performance venue, including venue, arrangement of musicians and instruments
800 minimum word count
– All performers and program content as performed in sequence. How does the artist arrange the sequence of the songs so as to build to a final climax and keep the audience with them at all times?
– Details of the performance venue, including venue, arrangement of musicians and instruments, descriptions of instruments,and audience responses. Does the singer or band perform many new pieces or please the fans by playing mostly the artist’s best-known songs? Does the audience sing along with the musicians? Is there dancing in the aisles or up front, in front of the musicians? If so, this is a sure sign that the performers have done a good job of literally “moving” the listeners. Analysis is yielding to emotion.
– Musical elements for each of the pieces performed (listed below) following the “Guide to Writing a Concert Report” for World Music – use time marks (00:00) as a reference in the narrative. As you may have noticed, most classical music concerts consist of known pieces performed in a traditionally accepted way; spontaneous creativity is kept closely in check. How do the artists at your pop concert demonstrate creativity by doing the unexpected, by suddenly improvising, for example? (40%)
- Again, show that you’ve learned something in this course. Use your newly developed musical vocabulary. Be specific, such as “The violins convincingly effected a modulation of the theme through different keys from 0:45-1:24 to heighten the anticipation of the ending.” Use correct vocabulary! Use terminology in the Music Styles Guide. There is not such thing as ‘upbeat’ in the music elements vocabulary. If using the term “upbeat,” you must describe specific elements of melody, tempo, rhythm, etc. to receive credit.
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- Are the instruments more or less exact counterparts of Western ones (a bamboo flute and a Western metallic one, for example), or do the instruments seem exotic, perhaps unique to the musical culture on display at the concert? Speculate, then, as to which musical instruments might be truly global and which might be unique to the West.
- Does the music have a strong component of harmony (as does Western music), or is it far more melodically oriented? Do drones play a role in the harmony? If so, what do drones add to the music?
- What is the relationship between performers and audience? Do the performers stop and explain their music from time to time? Does the audience overtly encourage the performers now and then? Is it socially permissible for the audience to get up and walk around during the performance? If so, what might that say about the function of the music in this non-Western context?
- Is the concert primarily an event for listening only, or is it participatory? Is it closer to a Western classical music concert or to a pop music performance? If the latter, does a “beat” seem to drive the music, as in so much Western pop music?
- What about the attention span of the audience? Does it seem longer than that usually demonstrated at Western concerts? Does the audience seem transported by long spans of music? If the listeners are mainly from the musical culture you are hearing, do they seem to be “getting” the music—communing with the musicians—whereas you are not?
- Does the performance of a given piece seem to suspend time? Does it seem to be driving somewhere in a typically Western goal-oriented fashion, or does it just seem to float, with past, present, and future all united as one? Is any hint given, by means of structure or articulation in the music, that you are coming to the end of a piece, or does it just suddenly stop?
- Finally, in what ways have you come to see more clearly that the typical Western classical concert is a very strange phenomenon indeed? By listening to the music of “the other world,” what have you learned about yourself?
