Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

20th Century Music: the Experience - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Gamelan influences
        
        In the Paris World Conference Exhibition of 1889, Debussy the Indonesian gamelan music for the first time, and was deeply intrigued by it. Eventually, he wrote "Pagodes", an impressionist work that has many gamelan influences. For example, the gong in gamelan music is represented by the open fifths in the left hand of the piano.
        source
        
        Debussy, Estampes (1903) - 1. Pagodes
      - Debussy - La cathédrale engloutie (The Sunken Cathedral)
        
        This piece is another example of Debussy's impressionist works. In the piece, Debussy creates an empty, desolate atmosphere with certain imagery to present a sunken cathedral at the bottom of the ocean to us.
        
        For example, in bar 1 of the piece, Debussy uses parallel fifths and octaves to create the atmosphere of a spacious but empty are that seems cold and desolate. (See next text box for picture)
    - - Unlike Debussy, Ravel's impressionist works tend to be more virtuosic and are slightly less minimalistic. One such example can be found in "Miroirs"
        
        In this piece many running notes are played in order to convey a sense of flowing and dreaminess. Such techniques would require a certain amount of virtuosity, but at the same time, it has to be subtle and quiet. The piece only requires such skills, but isn't completely meant to show it off.
  - - - Despite disliking the impressionist painting style, Debussy seemed to create a music genre that had similar features. Rather than focusing on the definite details, the music was meant to create an atmospherical sense that gave a vague idea of what it was about. In more technical terms, the harmony is more "static", there is more emphasis on "instrumental timbres that [create] a shimmering interplay of 'colours'," its melodies "lack directed motion, surface ornamentation that obscures or substitutes for melody, and an avoidance of traditional musical form".
        Source: Impressionism in music, Britannica
        
        These all help the audience to focus on the bigger picture, which is the sense and the atmosphere of the entire piece, rather than the small, definite details of the piece. One such example is time signatures. Ravel often used many time signature changes in order to prevent the audience from being able to predict everything definitely.
        
        In Miroirs, for example, these many running notes, together with the time signature changes and rubato, are used to make the audience think less definitely about the piece, and just go along with the flow.
    - - Some examples
        
        "Impression, Sunrise" by Claude Monet
        
        "Woman with a Parasol" by Claude Monet
- - - - Impressionist music used much extended harmonies, including other scale degrees such as 9ths and 13ths into chords
        
        This is also a technique in harmony commonly used in jazz
        
        In fact, one of the defining traits of jazz is its extended harmonies that create a unique colour to the genre
        
        Here is an example of a very famous jazz piece: AUTUMN LEAVES - Frank Sinatra
        This piece utilises 7th and 9th chords extensively, using them to create the unique jazz harmonies that make up its genre. If not for these extended chords, the piece simply would have been any other standard song with lyrics!
        
        such as this excerpt of The Sunken Cathedral by Debussy
    - - pieces written by them such as Ravel - Piano Concerto in G Major and Debussy: Golliwog's Cakewalk show evidences of this
        
        the freedom in the rhythm and its syncopation that are also present in jazz can be found in these pieces.
        
        One of the defining traits of ragtime is its freedom in its rhythm and its syncopation, creating this sense of groove that the listeners can enjoy. Hence, the rhythmic aspects of these pieces make it very clearly related to ragtime and its own sense of rhythmic freedom.
        
        POP
        
        From here, the "pop" industry, or popular music, was born.
        
        One of pop music's own defining traits is its rhythm and syncopation that makes the music so "groovy" and "catchy", according to what some might say. Because we all have a tendency to want to hear things on the downbeats and strong beats, by purposely syncopating the rhythms, it causes us listeners to want to subconsciously create our own beats on the downbeats and strong beats to make up for the missing ones in the music. This could be why when we listen to pop or jazz music, we tend to tap our feet in time with the music, and dancing to them freestyle can be so easy and natural to most.
        
        1 more item...
        
        LYRICS
        
        1 more item...