Up the down staff; 10; Point/Counterpoint
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- Transcript
DD The following program is produced at WG U.S. in cooperation with the national educational radio network. The down staff. Conversations on music with composers got Houston and Carolyn watts of the University of Cincinnati. A real.
Thing. We have been chatting about ways in which composers attempt to do not often Ali. We just heard one of the methods used by Igor Stravinsky in between of combining two chords. The C major. Here's one clarinet. And the F sharp major. And so. That we don't base you know the one card that chorus. You can see that that was a try to hard to do that U.S. diplomats are going. On later on. With just a half step apart.
Right and you say I know you know where I was before and never use it again although it could have made a lot of mileage that is money given the way my mind works you see it works from a dramatic instinctive programmatic instinct. He just felt no need for us in the song and he didn't need that card but he needed to go because the last chord goes. And you go in a shark and it sounds completely removed like it's from two different aspects of the same stage right and left you see as far away as you can get. Totally another way to keep some sort of key center but lose the old method of having each chord function by that ancient down five and up to procedure.
Would you like that's too hard. Down down from where the tonic can go anywhere. One way to get out of that is to use one of the modes you know fresh way. Use the fridge and. The first quarter is not in the second. Tier to be. Here being the key. Some would rather. Just step up from it to be a half step.
So coming third. In the first quarter. Let's hear a string quartet. Perhaps a lesson for us too. How can we tell what is going to happen to us in the next 50 years. People are very intelligent person who is well informed in music. The average person who
absolutely You didn't write a piece like that. They immediately started correcting it and it should have gone. On. That was I was I'm allowed. It upset everybody. 1892. Now that I'm pretty happy and then the next card. And a meteor fart about by the way you see that's the same relationship as. That. And as a matter of searching intellectually probing finding out what made his music different for me out of my conclusion.
For instance at age 17 and 14 left behind in a series of notebooks what man tried. In his book he had. Thought to himself and I had to if I make each one of those a leading. And so we go. And listen let me ask that another one. This chord is all counterpoint in the voices you're seeing above and below it and we go to.
Three different keys. Go to spelling it differently. One of the ways to break away from the key almost entirely used to build the chords not of thirds as we've been doing since time immemorial but make for us. Tell me what the tonic No. For the above. There you are. Number 12 talks but a good way to do it and don't let it upset you. But try to find a key in our next music example. The beginning of the Concerto for Orchestra by the hunger and composer millibar took to begin on the C-sharp a preborn. Now the perfect up. To beat down a.
Report down the. F sharp. End of the. Pitch it began on C sharp. Chromaticism. Fluttering on the strings. Back a contrary motion. To the major seventh. We start again on C Sharp and sharp. My mother brought up. Our fourth day. To be up for theft charge not subpar before the phone began. It was a sequence of high and. Low contra motion and clusters. And then back in the conference. And another major step.
Father off. That kind of chordal harmony became fairly common in 1930s and 40s 100 chords built on fourths portal and clusters of seconds in a variety of ways and it's still being used today by a lot of composers who like to write music that's readily available to most people I think that is modern. And that was to leave before it was built. It's like. You start again on. Another. Forum later on. There is no hope.
But harmony when you're through this kind of thing you see. And. You hear this sometimes. I. Generally keep a voice perfect though sometimes you try tone and that's what that was. You take a similar warnings. And use the chords and for. The magic harmony to return again to the composer combines two chords book the same time. I'm speaking of the many.
Another to many just a half step apart. Resulting of course a. Minor third and this kind of. There for as fervent about. That particular claim and no it's part of it also recalled by rebels although other people use it so there's a here there's 8 tones now you see in an octave not just 70 so I prefer the string quartet version. Let's hear the string quartet version this is the second theme of the first movement of the quartet.
You're the scale the second it was there but it was it was there. And if you hold lots of open toes in the first violin. Diatonic tones. Not come out of the news. I didn't. I don't follow. The very kinds of very fine scales now without any preface.
But we heard just a few minutes ago a different section of our talk Concerto for Orchestra this time the third movement. You're.
Perhaps amusing just heard need and needs no explanation. Or perhaps it will seem according to your own tastes and experiences. Beautiful charming interesting and so so tedious. Ugly or a normal whether you are ten years old and heard only elevator and office building music background sounds or your age 13 with a crush on it you can pop there this year. Or a female 22 has never been to a symphony concert or a middle aged man it was intended to mean a gun or a faddist who wishes every composition here it would quote blow is MIND BLOWN quote. Whatever your age your opinions face the fact that bar talks music exists and is based on a scale that is different from the common garden variety of scales. Listen to the consistency of the scale play it and see in the pitch.
You live in a flat. Be natural. It has made it to I'm going to try it. I said it was lower so. Another minor third away. Natural so I. Just turned. To Mr. call on this and it's all right for show because I'm writing new in 1941 when this piece was composed are produced. You can do a lot of things it's a little static granted but here we have a time. I think sometimes when speaking about
good. For a short while is there for you no matter self-limiting for color or for a few minutes. What do you do. You wisely move the whole quickly from C. To B flat. And then just stopped. It has a lot of work. Sometimes going to come out as a.
Basic sound. For 40 seconds already. Planted by the. Dogs. Now I'm a B-flat. The thing is brother there's one thing I'd like to ask about here
and I think other people might have a hang up on scale and how going back the days when I studied piano early. You play a scale in the key of D. Now I'm something like this. It's a scale but when the particular I was afraid you're going to give me the answer. But folks realize it's kind of a non entity. We speak and I'm not talking about. We have a line or whatever it's called a pitch to now you heard you can't say it C Major C Minor their product and it isn't a mode. Therefore we can't say C dorian C Lydian in C whatever and you can't say C Major C minor so we call it now. So you know that's why the key word is pitch and confusing. One more thing on this
signature. You're right the action the accidentals in as you remember at the beginning of our ninth that I played 18 different kinds of scales. We should realize that there are literally hundreds of possible scale we may build on one pitch in hundreds of thousands of ways we may manipulate those scales using develops in spite of the insatiable demands of the populace for popular music which kind of music is worn out in a matter of months sometimes. We will show a few of those scales and a few of the methods of manipulation a bit ago we demonstrated the rebel scale. Let's hear it again in a different part of the room. It's a little more elusive this time. But listen now. That
was. Again the same scale corrected says is heard in the American composer Howard Hanson the Second Symphony opened like. That only ever use from those U.S. nurses. Just those. Anyway. And he continued and dozens and I was here Howard Hansen's lichens symphony.
Mark talks six five six rebels kill eight. Here's one that uses seven but in quite a different way from the diatonic minor major minor.
Here's a scale illustrated by the Dick caught up in The Piano Concerto by one of our contemporaries Brenda Thomas. Dakota begins with this scale. There is no six scale degree. But there because they are two thirds there is no. So let's hear that which has no sixth degree perhaps naturally the first modulation is to that six scale degree which has been missing for a minute or two. And. The work
goes on after the modulation there you heard and you two are of the old type of scale. There are compositions with 9 10 11 and even 12 tone scales. Each composer with wide variety of confidence is trying to find his own way out of a key or an alley or what have you. Without sacrificing meaning and still attempting to communicate with an audience listen to a fine melody and Williams you Mons Third Symphony one thousand forty one thirty years ago. Now that you're in the orchestra. Composer I used 12 tone but in such a lyric way.
Beginning in on easy. And ending on B flat and I was an imitation. That we were only gradually made aware of them and manipulation the scale uses completely chromatic. But it's rather silly to call the tune chromatic listen to another melody from the same work. And if you mines the same number three the second section called a fugue. You never know when to flatten. And ended on. A flat organization.
The opposite of first team and second fugues of the only uses 11 different times. I once did this in class and once didn't know the answer. Which tone of the 12 is messing up. The horn and there are many shots that implied there and try and fire their entire lives 11 stone the top on ones missing is. That someone is missing and thereby hangs another tale. Our next conversation will involve 12 tones but usable in a totally new way by another group of composers. You've been listening to up the down staff conversations on music with composer Scott Houston and Carolyn Watts. Our technical director is
Bob Stevenson. This program was produced in cooperation with the national educational radio network in the studios of WG U.S. on the campus of the University of Cincinnati. This is the national educational radio network.
- Series
- Up the down staff
- Episode Number
- 10
- Episode
- Point/Counterpoint
- Contributing Organization
- University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/500-rb6w2991
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- Description
- Credits
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- AAPB Contributor Holdings
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University of Maryland
Identifier: 71-17-10 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:30:00?
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- Citations
- Chicago: “Up the down staff; 10; Point/Counterpoint,” 1971-00-00, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed September 7, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-rb6w2991.
- MLA: “Up the down staff; 10; Point/Counterpoint.” 1971-00-00. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. September 7, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-rb6w2991>.
- APA: Up the down staff; 10; Point/Counterpoint. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-rb6w2991