The Podcast

Week One Podcast Summary

The podcast starts by talking about course requirements. Pre assessments are optional but they give you a good idea of what is going to be covered in tests. Every week there are threaded discussions where you are asked to listen to music and discuss the music you listened to. There are four podcasts throughout the course. We will be asked to review each of these podcasts. There are two exams, a midterm and a final. One on week two and the other one on week four. There are two special assignments, the music study and the concert report.

The discussions each week have some requirements. They must be a minimum of 250 words. They must be relevant to the topic. They must contain originality and depth. They must also be thorough. You must cite your sources. You must also comment on two other students’ posts. You should make your first post no later than Thursday night so that other students have time to respond to them.

Podcast are available Tuesday night. They should be viewed and reviewed by Friday night, although they are not due until Saturday. The summary is podcast comments and notes. The commentary is my personal reflection of the podcast. Each should be one page and on a single word document. They are graded on thoroughness, accuracy, originality and quality of writing.

The music study is worth 10 points and is due in the third week of class. You select two pieces on music from the text. You compare, identify and evaluate the two pieces of music. There is an outline that gives you areas to investigate in the music. There is a sample music study available for us to look at.

The concert report is due in week four. We are required to attend a live performance that is approved by our instructor. We have to review the concert and submit it to the dropbox. We also have to provide proof that we attended the concert. It is worth 10 points.

There are two exams in this course, a mid term and a final exam. A ten question exam is worth 3 points per question and a 30 question exam is worth 2 points per question. There is also a short essay that needs to be written.

This week we are talking about Timbre, or tone color. This is the quality of the sound that distinguishes one instrument from another. Every sound we hear has a different pitch and frequency. These create overtones. Timbre is the fundamental frequency plus the overtone. Pitch is the highness or lowness of the note and frequency is the vibrations per second that he note makes.

Peoples voices are characterized by how high or low they can sing. These are labeled as soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, with soprano being the highest pitched and bass being the lowest. Soprano is a high female voice while alto is a low female voice. Tenor is a high male voice and bass is a low male voice. These four categories get divided into sub categories. For instance, a soprano can be a coloratura soprano or a mezzo soprano.

There are different instrument families. These families are aerophones, cordophones, idiophones and membranophones. Aeprohones produce sound by a column of wind. A flute is an aerophone.  Chordophones are string instruments such as a guitar. Idiophones make sound when you hit them. An example of an idiophone is when you clap your hands. Membranophones are similar to idiophones but they involve a membrane that has been stretched. An example of a membranophone is a drum.

Western instruments are strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion and keyboard. An example of a string instrument is a violin. Flutes are an example of woodwind instruments. Brass instruments are made out of brass, like a trumpet. Percussion instruments are instruments that can be beat such as a drum. Keyboard instruments have keys that are pressed like a piano.

There are different types of music genres, Genre refers to a type of named music such as rock or country. Medium refers to what is playing the music such as a rock band or an orchestra.

Musical style changes over time. There are several style periods. Middle ages was from the year 400- 1450. The renaissance period was from 1450-1600. The baroque period was from 1600-1750. Classical was from 1750-1825. The romantic era was from 1820-1900. The post-romantic era was from 1890-1915. And the modern era is from 1900- present.

Texture is the interweaving of melodic and harmonic elements in musical fabric. There are four different kinds of textures, monophony, heterophony, polyphony and homophony. Monophony is one melody at a time. Heterophony is one melody that is played simultaneously in different variations. Polyphony is when you have more than one melody. Homophony is when you have one melody that is accompanied by some chords.