This is my fourth and final semester of music history coursework. (Well, if you count Music 201 and 202, then I've had some sort of music hisotry class every semester). Hallelujah! For every multiple choice test we take, we also have a listening exam where we have to recognize and answer a few questions about pieces from audio tracks. In studying for these exams, I always download all the music for the test from the CDs to my computer. The other day I made another playlist for my next exam. I titled it "Last Music History Test Ever," and for being 20th century music, it's actually quite intriguing. Which basically means that most of you probably wouldn't like it, and honestly, I thought I wouldn't either. But, it's pretty rad stuff. Musicians are so dang creative! That's why we're called artists. I love it. Have you ever gone to an art exhibit where there are works in several different mediums? Well, that's how I feel about 20th century music; the toolkit (to use Dr. Johnson's terminology) that composers use literally has no limits. It's really cool.
And as another random fact, I put all of my entire downloaded music on shuffle, and here's just a sampling of what I got. After 6 semesters of music history, and a few random other pieces on there, it's a pretty wide variety of music.
1. Haydn Piano Concerto
2. Bach: Chorale Prelude: A Mighty Fortress is Our God
3. Safe Inside (some cheesy EFY thing)
4. La Serva Padrona: an aria from some opera we studied. maybe music 303?
5. Bach: Prelude in C Minor (gotta love the harpsichord)
6. As Vesta Was: don't remember composer, but it's a beautiful Renaissance choral piece
7. Handel: Water Music
8. Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (which piece is more fun to play than to listen to, but it's incredibly fun to listen to)
9. The Marvelous Light (another cheesy church thing)
10. Armide: opera by Lully. He was pretty much the founder of French opera. Look him up; he's pretty interesting.
Man, I've got so much more . ..I think 1562 clips all together, but it's a fun mix. As hard as music history classes are, they are really fascinating.
5 comments:
Why am I not surprised about this post??!? I remember having to memorize clips for my one music class (a GE - don't know which number - my teacher was Larry and Sheldon's clarinet teacher). I wasn't a fan of trying to memorize something so abstract compared to regular word facts you study for for tests all the time.
I think you might be thinking of Music 101, Jen. But I'm not sure. I took that last semester from Dr. Hinckley, Becca's clarinet teacher. I personally liked studying for the exams, but I don't think I'd be a fan of taking a class like that every semester like Boog did.
Oh Gosh.... those 301-304 are BEASTLY!!!! For my generals I now try to find the most opposite things from music as I can get - I know, it's sad. You'd think a music major would want to take all music classes! ha - Not the case after those Survey of Music Literature courses! Congrats on making it through! See you 'round the HFAC.
Music 101 it was!
I would have LOVED that class.
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