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Programs
(Select One)
- 1. Sound, Music, and the
Environment
- What do different cultures mean by music? This program explores the definition of music
from the sine wave to poetic metaphor, and the impact of the cultural environment on
musics as different as Bosnian ganga and becarac singing; Tuvan throat singing; Irish,
West African, Trinidadian, and Japanese musics; and Western chamber music, jazz, and rock.
- 2.
The Transformative Power of
Music
- Music can inspire religious devotion, prepare individuals for war, motivate work, enrich
play, and stimulate the passions. The musical healing ceremonies of the Kung people in
Namibia and Botswana, Epirote music in traditional Greek weddings, and modern rock,
gospel, and folk musics all reveal music's power to transform lives.
- 3. Music and Memory
- As a dynamic link to the past, music allows us to recall and revive our different
cultural heritages through the performances we participate in now. West African griots,
the Walbiri people of Australia, folksingers of Ireland and Appalachia, and modern
practitioners of early music show us how our musical pasts live again today.
- 4. Transmission: Learning Music
- How we learn musical traditions and how we maintain, modify, notate, teach, and perform
them for a new, younger audience are exemplified here in Indian classical music, African
village drumming, and modern jazz and gospel.
- 5. Rhythm
- Marking time and moving through our bodies, rhythm has a special relationship to both
musical form and worldwide dance traditions. How rhythm structures music is examined
through the American marching band, North Indian tala, Japanese shakuhachi tradition, West
African drumming, and Afro-Cuban dance music.
- 6. Melody
- Melody — the part of music we most often remember — is examined here both
scientifically and poetically, from a strict sequence of pitches to a group of notes
"in love with each other." We see and hear melodies shaped, elaborated, and
developed within Western classical music, the Arabic maqam tradition, Irish dance music
and sean-nós singing, and Indian raga.
- 7. Timbre: The Color of Music
- The tone color of music — or "timbre," as we call it in the Western
tradition — is influenced by both technical and aesthetic factors. This program
examines the creation and effects of timbre in jazz and Indian, West African, Irish,
Bosnian, Indonesian gamelan, and Japanese musics.
- 8. Texture
- The way different voices and instruments work together to produce the overall sound
gives music its texture. This program examines texture in Japanese shakuhachi, Trinidadian
steel band, Bosnian ganga, West African percussion, and modern Australian choral music.
- 9. Harmony
- When two or more notes sound together, harmony occurs. This interaction of pitches,
understood in vastly different ways around the world, is analyzed here in jazz, chamber
music, Bosnian ganga singing, early music plainchants, and barbershop quartets.
- 10. Form: The Shape of Music
- Form — the way music is organized and structured from beginning to end —
guides composers, performers, and listeners in all musics. Here, the traditional Western
sonata, the blueprints behind improvisational jazz, the narrative structure of traditional
Japanese music, call-and-response forms in West African music and American gospel, and
Irish fiddle tunes exemplify worldwide variations in musical form.
- 11. Composers and Improvisers
- How are a composer and an improvisor alike? How are they different? The marriage between
fixed elements and new variation is examined in American rock, Indian raga, classical and
contemporary Western music, jazz, and Arabic classical music.
- 12. Music and Technology
- New instrument types and new electronic media for distribution are obvious results of
technology, but so were the first bone flute and the first stretched catgut. How
technology affects music is examined here in a case study of the flute, and in an
examination of developing recording and composing technologies where the roles of
composer, musician, arranger, and conductor begin to fuse.
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About This Course
This is a video instructional series on the elements of music
for college and high school classrooms and adult learners There are 12 half-hour video
programs
Video for Exploring the World of Music and the
individual program descriptions shown here are provided courtesy of Annenberg/CPB.
This site is not affiliated with nor endorsed by
Annenberg/CPB |
