Exam 1 LISTENING GUIDE New York NY Wendy Mae Chambers is an instrument inventor For this piece she wired junkyard car and truck horns to a keyboard The resulting performance is a great demonstration of the difference between a MELODY and random pitches A melody has COHERENCE Ride of the Valkyries In this famous passage by Richard Wagner from his opera Die Walk re the composer uses ASCENDING MELODIC CONTOUR to invoke the image of flying warriors European classical melodies and their derivatives traditionally use ascending contours for example most of Beethoven s symphonies rise in pitch toward a climactic point near the end The Sky is Crying Elmore James was a Chicago bandleader slide guitarist and singer His musical phrases make use of DESCENDING MELODIC CONTOURS Blues music and many other African derived popular music styles make use of descending contours Note the use of SLIDING PITCH in James guitar and vocal delivery Prelude No 15 from a collection of keyboard works The Well Tempered Clavier by Johan Sebastian Bach composed in the early 1700s Despite its undulating contour the piece is made of fast moving FIXED PITCHES notes somewhat analogous to the pixels that compose a digital image Standard written notation sheet music is a FIXED PITCH system Dripsody by Hugh McCain This piece was created in a recording studio using a single drop of water looped and then slowed and sped up to produce a sense of flexible time Kyrie Sung by the Benedictine Monks of the Abbey of Santo Domingo Silos These singers are blending their voices to create a single unified sound This is an example of MONOPHONIC TEXTURE since the goal is to create a single voice Gira Gira by the Cuban big band Irakire This is an example of COUNTERPOINT Multiple voices playing different melody lines competing equally for your attention G Minor Fugue Another example of COUNTERPOINT Four separate melodies make staggered entrances The resulting TEXTURE is very DENSE as the voices overlap and compete Nkosi Sikilele Afrika This anthem is sung in a HOMOPHONIC TEXTURE Four sections soprano alto tenor and bass sing the same words but on different pitches harmony Hymns are often sung in this texture Lonely Woman Ornette Coleman alto sax and Don Cherry trumpet This recording made in 1959 introduced HETEROPHONIC TEXTURE to jazz After the initial drum bass introduction the sax and trumpet play the same melody but out of phase with each other Later the solos are in melody and accompaniment texture then the piece returns to the main theme in HETEROPHONIC TEXTURE Xunfeng Qu Warm Wind Melody This is a Chinese silk and bamboo duo playing a traditional melody in HETEROPHONIC TEXTURE They ply the same tune but each voice is very distinct The Blackbird The Bothy Band Irish bagpipe The texture is MELODY AND DRONE This is an Irish air a slow passionate tune that shows off the expressiveness of the pipes The Swan Peformed by Clara Rockmore on the theremin accompanied by piano This is MeELODY AND ACCOMPANIMENT TEXTURE The theremin is an early electronic instrument perhaps the only instrument that you play without touching Coleraine An Irish jig played on banjo The FORM is AABB typical of dance music of the British Isles Andes accordion piece this was recorded at a festival in the high Andes of Peru Note the FORM A phrase repeat B phrase repeat C phrase repeat Because it has three parts this melody is in TERNARY FORM Not also that the vocals alternate with instrumentals Oh Bye Bye The late Boozoo Chavis was a Zydeco accordion player from SW Louisiana This piece is in OSTINATO FORM No sections only a repeating phrase or RIFF Valse des cerfs volants or Waltz of the Kites this piece starts in a THREE BEAT METER Halfway through the piece switches to a meter of nine beats 123 123 123 but the TEMPO doesn t actually change tap your feet and confirm Dagamba drumming This is an example of POLYRHYTHM two meters superimposed on each other The talking drums play in a three beat meter the bass drums play in a slower two beat rhythm