Music Essay

Music Essay
For this Essay, please compare and contrast one World Music and one French Impressionist composition, choosing from the selections listed below. You will need to find the French Impressionist on your own, as noted in the Course Materials. Please choose from the selections below to order your music or borrow from local library. The music of the French Impressionists is quite popular and easy to find. There is a good chance you can find CDs available locally on a library loan basis if you do not wish to purchase CDs.

Using CDs, online resources, and texts, write a 5 to 6 page paper comparing and contrasting timbre and texture in the works that you choose. Timbre and texture are intertwined, yet you need to be clear in distinguishing between these sounds and concepts in your comparison and contrast. For example, you may want to explain the ideas of timbre and texture, and then give examples of each in your world music and French Impressionist selections, comparing types of timbre and texture in the two musical selections. Please quote from our texts if appropriate in describing the musical selections and definitions and terms of timbre and texture.

Listening Options for ESSAY #4:

Choose one world music selection from the following:
(Note – these selections are on the CDs accompanying our text)

#37 Chidori no Kyoku
#38 Highlander Men’s Ganga
#41 Kreasi Beleganjur Padma Mudra
#26 Dikrayati

ALSO choose one French Impressionist selection from the following:

La Mer, Claude Debussy (first movement only)
Nocturnes, Claude Debussy (choose one section, e.g. “Nuages/ Clouds”)
Daphnis et Chloe, Maurice Ravel (“Break of Day” movement only)
String Quartet in F Major, Maurice Ravel (first Movement, “Allegro moderato – Tres doux”)

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(Note – you will have to find your music for these selections on your own, either locally or by ordering online. Please order ASAP so you will have the music on time for completion of your ESSAY #4.)

How the music affects you personally will enter into your analysis and might serve you well as a brief introduction to each analysis. That is, various moods, images, or impressions of the sounds may enter your mind as you listen. The main object is to discuss the music itself in terms of rhythm and melody. Do use the keywords and other relevant terms and concepts you encounter in our reading as part of your musical description.

Do not be surprised that it may be difficult, at first, to write ‘analytically’ about music. The learning experience is what this course is about, and this Essay is one step in that process. As a listener, your skills in analysis will grow with ‘practice’ in listening to both the ‘formal elements’ and the ‘feeling elements’ in the music.