Sound of the 1800 and 1900's

I listened to Captain Pearl R. Nye's "Life on the Ohio and Erie Canal." The track I listened to was called "Take a Trip on the Canal if You Want to Have Fun: part 1." I think to get the full expereince of the old recording technology I would need to heard a song with some instrumentals in it. Finding a song that had some instrumentals was quite a task, so settled for this song which is all vocals. It started off with just with a bunch of static playing. I was not sure if it was working but found that all of the songs start this way. I noticed that the song has pretty poor quality being that the static goes throughout the entire song. The one thing I think is interesting is that there is no retakes. When Captain Nye makes a mistake he pauses and then starts singing again. In todays music you obviously would not have that. I would imagine this was something that was common when they were using this old recording system.

Notation

When thinking about new ways to notate music I just thought of what I would find easiest if I were trying to read music. The biggest change I would make would be to change the notes into numbers. It seems that this is a much more simplistic way of going about things. Rather than seeing a circle with a hole in it for a half note, the musician would just see a 2; in which they would hold the note for two beats. As for the pitch of the notes I think the only way to make things easier would be to do it as they do for guitar tabs. The only reason I think this would be easier is because it seems that this is how most upcoming guitarist learn to play music; thus it must be easier. It may seem confusing to have two sets of numbers to read music, but if you just put the number for the pitch on the botton amd the value of the note on top it would not get to confusing.

Song Rythym

The first song I listened to was from the archives in the library. The peice was called Hipster Harvey and was played by theBrooklyn Sax Quartet: Way of the Saxophon, conducted by Fred Ho. This peice was a little more upbeat. The rythym of this song was a little faster than moderate, possibly 90-110 beats per minute. It was a happier song at most points which indicated that it is major. It was a very interesting song; the baratone sax was playing the bass beat the whole time and the tenor or alto sax was playing the melody of the peice.

The next song I listened to was from my collection; I chose Iron and Wine's "Someday the Waves." Like most of their music this song was in minor. Althogh the meaning is positive and happy, the tone of the song is kind of sad sounding. The reason I chose Iron and Wine was because most of their music is at a slower rythym. This song is at a very slow rythym, maybe 50-60 beats per minute. It is similar to the rythym of a lullaby. This song is homophonic being that it is just one singer and a melody in the background.

Electrophones

I listened to four different radio stations to compare and contrast how different genre's use electrophones. I first listened to rock 104, modern rock. I listened to several different songs in this 15 minute span; Kings of Leon, Muse ("Uprising") and Linkin Park ("New Divide"). All of these songs consisted mainly of electrophones. They all had electric guitar. Two songs used the electronic keyboard, Linkin Park and Kinds of Leon; and the last song, by Muse, used a synthesizer throughout the entire song. The next station, WHKO, was a country station. All three of the songs I heard consisted of just the electric guitar. I heard "Boots On" by Randy Houser, "One Boy One Girl" by Collin Raye and "American Ride", by Toby Keith. Although there really was not much electric guitar. I found that the acoustic guitar is more popular in country. The next station I listened to was a hits top 40 station. The first song I listened to was by Jason Derulo. There were several sounds displayed in this song that sounded like some sort of synthesizer. It also sounded like a distorter was used on the singers voise. The next two songs I heard were Miley cyrus, "Party in the USA", and Jordan sparks. These songs both used keyboards. Last, I listened to a Jazz/Blues station. I had trouble finding a station on the Dayton Radio stations so I streamed off an online site, KKJZ. The first song I listened to had no electrophones, it was called "Now and Then." The next song sounded similar to elevator music. It had no words and also had no electrophones. The last song I listened to was called "Hole in My Heart",by Melody Gardot. This song also had no electrophones in it.

Aerophones

I listened to an hour of WGUC and found that unless the piece is performed by a soloist, there will more times than not be an abundance of aerophones playing. The first piece I listened to was written by Charles Gounod,Petite Symphony. The piece started with clarinets, french horns and what sounded like a bassoon. It was a very cheerful song that had flutes all throughout it to make it even more lighter. The one part of this song sounded like the flutes and piccolo's where playing back and forth with the clarinets. The next piece I listened to, Maskarade Overture, was written by Carl Nielsen and performed by Swedish Radio Symphony. It started out with a lot of french horn and then eased into flutes playing. Throughout the entire song there were flutes and oboe's playing together with the clarinets. The brass, that played separate from the woodwinds, were; trumpets, trombone and what sounded like a tuba. The ending of this song was very strong sounding with all of the brass taking a crescendo to forte. The next piece I listened to did not have a whole lot of airophones in it. It consisted of mainly piano and violin.
Capriccio Brillant, written by Felix Mendelssohn, was played by the New York Philharmonic. As mentioned before, this song mainly consisted of the piano soloist. The next peice was Horn Concerto, arr. for flugelhorn, composed by Reinhold Gliere. This peice had a soloist, Sergei Nakariakov, playing the fulgelhorn. I found that the flugalhorn actually means horn with wings. Needless to say this song consisted of a lot of flugelhorn in it. Other than the flugelhorn the other main aerophone was the flute.