Music Wise

1. Stuff done this week - I researched how musical instruments are classified into groups or families. In this blog I present my notes on how these groups are defined. - I continued the timeline I presented in my blog of week 52. - I picked four instruments from the Renaissance and wrote brief descriptions of them. Notes are presented in this blog. 2. Classification of Musical Instruments Below, I present a formal classification of musical instruments. I based it on descriptions from the  The Harvard Dictionary of Music (Randel, 2003): Strings: The stringed instruments (string section) of an orchestra. Woodwind: Wind instruments that have an enclosed, vibrating air column set into motion by a reed or by blowing across or through an aperture (example: flute). They are distinct from brass instruments, in which the air column is set into motion by the vibration of the player's lips. Keyboard instruments sounded by the same means as woodwinds, such as the organ, are

1. Stuff done this week - Read chapter 8 from " A History of Western Music" (Burkholder et al., 2014). - Made an attempt at exercise 1 from the OCA Music Foundations course. It involved listening to a Mass, a Madrigal and an Ayre from the Renaissance era by different composers. Further on in this blog, I wrote a few reflective paragraphson each piece. 2. Listening done this week I listened to an Ayre ,  Mass , and a Madrigal from the Renaissance era by different composers. The ayre I selected is a composition by John Dowland (1563–1626), named   "In Darkness Let Me Dwell". It is  performed by German countertenor Andreas Scholl and accompanied by a lute. "Kyrie" is a short four voice mass by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525/1526-1594) , performed  by Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars. The madrigal "Sfogava Con Le Stelle" is by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) and published in his "Il Quarto Libro de' Madrigali a

1. Stuff done this week - Read chapter 7 of  "A History of Western Music"  (2014); notes are presented in this blog. - I intend to write an essay on Afro-Punk. I am finding various interesting sources: Reading "Right to Rock" by Prof. Maureen Mahon (New York University). It is a book about the ways African American rock musicians in the 1990s used music and activism to challenge prevailing ideas about black music and identity. I believe it may be useful as source for my essay on AfroPunk. Watched the documentary " Afro-Punk (2003)"  directed by James Spooner . The documentary explores the roles of African Americans within what was then an overwhelmingly white alternative music scene across the United States of America and abroad. The film focuses on the lives of four African Americans dedicated to the punk rock lifestyle, interspersed with interviews with African American punk rockers. Afro-Punk (documentary), by James Spooner - Found an article