Opera In Disquise

This activity challenged my critical listening skills and developed my ability to appraise music and use aesthetic sensitivity while concentrating on listening to identify the music elements. It was evident that the composer manipulates all the musical elements and qualities to accurately portray the narrative of the Moldau. Elements of music include duration, pitch, dynamic and expression, structure and style, timbre and texture (REF). For example, duration includes rhythm, beat, accent and tempo, that I was able to identify with the loud, triumphant calls of the hunter’s horn, the dominating French horns, and trumpets playing sharp, rhythmic notes. Also, pitch refers to the register of the note in a sound patter (REF). I was able to identify the cheerful mood of the melody that moves in an up and down pitch. Dynamics and expression are evident in the pattern of intensity and volume of the sound with loud trumpets as the river passes the rapids or the bassoon playing low and dark sounds that I thought contributes to dramatic

I found this piece very interesting; it tells a clear story, and has a dissonant accompanist which makes it sound stylistically similar to the music of musical theatre.

Often music is consisted not only by sounds made from musical instruments, but also by voice and verbal messages. The structure of the voice, or as Roland Barthes describes it ‘the grain of voice’ is the element in a certain piece of music which is responsible for creating the emotions when listening. The grain and the lyrics make the signified and carry out the message. The vocal part of music is formed of words, text, which communicate and make the representation and expression of what it is sung - talked about. According to Barthes the emotive modes of the voice and the changes of the tones from low to high is what delivers the final message and makes us feel the music. (Barthes, R. 1977 [1972]).

The music played throughout all of the concerts adhered to be diverse. The instruments, the individuals performing, and the conductor all proved to be outstanding. The concerts proved to be interesting as I witnessed them, first hand.

First, the overall tone in all three pieces was phenomenal, but there were a couple spots during the performance that were not as amazing as the rest of the performance. In the first song, Hamilton by Jerry Brubaker, it was hard to hear certain sections

Like the previous eras, Opera continued to be one of the most important music genre is the 19th century, especially in Italy, German and France. Opera served as a form of entertainment for the people of higher social class. Opera music was also popular among the people of other social classes due to the availability of transcribed opera music for them to enjoy in salons or homes of the middle class. This genre was extensively explored and developed by the Italians and Germans. This paper will discuss how Italian and German opera were developed by comparing each composer’s distinctive compositional traits.

The concert was performed on the Southam Hall stage at the NAC; this is a large hall with extremely good acoustics. It is a nationally known stage, so the quality of the hall is very good. Generally, the audience was very receptive as it was composed of adults, who were all silent. The acoustics were very good as the hall spread the sound throughout the hall without making it echo. This had a positive effect on the performance, because it was possible for the orchestra to be clearly heard from any point in the entire hall. I was impressed by the large number of students that I saw that night because the show deserved to have been heard by many young people.

Imagine you are in a darkened theater and on stage are the actors. Behind the actors you can see the scenery. Down in front of the stage, in what is called the pit, is an orchestra and a conductor. As the orchestra plays, the actors on stage do not speak their lines they sing them!

If music reveals emotions, it is not a normal emotion like any other (Stecker 273). The expression in music can be considered a traditionalized phenomenon (Stecker 273). There are common questions about

Music’s ability to arouse emotions fascinated psychologists and the complex psychological mechanisms that act as a pathway to musically induced emotions intrigued them even more. By considering a simulated situation in which the audience’s emotions fluctuate as a music piece plays, people readily found one single mechanism incapable of rationalizing all occasions. Two psychological mechanisms—evaluative conditioning and musical expectancy—were hypothesized and agreed commonly. Evaluative conditioning (EC) refers to “a process whereby an emotion is induced by a piece of music simply because this stimulus has been paired repeatedly with other positive or negative stimuli” (Juslin & Västfjäll, 2008, p.564). In other words, a recurrent incident

In Paris 1919, a public auction is held, an elderly man buys a monkey, there is talk of the famous disaster and the unexplained mystery chandelier is also auctioned. In Paris 1870, the Opera Populaire is shown, a theatre production is being rehearsed and the lead is Carlotta. The opera is bought by 2 new owners and there’s a new investor, Raoul. One of the girls in the background, Christine Daee realizes it’s her childhood sweetheart.. Soon, the owners come to know of the phantom, the phantom of the opera commands that Box 5 remain empty and that he get a salary. Christine Daee is noticed by the owners and she becomes the leading lady of one of the opera productions, she is adored by the audience. Raoul realizes that it’s Little

Thesis: Music is a unique form of sound powerful enough to manipulate mood, feelings, and cognition.

Music is one of the greatest human creations (DeNora, 2000). It plays an integral role in human society worldwide irrelevant of race, gender, age, wealth or well-being (Kemper & Danhauer, 2005). Indeed according to Batt-Rawden (2010), playing different music in diverse situations can introduce listeners to the desired and relevant atmosphere. In most circumstances, music is played to entertain people, but it can also form part of an accompaniment in sad situations. Music is often the fulcrum that influences the listener by creating a unique ambience and atmosphere (Bernatzky, Presh, Anderson, & Panksepp, 2011). Chamorro-Premuzic and Furnham, (2007) adds that music can be a medium to enhance communication,

First of all, one of the most important characteristics of music in this period was the increased emotional expression. During the Renaissance, emotions of

were hearing music like they had never heard it before - exactly as it would sound in the