My dads side is originally from Poland, and a popular genre of music and folk dance is the Polonaise. “Polonaise” is the word “Polish” in French and its typically danced in carnival parties, or in ceremonies. It was first shown in the 17th century in French courts, but the original form of the dance originated in Poland. The dance itself is very slow paced, as the dancers walk more than they actually dance. They have a very straight posture and they typically never move their hips. The men are to be seen as very respectful and have dignity when they are around their partner. One of the greatest composers for Polonaise was Fryderyk Chopin, and most of his works were made with the piano. The Polonaise is definitely still tied to Polish culture, as it is a polish folk dance, and usually performed in weddings and ceremonies. They have groups located in Poland who pre-record the music and it is played all around the state.

I think I would be most comfortable in the Jazz Club. The whole vibe of the place seems very laid back and chill, there are people talking and just hanging out, I feel like it would be a great place to just relax and get your mind off of things. People are drinking, chilling. I feel like I would fit right in, I could dance and not be judged. As a member of the audience, it seems like we’re all supposed to be laid back and chill, this environment isn’t the extremely quiet and concentrated environment like the orchestra.

The one place I dont think I would be comfortable in is the Symphony orchestra concert. I personally can’t sit down in one place for too long and I feel like if I got up during the performance, it would be extremely disrespectful and everyone would look at me as in disrupting the performance. Although I do enjoy listening to classical music and symphonies and all of them, I just feel like actually being at one of the concert halls wouldn’t be the greatest.

I chose the “Ride of the Valkyries/Helicopter Attack from Apocalypse Now” scene. In the beginning of the clip, you can see a bunch of helicopters flying in the sky. It later cuts to a small little village in Vietnam(I believe) and there are children running away as a soldier warns them about whats about to happen. Then all of the helicopters make it to the village and they start blowing up and shooting their machine guns

Some of the diegetic sounds that are in the clip are obviously the sound of the wings of the helicopter, the footsteps of the people running, the sounds of the explosions. I dont think there are any nondiegetic sounds because everything you see in the clip has a specific sound to it.

Adding the music in the background just makes the scene seem more “epic” like something crazy is about to happen. Right when I first watched the clip and heard the music and saw the helicopters, I knew something was about to go down. I believe adding the music to the scene makes the viewers excited and eager to watch more.

The two musical pieces I chose were Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass and Alapana from “Sitar, Sarode, and Tabla.” In Alapana, one of the musical elements that was present was harmony. Harmony is “the sounding of two or more pitches at the same time” and in this song, you can tell there are multiple different instruments being played at the same time. In this piece, there is also timbre, which is the the particular sound of an instrument that makes it unique. The sound of the instruments in the background made the song I also believe this piece is biphony, two separate lines consisting of a melody and a drone.

In Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass, the harmony was very consonant, it sounded very smooth and pleasing although there were multiple different singers. In kyrie, there is also texture being presented, which is the ways in which different musical parts fit together. I believe this song is heterophony, as there are multiple different voices singing at the same time, which makes the song sound very beautiful. This song also had an example of dynamics, there were certain parts of the song that both crescendo and decrescendo

The Romantic Period, 1830’s to the 1900’s, was a period in time where many artists really went out of their comfort zone and experimented with different instruments that we still play today. There were a lot of dramatic contrasts in sounds. The thing that excites me about this period is there were a lot of instruments invented that we have updated and still use today. For example the saxophone was invented during the Romantic period.

A historical event that occurred during the Romantic period was industrialization, and the American civil war. There were a lot of new inventions , such as new instruments and even new genres of music.

The composer I chose from this period was Franz Liszt. He was a Hungarian composer, pianist, organist, etc in the Romantic period. The piece is chose was Liebestraum No.3. In the beginning of the song, it started off very slow and peaceful, then towards the middle, the piano started to get more intense. Then towards the end of the song it gets slow again. I really like this piece as it’s like riding a rollercoaster throughout the whole song.