How does Stravinsky create Unusual Timbres through Innovative Instrumentation? In his Pulcinella suite, Stravinsky uses musical material by older composers and manipulates it to create his own version. One way that he uses to do this is by using unexpected or unconventional instrumentation, getting progressively more innovative through the suite. In the Sinfonia, Stravinsky uses music from a piece by Gallo and uses his music in the first violin and cello parts, with the original viola line moved around the orchestra more. Gallo’s piece of music would have had a fourth instrument (i.e.
For example, the synthesizer, Wurlitzer piano, bass guitar and the drum kit is used. Other, more folk-like instruments include the violin, the accordion, uilean pipes and the bouzouki. This means it contains a bit of folk and pop mixed together. This mixture of both genres of music can be called a
There are two parts to the piece which are the treble and bass of the piece. The bass accompanies the top line throughout most of the piece but has certain parts where it takes over the melody e.g. when the piece modulates and it goes down in a scale towards the end of the piece. The harmony of the piece is complicated as it modulates frequently. It starts off in E minor for the first and second phrases but towards the end of the second phrase it modulates to G major which is the relative major of E minor.
This piece was composed during the minimalist style outbreak, so it was only natural and exciting for composers to be experimenting with the newly-discovered ways of electronically making and editing music. Steve Reich greatly incorporates the electronic sound into his piece by using 7 electric guitars and 2 bass guitars. The use of all of these instruments creates a thick polyphonic texture, which was achieved by being “multi tracked”, which was overdubbing short phrases on top of each other. The piece is mainly made up of many short patterns/motifs, with the repetitiveness of the piece making it feel rather hypnotic. The texture remains fairly constant but with use of panning (bass guitars are panned with one to the left and one to the right.
Both of the pieces also had different purposes, the Handel was written as a celebration for the king. Whereas the Mozart was written to showcase the development of the Horn at this time and also to show the virtuosic abilities of Leutgeb. Handel uses a generally large orchestra containing 2 oboes, a bassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, violin 1, violin 2, viola and cello and bass. Whereas Mozart uses 2oboes, 2 horns, a solo horn, violin 1, violin 2, viola and cello and bass. Although Mozart uses a solo Horn, both pieces have the strings as their main body.
Certain stretches of the composition reminded me of a cross between the works of older composers such as Beethoven and Mozart, with some very similar tonic structure, though the breaks in organization depict a more experimental style. The work seems to lend itself to other avant garde pieces and carries on the overall theme of forwardness and disobedience to the norm as associated with the period. There is also a grand mixture of scales, forward and reverse, which also contribute to the overall message of the piece. To me, it is flowing along a natural timeline with breaks to signal the seasons and changes in our lives. The scales from top to bottom
Overall, the second section is rather contrasting from the first section, as it has a different key for the music to build up to a couple of climaxes. PP- pianissimo which means very soft and FF- fortissimo which means very loud MELODY AND RHYTHM The melody is mostly lyrical and is played on the right hand, developed with ornaments. However, the melody moves to the left hand in section B, and plays a narrower range with notes lasting for a
It uses a homophonic texture with some polyphonic texture. Although both pieces use homophonic textures they are used very differently. 5. It is repetitive, similar to The Lamb. It uses a chorus and a catch line to emphasise the repetitiveness and in The Lamb it also repeats the tune in the melody, like Waterloo Sunset.
He also played the clarinet and the alto horn. In saxophone, he uses the technique called “Altissimo”, which is basically, any note higher than F# (sharp), the highest range in the normal range of a saxophone. To achieve the technique, the player produces many voicing techniques such as the tongue, throat and the air stream, in result disturbing the fundamentals of a note and attaining one of the higher overtones controlling. This type of technique is common in the jazz genre. “Coltrane Changes/Cycles” is the second technique used by John Coltrane.
The Lowest Instruments Bass instruments provide a rich harmony to a music piece to accompany the melody played by numerous higher-pitched instruments. Each family has at least one instrument that usually plays the harmony in music pieces, whether it is an opera, a symphony, or a march. Though there are differences between the tuba, the bassoon, and the double bass, the three instruments share some things in common with each other. The bassoon, the tuba and the double bass all produce low sound, but each of them are made with different materials thus the sound is also different. The bassoon is made up of wood, particularly sugar maple wood, while the tuba is made up of brass with some nickel.