Experiencing Music: Listening, Performing, and Critiquing

1. Chapter 3 Experiencing Music

2. Listening to Music • One of most pleasurable aural experiences is music • Levels of Listening • Different levels of attentiveness • Sensuous listening – actively listening and becoming absorbed in music • Perceptive listening – analyzing how elements and musical structure combine to form unified composition • Peak experience – heightened response to music (aesthetic)

3. Becoming a Perceptive Listener • Perceptive listening relies on knowledge of music • Elements used to create it • Scale – 12 major scales on which most music is based • Intervals – combination using notes of a scale create melody

4. How We Experience Music • Experiencing Music Alone • Headphones/earbuds • High volume levels can damage hearing • Choose music to match mood • Experiencing Music Together • Listening in the company of others • Audience can be made up of diverse individuals (i.e., sporting events)

5. Performing Music Alone • Need to express ourselves and our feelings • People enjoy expressing themselves with or without an audience • Solo performers become their own audience • Guitar – called most important musical instrument of the past 50 years by composer Libby Larsen • Native American Flute • Flute common to many cultures throughout the world • Can be made from natural or manufactured materials

6. Performing Music Together • Group expression and social communication • More than one person needed to create harmony and texture • Ensembles allow musicians to function cohesively together • Monophonic, Call and Response, etc.

7. Performing Music Together (cont.) • Mixed Ensembles • Usually start by beginning together then featuring soloist, duet, etc. (smaller groups from within larger ensemble) • Those not soloing provides harmonic and rhythmic backup • Mariachi Tradition • Music ensemble from Mexican state of Jalisco • Two types of Mariachi styles: son jalisciense and canción ranchera

8. Critiquing Music • Criteria for Evaluating Performance • Timbre – quality of tone, range, variety, appeal of musical sounds • Expressiveness – interpretation, style, and phrasing • Technique – performer’s skills • Presentation – choice and appropriateness of the music, and whether the performance meets your expectations • Impact – artist’s charisma, familiarity or newness of what you hear, comparisons to other performances

9. Critiquing Music (cont.) • The Role of the Critic • Does more than condemn or rave about a performance • Gives arguments to support claims • Must be perceptive listeners • Also takes into account nonmusical aspects of performance • Influence public opinion, can make or break musicians’ careers • Colorful language – descriptive words

10. Musical Artistry in Schools • Teen years are when musician goes from beginners to experts • Some may become professionals or virtuosos • Band, Orchestra, Choir, Musical Theatre, etc.

11. Aural – hearing-related Perceptive Listening – listening to and appreciating a musical work for its full range of technical and expressive qualities Aesthetic – characterized by a heightened sensitivity to the content, form, or emotional impact of an artistic work or event Scale – a sequence of tones arranged in rising pitches Major Scale – a sequence of eight pitches built on the pattern of two whole steps, one half step, three whole steps, and one half step Interval – distance in pitch between two tones Vocabulary

12. Texture – the way sounds are woven together Ensemble – cooperative musical expression Monophonic – in unison with everyone sounding the same pitch or octave at the same time Mariachi – a musical group with several violins, trumpets, large bass guitar, and special five- and six-string guitars Virtuoso – a performer with brilliant, flawless technique Vocabulary (cont.)