooms for living and working in were beautifully decorated and mad as comfortable as the facilities of the day allowed; for whereas gothic thought and architecture had been aimed toward heaven, the new style was meant to enhance the comfort human life.
<Music>
most renaissance music, like most renaissance art, was religious in nature, and most was conceived for vocal performance. Renaissance musicians generally preferred the homogeneous sound of a cappella, or unaccompanied, choral singing, although one or more voice lines might be doubled with an instrument on occasion.
The most widely used instrument in the sixteenth century was a pear-shaped plucked string instrument called the lute, on which one could play difficult, virtuosic compositions as weel as simple pieces intended for home entertainment.
PART THREE THE BAROQUE, CLASSICAL AND ROMANTIC PERIODS
Why it has served to please so many generations of music lovers., even through radical changes of taste in art, literature, fashion, and design. What seemingly universal values does it represent?
12 Toward the baroque
During the late sixteenth century, as a desire for drama and personal expression in art replaced classical ideals, musicians and other artists foretold in their works the style we call Baroque. Painters and sculptors used distortion and exaggeration to create dramatic effects, while musicians cultivated a newly emotional approach to their art.
13 The Baroque: General Characteristics
the art of the baroque is filled with tension, drive, activity-in a word, drama.
Baroque painters often direct the viewer’s eye right off the canvas, as if resisting, in the romantic way, the boundaries of measured space. Sculpted figures no longer pose with classical grace and poise, but seethe with tension and strain, caught in the midst of some dramatic action. Baroque buildings jut and protrude, projecting a sense of dramatic instability, and the decorative ornamentation of the period is so elaborate and complex that it is almost dizzying in effect.
Music
<contrasts>
the contrasts and contradictions of seventeenth-century life are apparent as well in the music of the baroque, when composers contrasted earlier styles and techniques with new means of expression, finding both old and new of value.
<texture>
toward the end of the sixteenth century, both the Venetian polychoral style and Florentine monody demonstrated the harmonic and dramatic potential of a new texture-homophony –in which a melody in one vice was supported by chords in the others.
The preferred style of music during the seventeenth century and the first part of the eighteenth was the dramatic, emotional style we call Baroque. During this age of contrasts, secular art assumed equal importance with religious work, as scientists and philosophers vied with clerics for the attention and faith of the people. Paintings of this period were vivid in color and filled with activity; sculpture and architecture also were dramatic instead of serene. Literature, too, achieved a strong emotional impact.
By the late seventeenth century, the baroque style of music had fully evolved; the replacement of modality by the tonal system of harmony affected every aspect of music composition. As concerned with harmonic as with melodic aspects of their music, baroque composers organized their works ‘vertically’ as well as ‘horizontally’.
15 Baroque Instrumental Music
Fugue
The fugue is a polyphonic composition with three to five melodic lines, or voices. The first voice presents the subject, or principal melody, which is then imitated by each of the other voices in turn. The entrances alternate between the tonic and dominant keys, with those in the dominant called the answer.
17 the classical period
during the eighteenth century, prevailing social, political and economic conditions led many countries to abolish rule by divine right, and from about 1750 to 1825 democratic, republican, and revolutionary causes affected every phase of European life and art.
Intellectuals of the latter 1700s generally concurred with the secular and antiestablishment trends of the early years of the century. Voltaire, one of the leaders of the intellectual movement called the French enlightenment, wrote essays bitterly attacking French society, politics, and religion, and was beaten and twice imprisoned for his heretical views.
Proponents of the enlightenment, distrusting emotions as a guide to truth, abandoned the mystic and supernatural beliefs of the previous century. Voltaire, Diderot, and their cohorts advocated reliance upon reason and upon humanity’s natural goodness to improve the quality and conditions of life. They resisted mistreatment of the middle and lower classes, and initiated significiant humanitarian reforms. They held knowledge to be universal, truth absolute, and reason the pathway to enlightenment.
<general characteristics>
form
finding beauty in order and in the symmetry of design, classicists clearly organized their music according to old or new principles of musical form. Much as painters, sculptors, and architects emphasized line over color and design over subjective or emotional content, so so composers stressed form, balance, and control in their music.
Melody
Classical themes often showed duality even within themselves; they often consisted of an antecedent and a consequent phrase, or were constructed of two or sometimes more contrasting sections.
Texture
Homophony, having assumed equal importance with polyphony in the Baroque, now became the predominant texture, with melodies generally placed in the top line. The bass, which supported the harmonies above, had less melodic interest than it had carried in the music of the Baroque.
Dynamics
The range of dynamic levels increased in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and changes between them became more subtle, and at the same time more dramatic. Crescendos, for example, were longer and more expressive.
Timbre
Instrumental music, which during the Baroque had achieved virtually the same significance as music for the voice, dominated during the Classical period, when secular music surpassed music for worship in quantity, if not in quality as well. Orchestral music was particularly important, while the piano, appreciated for its ability to achieve expressive dynamic effects, replaced the harpsichord as the primary keyboard instrument.
----
artists of the classical period revered and sought to emulate the emotional restraint and balanced designs of the art of ancient greece and rome, replacing the fervent emotionalism of the Baroque with grace and simplicity. As prescribed by the leaders of the French enlightenment, they accepted reason rather than emotions as the source of knowledge and truth.
The visual arts of the eighteenth century are referred to as neoclassical in style. Line and design were of more concern than color to the painters of this period; eighteenth-century architects designed buildings of simple grace and dignity.
18 Formal Design in the Classical Period
when the elements of music are organized into a musical composition, the overall design of the work is called its form. Of course, form is essential to every art. A novel, for example, is literary form containing chapters, paragraphs, sentences, phrases, al of which are organized according to literary and grammatical principles. Similarly, each movement of a symphony has a formal design, but each movement, like each chapter of a novel or each act of a play, is ultimately related to the whole of the work.
Form in art is based upon the principles of repetition and contrast; repetition lends unity, symmetry, and balance to a composition, while contrast provides the variety necessary to keep the work interesting. Because music is a continuous process, it poses unique challenges to the listener, who must develop the technique of memorizing certain sounds in order to differentiate between the repetition of material and the introduction of new musical ideas. These signposts remind us where we have been and imply what lies ahead, helping to establish our musical bearings.
Classical composers also expanded the Baroque concept of building a large composition from three or more separate movements; they standardized the number of movements included in certain forms of composition and used new or previously established formal designs to organize each movement of a multimovement work. For them, form represented a liberating rather than a confining influence, providing a stable framework without limiting the composer’s creativity in any way.
<Symphony>
among instrumental forms, the symphony, a multimovement composition for the symphony orchestra, experienced the greatest development and offered composers the widest field for creativeity during the mid-1700s.
composers have often found the sonata-allegro the ideal formal design for the first movement
the sonata-allegro is generally conceived as a three-part (ABA) structure: the exposition introduces thematic material to be used throughout the movement; the development carries the themes and perhaps the new material as well through many keys; and the recapitulation reviews the original material, presenting it in a new light.
|| Exposition || Development || Recapitulation ||
A B C
20 Toward Romanticism
at first, the goals of the French revolution seemed to match those of enlightenment: respect for individual rights, political and religious freedom, and a democratic or republican form of government. However, the nature of the revolution changed from the time it erupted in 1789 to the time of resolution. Napoleon Bonaparte, hailed as the leader to replace authoritarianism with democracy, betrayed the very cause of the revolution by crowning himself emperor. In addition, the much-needed social, political, and religious reforms achieved early in the revolution were eventually overturned by Napoleon.
When Napoleon was finally defeated in 1815, Europe enjoyed a respite from war but economies were shattered, lives were disrupted, and the previous orderly way of life was undone. Newly restored kings and prelates repressed freedom of expression in politics and the arts. Serious artists and intellectuals increasingly sought one another’s copany, sharing among themselves the revolutionary sentiments they dared not express in public. Many former classicists began to doubt reason as a guide to truth and freedom, for all the reasoned philosophy of the enlightenment had failed to produce an ideal society. Eventually, feeling replaced reason, and the nineteenth century became an age of sentiment, when intuition, emotions, and personal experience held sway over the intellect. The expression of individual and universal suffering became part of the artistic conscience.
The years around the turn of the nineteenth century witnessed a curious ambiguity of styles and an unusually long period of time when elements of both classicism and romanticism were apparent. Some artists and intellectuals changed during the course of their careers from a classical to a romantic approach; others preferred a classical style for certain types of work and a romantic style for others. While the members of the French enlightenment continued to espouse their classical cause, other intellectuals, led by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, turned from a rational to an emotional approach to life and art.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau deplored the materialism and atheism of the enlightenment. He distrusted the intellect, placing his faith instead in the heart and emotions and declaring simply, ‘ I feel, therefore I am ‘. Rousseau advocated the abandonment of everything false, artificial, or contrived, and urged an immediate ‘ return to nature.’ Rousseau’s proposal was timely, for many Europeans, tired of confining manners and rules, were ready to place feeling above thought. In fact, Rousseau has been called the ‘ father of romanticism.” |
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