Music History
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Music History
Music has been a great influence in the lives of many people through lyrics and
rhythm. There are many different styles that can be performed by either a male
or female. Music has been around for many years and is constantly changing.
Music has been divided into six periods: Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque,
Classical, and Twentieth Century. Music is written in symbols that represent
musical sounds. The system of written symbols is called Musical Notation.
"The primary requirement of any notation is that it be suited to the music
it represents (Gerboth)." The simplest texture of music is monophonic or
single voiced texture. Gregorian chant is an example of monophonic texture.
“All music up to about a thousand years ago, of which we have any knowledge,
was monophonic (Machlis 295).” Its melody is heard with out a harmonic
accompaniment or other vocal lines and attention is focused on the single line (Machlis
295). “To this day the music of the Oriental world - of China, Japan, India,
Java, Bali, and the Arab nations -is largely monophonic (Machlis 295).”
Polyphonic or many-voiced texture is when two or more melodic lines are
combined. Most Medieval polyphonic music is anonymous, though some composers
were so important that their name was preserved along with their music
("Historical"). The polyphonic texture is based on counterpoint: the
art and science of combining in a single texture two or more simultaneous
melodic lines, each with a rhythmic life of its own (Machlis 295-96). The
development of counterpoint took place at a time when composers were mainly
occupied with religious choral music, which was by its nature, many-voiced (Machlis
296). Polyphony had to be written in a way that would indicate the rhythm and
pitch precisely. It brought the emergence of regular meters that enabled
different voices to stay together. Polychoral music is music for several chiors
singing in answer to each other across the huge resesses of the church (Frowler
122). Homophonic texture is a single-melody with chords (Machlis 296).
Homophonic means "same" or similar sounding. Its texture is based
mainly on harmony. This texture dominated the Classical style. The Medieval
period was the longest and most distant period of musical history and consists
of almost a millennium’s worth of music (“Historical”). One of the
difficulties in studying Medieval music is that a system for notating music
developed only gradually ("Historical"). A musical notation system was
st...
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