Music Wise

1. Stuff done this week: - Read more from Burkholder et al (2014) about Medieval Music history. - Mandolin lessons have focussed on arpeggio's. Studied arpeggio's over G, C, D, F chord progressions. - Wrote a Sixteen bar blues for mandolin called the " Hang Man's Swing" , a quaint folky murder ballad . It is a sixteen measure blues. - Listened to a selection of Medieval instruments (Lejeune, 2009). - Started practicing a tune on mandolin called "The Star of Munster", in A-Dorian mode. Having read up on Medieval Music I start to understand more about modal music. The Dorian scale has a rather minor quality to it. - Watched a fascinating documentary about the life of Bob Marley. Here is a  Trailer . 2. Listening done this week: - Hildegard von Bingen - Listening on repeat to  Hildegard Von Bingen - Ave Maria, O Auctrix Vite ... Jeees, just easily the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. Ave Maria, O Auctrix Vite The poe...

Stuff done this week: - Mostly started reading about the Medieval music period. Notes and sources are listed at the bottom of this page. - Started on research point 2, which requires me to select three composers and write short biographical notes on them and listen to examples of their work. - Interesting link I found that I need to check out:  https://historiesofemotion.com/2015/06/09/arousing-sluggish-souls-hildegard-of-bingen-and-the-ordo-virtutum/ ____________________________________________________ What I learned: Here my notes. Religious music in the Medieval period Medieval music was predominantly religious music and it had a liturgical function. The church music of the early Middle Ages - before the advent of polyphony around the 9th century - is referred to as  plain chant  (Knight, 2012). It is thought to have emerged around 100 A.D. and was, in fact, the only type of music allowed in the early Christian churches. It involved chanting, only...