Hello to music experts (and music fans) I know some cathegorization for a composition (preferably the classical ones), like fugue, toccatta, etc and some eras of music, but I don't quite understand what distinguishes them all. So I have these questions. 1) What are the distinct characteristics of Baroque, Rococo and Romanticism music, preferably in term of usage of musical instrument? 2) What is a toccata, and how does it use musical instrument? 3) Is partita a type of music? (well, lack of term, as my usual) Well, those are for now..... maybe someone can help to add more musical terms as well? Thanks in advance.
Cool, stuff about classical music! Unfortunately its a few years since I did much muscial stuff at school. toccata: " a baroque musical composition (usually for a keyboard instrument) with full chords and rapid elaborate runs in a rhythmically free style " from http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/toccata A partita is a kind of musical arangement, a kind of suite or set of variations. I'm not sure what else, its kind of applied to smaller compositions as far as I can remember. Do you play an instrument or listen or what? Hhmm off the top of my head, Baroque uses fugues and polyphony etc, is kind of regimented, but then roccoco will likely be more floral etc. Both would presumably use olde rinstruments, and less brass, more chamber orchestra type compositions. Romantics tend towards orchestras, noise, tunes, away from regimented arrangements, more movements in a piece of music, more free in their composition. Someone feel free to contradict me.
Romanticism died out because of it's lack of stern form. For many of the Classicalists, it seemed like an excuse for the unskilled artists to try to sound artistic. It's basically the same reason some people don't like Jazz. I like Romanticism though, with a pinch of Jazz here and there.
thanks guthrie I have a small collection of instrumental music in my PC, apparenntly from a game, which is claimed to have been inspired by Baroque, Rococo and Romanticism. Yet, maybe they are game music, they sound a bit modern (though the ever haunting pipe organ is often present).... so I can't say.... And I don't play music to that degree... I'm not even an adept in playing the piano with one hand..... plus, I'm terrible at playing the guitar Oh, you mentioned that Roccoco is floral... what does that mean? I know a bit about fugue, though I can't describe it well.... hmm, I'm running out of response for now, and as always, replies are welcomed with gratitude
HHmm, looks like I was thinking more of architecture in describing rococo. http://www.bartleby.com/65/ro/rococo2.html in music, 18th-century reaction against the baroque style. Less formal and grandiose in structure, it was a graceful rather than a profound style, more hedonistic than venturesome. Its nice to see someone interested, and I also like trying to make it look like I know what I'm talking about. Maybe you could go get some MP3's of various composers, start listening that way, find out what you like. Although it is likely that itll be different to what it inspired. Theres a whole world of composers out there to listen to, and did you know that listening to clasical music or ws it baroque, anyhow, calms you down.
thanks. more knowledge, more fun. I cannot disagree with you about the fact that classical music calms the listeners. Most classic-influenced instrumental music I like to hear sometimes relieves my stress, though I often play the music that is describing my feeling at one time the most (some depressing tones when I'm down, e.g). Oh, by the way, I also have quite a bunch of Mozart and Beethoven music, though I don't listen to them that often.
By the way if it is possible to post a midi file in this forum, I think I can share what kind of music I like to listen to, in a degraded scale of course.....
one new question: What is actually a Chaconne? I have a piece of music named Chaconne C Moll but it sounds more like pipe organ heavy requiem..... And also, what is etude?
A chaconne is a dance in slow triple time and is similar to a passacaglia. Both are usually biult on a 'ground' bass ( repeating phrase in the bass which is harmonised in various different ways during the piece). An etude is a study. Usually a particular aspect of technique is taken as the focus and the piece built around the constant use of that technique. In a way they are practice pieces, but composers being what they are etudes are often great music, transcending their supposed didactic purpose. If you listen to your chaconne you should be able to pick out the repeating bass line. It's usually 8 bars long so every 8 bars you'll hear it begin again. However it will be well disguised by what's happening over it, (that's the fun of writing them, it's a bit like cryptography). If you've got a turgid version of one played on a big church organ then this may not be so easy, it can end up as soup if not recorded very carefully (in fact it can anyway).
Thanks for the explanation On Chaconne, I applied what you said just now, and yes, indeed, there is a part of the music (the beginning part, which is quite bass) which is almost always repeated, and some other parts are often repeated too... thanks for the info again. Also, does this mean that a Chaconne is actually 3/4 or 4/4? Even though parts of it sound 4/4, when analysed bit by bit, 3/4 is included as well...
The chaconne as a dance would have 3 beats to the bar. However as time goes on dances fall out of fashion and their musical forms start to change. Maybe later on pieces were called chaconnes because of their ground bass, but had different numbers of beats per bar (not sure about this). It's common that a dance form gradually changes as the dance itself goes out of fashion but the name for the type of piece is kept. Eventually the form of the piece bears no relation to the original dance music and may even have different numbers of beats per bar. However I doubt that your piece mixes 3 and 4 beats per bar unless it was written recently.
Uh, well Canute, You're right bout the age of the Chaconne I have. It's recent. But maybe I've miswritten something here.... I should have instead said that the Chaconne consists of 8 bars of 3/4 per 'part'...
Don't know exactly what you mean by that. To hear what 'Chaconne' really means you need to listen to one from the 17th/18th century. After that the title becomes a bit arbitrary, although it'll probably have a repeating bass line.
maybe it's nicer to describe it as this: 1st part: 3/4A 3/4B 3/4C 3/4D 3/4E 3/4F 3/4G 3/4H 2nd: 3/4A 3/4B 3/4C 3/4D 3/4E 3/4F 3/4G 3/4H (this line overlapped by: ) ........3/4A' 3/4B' 3/4C' 3/4D' 3/4E' 3/4F' 3/4G' 3/4H' 3rd: 3/4A 3/4B 3/4C 3/4D 3/4E 3/4F 3/4G 3/4H ........3/4A' 3/4B' 3/4C' 3/4D' 3/4E' 3/4F' 3/4G' 3/4H' ........3/4A'' 3/4B'' 3/4C'' 3/4D" 3/4E" 3/4F" 3/4G" 3/4H" and so on. There is the baseline yes.
