For Blog  # 8 the prompt is to find an artist who has created music for a political purpose. A female artist that constantly creates music to bring awareness to Feminism as well as bringing awareness to sexuality is Zolita. Zolita or otherwise known as Zoe Montana Hoetzel is a 25-year old female singer/songwriter born in New York. When analyzing her lyrics in her pop-sing “Fight Like A Girl” it is clear she has a very distinctive message to those against feminism. The musical genre that she is associated with is Pop Music. There are many other artists within this genre that use it to express their emotions and discuss their political standpoints. Her lyrics state “If you didn’t know I fight like a girl I fight like a girl (x2)”. When she was asked the meaning if this lyrical line she states “To me fighting like a girl is a powerful magical women and men are so afraid of powerful women”. This line in itself represented both a positive and negative connotation of a women. Many times the word ‘power’ fits hand in hand with the word ‘evil’. And a woman can become spiteful and evil when she isn’t being acknowledges or if her rights aren’t being defended properly. She also states “Boy, I’ll make you see I got the power of Kali in me and everybody is about to believe It’s a woman’s world”.  In this line Zolita mentions Kali who is a powerful Hindu goddess of life and destructions.   This line can be seen as a women’s livelihood because she brings life into this world yet may times she isn’t viewed or valued as anything other than a women whose responsibilities are associated with the upkeep of a home and raising children. A musical characteristic is rhythm. In the background the listener can hear the beats which reminds me of marching.

When discussing what encompasses one’s individual’s ethnicity certain customs come to mind. My parents are Jewish immigrants who migrated from Russia to the United states in the early 1990’s. Throughout their transition and assimilation into the American lifestyle certain cultural customs were kept intact and non-wavering.

An example of this is lighting candles before sundown on Friday evenings to being in the Sabbath. While lighting candles the females of the family gather around while singing a prayer song as well as praying from the heart. The prayer say is Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu, Melekh ha’olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel  which translates into Shabbat. Blessed are You, LORD our God, King of the universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to light the Shabbat candle[s]. After this we sing Shalom Aleichem which translates to Peace be upon you to bring in the Sabbath.

During Sabbath we are not allowed to play instruments or use technology so the voice ( which is a gift by god) is used. Since there is no instrumental accompaniment and it is one single line of music if would illustrate itself as monophony.

In the video linked on the bottom there is a violin accompaniment to the song. however, it wouldn’t be played once sunsets

Based on personal preference I would feel the most comfortable as an audience member attending a Jazz Club.  While watching the Music in Concert Video lectures the ambiance of a jazz club seemed the most appealing to me. Cornelius Steven states that “harmonies… are simultaneously lush and dissonant” this means that there is a combustion of individual sounds played together in long units of measurement. Jazz music as stated in the book is “representative character.” The subject matters were constantly interchanging with the same subjects such as “love, city life, dance, or spirituality—was meant to inspire a vivid sense of place and attitude”. Listening to Jazz music is like hearing a story that the listener can constantly change and recreate in their minds based off of their mood while listening to the piece.

On the other hand I would feel the least comfortable attending a Hindustani Classical performance. I believe I lack the cultural exposure to truly enjoy this. In addition, I am not exposed to the instruments and language so its much more difficult for me to understand the music and feel it in my soul the way I would be able to connect with Jazz.

The opening scene from the prompt that was chosen was “Get Out” Directed by Jordan Peele. Then viewing the scene there are many examples of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. The opening scene begins with a man of African American dissent having a conversation over the phone with his girlfriend saying “They got me out here in this creepy, confusing ass Suburb” insinuating that the character feels lost and uncomfortable in the moment. An example of diegetic sounds are the leaves cracking from under his feet, his heavy breathing, him speaking to himself trying to find the accurate direction to his destination and you heard the car driving and reversing behind him.

An example of non-diegetic sound was seen when the white car reversed closer to the character. The audience hears the song “Run Rabbit Run” by Noel Gray and Ralph Butler. The music was added to intensify the scene and have the watchers feel a certain “tenseness” and a feeling of uncertainty.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5052448/soundtrack

The textbook defines sampling as

“Sampling is the process of taking a sound from
one recorded medium and inserting it into a new one. Today, sampling is generally done
by digitally extracting a selection from a pre-existing recording, modifying the sample to fit
new requirements (perhaps adjusting tempo and timbre), and then inserting the sample
into the new environment. A sample can easily be “looped” so that it repeats over and over,
turning seconds of material into minutes on end..”. You might be thinking to yourself “How is it possible to re-use someone elses music” However, this method is frequently used by many Hip-Hop artists.

One artist in particular that used ‘sampling’ in her song ‘I like it’ was Cardi B. She released this song in 2018 after being influenced by two artists. One of them being Chris Rivers who released a take on Pete Rodriguez’s “I like it Like That (A Mi Me Gusta Asi). When listening to Rodriguez’s original and River’s remake it is evident that all Cardi B did is change the lyrics to the song.

Our definition of technology is “knowledge, techniques, and tools that help humans (or animals) achieve their goals”. This quotation can strongly justify the needs of today’s Hip hop and pop artists (not limited to these two genres) to ‘sample songs’ to their liking in order to create music that will please their audience.

The two musical pieces that I am choosing are Kyrie (monophonic); and Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass. Before playing these songs I had no expectations tied to Kyrie (monophonic) however, with the second one the word “mass” suggested to me that it would include monks. When listening to these two compositions three musical elements stood out to me. Melody, harmony and texture (monophony)

Melody is a unit of pitches sounded in succession, in a simpler ways this means it is different levels of sound following each other. In Kyrie (monophonic) you can hear the different voices singing one line of music which brings us to texture. Texture is the way different musical parts fit together in this case its Monophony which is a single musical line without an accompaniment. Lastly, harmony is presented in this piece. Harmony is The sounding of two or  more pitches at the same time. Once the song starts you can hear people of different pitches singing along although, not every singer is singing in the same pitch you can hear them categorized together.

Similarly, when listening to Kyrie from the Pope of Marcellus Mass these three elements were persistent. With this composition harmony is evident with the high and low voices singing together. As well as these singers with different pitches being grouped up and following one another and lastly, it wasn’t accompanied by any musical instruments because at that time this music was wildly listened in the Church and instrumental music wasn’t accepted.

The Classical Period

This period if often referred to as the Enlightenment it ranged from 1730-1820’s. It is a combination of styles influenced by Germany and Italy. During this time lots of social change was occurring due to the Industrial revolution. This gave many middle class people the opportunity to enjoy the arts that they didn’t have access to before due to the lack of income. The addition of instruments in this era created they different layers of a musical piece. During this time period composers focused on a Thematic development which meant a greater use of different types of melodies and rhythm’s

A famous composer of this musical time period is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756– 1791), Mozart’s Divertimento in D major, K. composed in (1772) is an example of “Salzburg symphonies”. During this piece the listener can hear different types of instruments that are being played at the same time at different ranges which is further showing an example of the thematic development.