First lecture: Structure of music and "Great Composers and Great
Music."
|
Second lecture: What is the Overtone Scale.
|
Third lecture: Analyzing classical and jazz selections and
how the overtone scale is applied in music.
|
This series of lectures will be on
the overtone scale. We hear great music but because we don't always
understand the principals of music, some of the "awe" we should have
is not understood. Hopefully this series of lectures will inspire
all music students, beginning through advanced and give the desire
to not only learn music, but to appreciate music.
WHAT IS A "GREAT WORK OR GREAT COMPOSER"
Lecture 1
Music consists of
melody, harmony and rhythms, this explanation is in its simplest of
forms. There is music which has great rhythms, which is used for
dancing, there are songs that have beautiful melodies, and songs
that are written with outstanding modulations in harmonic
structures. Let's compare musical structure to a house.
The foundation and structure would consists of scales, chords and
modulations (simple meaning for modulation is changing scales or
keys in a composition). The rooms could be a sonata, because a
sonata because it contains different parts. Furniture and
decoration would be a melody and rhythms, completing and fulfilling
the structure and rooms. Are you getting the idea?
Building music is not simple. Do composers start with a melody
then build the foundation, or do composers build a foundation and
then add the melody. Let's assume that most pop music starts
with melody and rhythm then builds a simple foundation, but
classical and jazz usually build with the foundation first.
When studying the overtone series and how it
applies to the foundation of music you will begin to have an idea of
how a composers mind work. Yes, the "Great Composers" have a
thorough knowledge of music and the fascination is that they can use
music "math", building great structures, and at the same time build
such beautiful sounds and melodies.
The overtone scale series was built from
nature and its development to the tempered piano came into existence
only in the last 300 years. We use tempered instruments today,
which means that they were tampered with to give us the 12
major scales. The overtone scale we use today actually comes
from the fundamental C string. There are overtone scales that
we can not use with our system of twelve major scales. This
study is so fascinating and with the appearance of computers maybe
we will be able to produce tones that can not be included in our
instruments of today. The system of the 12 major scales and
triads (chords) is a very organized system. The other system
we have in music is developing music chromatically. This means
that we can move half steps and whole steps without regards to the
major scales. When developing music with both systems one
would tend to think that only chaos would be the result.
Mozart was a master of using both methods, and this is part of his
genius. Later we will look at his work and show how he used this
combination. Do you think Mozart started with melody or the
foundation?
The next question would be, who
developed the tempered system of 12 major scales and how was this
accomplished. So many questions and that is the purpose of
this first lecture. Even without a musical education you can
begin to understand the complexity of music. Answering some of
these questions will be our goal over this series of lectures.
I hope you have enjoyed this simple explanation and that it will set
you on the path of learning more about music.
Author Alana LaGrange.
If you have a response or would like to add more information,
please
E-mail.
Lecture
2
Lecture 3
Lecture 4
|
