During the Middle Ages music really came alive. It was thefirst time that music was recorded and written down. Musicfirst became notated in Northern Italy.
A major part of music is the instruments. There are seven classifications of instruments, they are : Strings, Brass, Percussion, Woodwinds, Keyboard, Electronics, and Voice. The most powerful of them all is Voice. After the year 1100, instruments were the most common in church. The organ, a keyboard instrument , was one of the most popular.
Sound has four classifications, they are : volume, pitch, tone, and duration. It also has a Dynamics scale written in Italian to help indicate. Pianissimo (pp) meaning very soft, Piano (p) meaning soft, mezzo piano (mp) meaning moderately soft, mezzo forte (mf) meaning moderately loud, forte (f) meaning loud, and fortissimo (ff) meaning very loud. There are three elements of music.
Those elements are : Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm. Melody is a series of single tones that add up to a recognizable whole. Harmony is how chords are constructed and how they follow each other. Rhythm is an ordered flow of music through time, also said to be the pattern of duration of notes and silences in music. There are several techniques that create musical form, they are : repetition, contrast, and variation.
Music has different textures that help define the way something is heard. Monophonic is a single unaccompanied melodic line. Like a cappella, which means vocal music- voices alone without instrumental accompaniment . Then there is Polyphonic which is a simultaneous, of two or more melodic lines of relatively equal interest.
It adds dimension. Finally there is Homophonic which is to hear one main melody accompanied by chords. The attention is focused on the melody. The general name that is given to music performed outside of the church is called secular. Music that is performed inside of the church is called …
