WGUC

I have heard many different types of aerophones in the hour of listening to WGUC radio station. The first song was "Fantastic Toy Shop" by Ottorino Respighi. The conductor was Neville Marriner. The piece was played by an orchestra, and the areophones were flutes, clarinets, oboes, trumpet and I think a tuba and a french horn. The woodwind instruments had the melody while the trumpets, tubas and other brass instruments had the accompaniment. The second song was "Toward a New Life" by Josef Suk. The conductor was John Williams. The piece was also played by an orchestra, and the areophones were flutes, clarinets, oboes, trumpet,tuba and a french horn. There were a lot of brass instruments in this piece. Unlike the other piece the horns played the melody while the woodwinds had the accompaniment. The next piece was "Concerto for 2 Mandolins" by Antonio Vivaldi. The conductor was Trevor Pinnock and soloist were James Tyler. By the title name I did not think there was going to be any areophones, but I was wrong. There were flutes and clarinets that played with the violins. Unlike the other two songs, the areophones were the focus of the song. The last song I listened to was "Concert Rondo "Krakowiak"" by Frederic Chopin and conducted by Kazimierz Kord. The areophones in this piece was clarinets, flutes, oboe and a french horn. The clarinet had some melody solos and so did the flute. The main instrument in this song is the piano, which is not an areophone.

Keyboards

The first keyboard that has had an impact on music is the piano. The piano has become a symbol for music. It has helped shape music in what we know today. I think almost every genre of music has a piano playing some where in the song or piece. I think it is amazing that people still play the same design piano as musicians played back when the piano first came out. Today, the piano has inspired musical instrument inventors to take the idea of hitting a key and producing a tone to a whole new level. Keyboards can produce almost any note from any instrument that the musician would want. I like the idea that different tones and sounds can be produced from pressing a key, but I also think that producing a wind instrument or brass sound from pressing a key is kind of taking away the art of playing the instrument. The skill that comes from playing a wind instrument or brass instrument is unique to that instrument and being able to play that tones by pressing a key and not playing the instrument is kind of depressing. I am not saying that playing a wind or brass instrument is harder than a keyboard, I am just saying it is a different skill. If a keyboard could play all the instruments with a push of a key, what will happen to the instruments that the keyboard has replaced? I think that the advancing technology of a keyboard is interesting and it has effected the music world by producing many different sounds, I just hope that one day it does not replace all the musical instruments.

Guitars

I listened to four different genres of music during an hour period. The first station I listened to was country. I was able to listen to a few songs. All the songs I heard on the country station the guitar was the main instrument and most songs had more than one guitar. The guitar had its own solos in the songs and was played almost the entire song. The next station I listened to was hiphop/rap. The guitar was nearly absent in almost every song. The next station was jazz. No songs I listened to had a guitar present in the song. The last station I listened to was a rock station. The rock songs were more like the country songs when it came to the role the guitar played in the song. The guitar was usually the dominate instrument and had some solos. The guitar even out-shinned the lead singer. The guitar has different functions in different genres. Country and rock show off the wide range of sounds the guitars produce, whereas the jazz and rap genres do not include guitars. I am more of a fan of genres that include guitars.

Listening To DPR

When listening to DPR for an hour, I was able to hear four songs, “Spanish Gypsy’s” by Emogo Moody, “Contours” by William Sincock, “Francesa Da Rimini” by Peter Chiykowski and “The New York Phil Harmonic” by Leonard Bernstain. The first song was upbeat and fast past. This song did not have that many chordophones playing, the main one I heard throughout the piece was the violin followed by the ukulele. The second song consisted of violins, cello and violas. There were also pianos and a bass. The third song was my favorite out the four songs. The piece had an interesting story behind the music. The story was about two people who are in true love, but the women is secretly in love with her brother-in-law. The brother-in-law and wife have an affair and are sent to hell. The song focuses around the couples’ journey through hell and the nine stages of suffering. The chordophones in the song was the piano, violin and bass. The last piece had mainly violins played in a fast, upbeat tempo with the piano.

Membranophone

I decided to make a drum like membranophone. Luckily, it was garbage night so I got my idea using an empty small garbage can and a trash bag. It was very hard to produce a solid sound because the garbage bag would not get taught, without starting to break my roommates garbage can. I held together the trash bag with duck tape. My drum was played with a pen, and it produced an okay sound. I would have liked the trash bag to be more tight on top of the garbage can.

Journal Three: Jones Soda Idiophone

I created an Idiophone out of Jones Soda bottles. I first was looking for tin cans or supplies to make a rainmaker. I did not have any tin cans around the house and I did not have a paper towel roll to make a rainmaker. So instead, I used the Jones Soda bottles that we had on display in our kitchen. I filled five bottles all with 1/4 ratios to each other. The first bottle had 1/4 cup of water and the last had 1 1/4 cup of water. I played the Jones Soda Idiophone with a fork. I had to add and subtract some water to try to get the right tone.

Journal Three: S.H.R.M.F

I do not have a favorite song, so I decided to pick the next song on Yahoo Music to describe. The next song that came on was Kellie Pickler “Best Days of Your Life”. Appling the S.H.R.M.F concept from class, I can describe the song.
Sound: The texture of the song is homophonic. There is a melody and accompaniment.
Harmony: The song is in major. It is upbeat and sounds happy. The song is also diatonic.
Rhythm: The rhythm is an upbeat, fast tempo.
Melody: The song is mainly steps with some skips. The contour of the songs starts climbing up goes back down and stays down then starts climbing back up again throughout the whole song.
Form: The song repeats the main chorus and has verse.