20th Century Music, Analysis of Time Piece by Paul Patterson

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Time Piece Analysis Brianne Rodgers Time ticks on forever, however many creative outlets take ideas and characteristics from previous eras. This can be seen especially in music and when deconstructing the 20th century work Time Piece by Paul Patterson. The elements of music throughout this piece have been manipulated in ways similar to music of the medieval, renaissance, baroque, classical and romantic eras. The manipulation of particular elements relates often not to just one era of music but may overlap with other eras as works from other eras have taken some musical ideas through to their own. The specific musical elements discussed can be seen in the annotated scores in the appendix. Time piece is a story of the invention of time and how since its invention it has ruled our lives. The text is satirical through its references to the story of Genesis from The Bible. The work begins with an introduction which is a single repeated note. The text then begins with the story of the beginning that everyone knows. This beginning is very peaceful and represents the calmness that was experience before time was invented. When the watch is introduced as a character at 4.24, the music becomes more agitated as the work progresses. Eventually God realises how bad reliance on time is and destroys the watch. The destroying of time results with the music becoming much calmer and ending with an outro much similar to the beginning with one single note being repeated, the final phrase of text is sung and the piece of music is finished. This piece has been compared and contrasted against other pieces characteristic of their respective eras. Time piece takes some aspects from the Medieval Period, especially from chants. The medieval period spanned from 450 to 1450 and the music was heavily influenced by the church. Time piece takes characteristics such as chant and free rhythm,

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