The two music pieces I chose to listen to were Alapan from Sitar, Sarode and Tabla and Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass. Harmony occurs when at least two different pitches sound at the same time, such as when two people sing together with different material or when a musician strums the strings of a guitar. In this example, in Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass, I can tell that there are multiple voices, maybe men and female voices. All of the voices collaborating together makes it such a peaceful tone to listen to. Not in any way throughout these whole pieces did it sound harsh or annoying to listen to. Whereas in Alapan from Sitar, Sarode and Tabla, the musical instruments which are the sarode, tabla and sitar combined all made the piece sound very pleasant and relaxing. I’ve noticed that both of these music pieces had very calm and a consonant pitch.

 Every sound has a particular color or timbre and it is through timbre that you can tell the difference. In this case, while the instruments were being played, you can tell which specific instrument or voice was playing when. All though they were all put together to create this whole music piece, they had times where one was playing more often than the other or the sound/instrument shows out more, but overall both the pieces did it in a very neat manner. This also ties back to the texture of the piece which is defined as how the harmonic materials are combined in a composition, thus determining the overall quality of the sound in a piece. The music pieces made me realize that music isn’t just a simple exercise and there is always more to it because it is very complicated than a technical evaluation due to how everything is put together. 

Throughout both of the pieces, the same number of chords are being played repeatedly as well which are known as a group of (typically three or more) notes sounded together, as a basis of harmony, to give it that pleasing sounds. 

The two pieces of music I decided to listen two were the Kyrie(Monophonic) and the kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass.

For the first, this piece is monophonic as there is multiple people singing but they are singing the same thing. This means that despite there being multiple voices, it is still monophonic. In addition to this, due to the fact that there is no instruments, the timbre of this song doesn’t include any strings, woodwinds, percussions, or brasses. The volume of this piece is varied, as there are some crescendos, where it goes from softer to louder and some decrescendo, which goes from louder to softer.

For the next piece, this ones texture is a heterophony, as there are many people but they are singing the same melody differently. This ones rhythm is also a bit faster. The harmony in this piece is consonant, which is when they sound pleasing and good to the ear.

The two pieces of music I chose to listen to were Alpana from “Sitar, Sarode, and Tabla” and Kyrie (Monophonic) and how they connect to musical elements such as Melody, Harmony, and Texture. In Kyrie (Monophonic) the Melody is disjunct and kind of repetitive so you get used to what you’re listening to. Also it’s quite slow and not as cheerful. There was no Harmony in Kyrie (Monophonic), Harmony is the sounding of two or more pitches at the same time. The texture of this piece is monophonic meaning it’s an singular musical line without accompaniment. overall the musical piece was sort of sad to listen to. It sounded like it was someone singing alone in a big empty room.

In Alpana from “Sitar, Sarode, and Tabla” the melody of the piece is Conjuct which means there were short distances between each pitch. The Harmony was consonant as it sounded pleasing to the ear. All of the parts of the music sounded great altogether. The texture in my opinion was Biphony. I constantly heard this same sound in the background throughout the piece and I think thats what a drone is.

The pieces I chose to listen to were Alapana from “Sitar, Sarode, and Tabla, and  Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass. I chose these two pieces because the texture of the music is very different from each other since in Pope Marcellus Mass it is monophony, so it does not include the use of timbre, but it includes a harmony to allow the music to play more smoothly with the different sound pitches at the same time. Throughout the song, there was a conjunct in the melody allowing, the song to be sung in a chord without distributing the harmony.

In the piece Alapana, we can determine that there was a consonant type of pitch allowing the harmony to sound more pleasing and calm to the ear. There was also a timbre in the piece utilizing the sound of a banjo in the background to be combined with the texture of the song. As the song continues to play, the tempo of the piece starts to increase, with a measure of the slow-fast type of beat during it. I feel like this piece has a biophony type of texture because of the two separate type of melody being played.

The pieces that I chose to listen to were Alapana from “Sitar, Sarode, and Tabla”; and Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass. To first discussed the Alapana from “Sitar, Sarode, and Tabla” piece is a very different style then the other piece I had chosen. Something which stood out to be was that there was a steady beat which was easily identifiable. A beat is a “steady rhythmic pulse” which there was a steady pulse throughout the song. Another musical element that I found present was the harmony. Harmony is “the sounding of two or more pitches at the same time” and there was definitely multiple instruments sounding at the same time. I noticed there was a lack of dynamic in this piece, such as a crescendo or decrescendo which is the gradually increase of decrease in sound. There seemed to be a steady fixed volume. 

The second piece I listened to; Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass had more vocals present than instrumentals. This piece also definitely had a harmony since there is different voice types present, such as alto and bass. The harmony seemed very constant, meaning it was pleasant to listen to and was not harsh or sounded like it clashed.  Throughout this piece it was evident there was use of dynamics such as crescendo (gradually increasing in volume) and decrescendo (gradually decreasing in volume), unlike the first piece. Another musical element I noticed was the range which is distance between highest and lowest pitches. There was a range of sound due to the different vocal sections present. 

Today, I will be listening to “Alapana from ‘Sitar, Sarode, and Tabla'” and Kyrie (monophonic) and talk about them in connection with Timbre, Texture, and Harmony.

Timbre is the particular sound or color that an instrument makes. The texture is the way in which different musical parts fit together. Harmony is the sounding of two or more pitches at the same time.

The texture of “Kyrie” is monophonic because it is a single melodic line with no musical accompanist. It is present due to the fact the choir members are singing the same Melody harmoniously. Timbre is not present at all in this song due to the fact that it’s a vocal choir. They used there voices only, no instruments at all, therefore there is no timbre. There is Harmony in Kyrie and it is Consonant, meaning they sound pleasant. The voices blend together in a very satisfactory way.

The texture of “Alapana” is biophonic I believe. There are a Melody and drone present in the song. There is timbre in the song and I believe there to be woodwinds and strings. Due to my lack of knowledge of musical instruments, I can’t precisely name them. There is Harmony present here however at times, for me, it was consonant and dissonant.

Kyrie is monophonic, does not utilize timbre, and is harmonious, while Alapana is biophonic, has timbre, and is both consonant and dissonabt.

I chose to listen to the piece, “Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass” and “Kyrie (monophonic)”. I found three musical elements that stood out which were harmony, melody and rhythm. Harmony is the sounding of two or more pitches at the same time. Melody is a unit of pitches or tones sounding in succession – one after another. Finally rhythm is referred to the ways in which music is organized into distinct time units.

I first started off by listening to “Kyrie (monophonic)” and was taken aback by what I heard because I was expecting something totally different. The first thing I noticed when listening to this was the rhythm which as mention before, is the way music is organized into time units and in this case I noticed that the rhythm tempo was a bit slow which kind of set a mood towards something sorrowful. I heard some notes playing longer than others which made it easier to pick up some elements. The second musical element that I noticed was harmony. I picked up that there was no harmony because there was no two pitches at the same time. In general the pitches seem to occur not in unison but rather one at a time in relatively slow succession. Because of this I feel as if the piece exemplifies the musical concept of a melody. The notes all fall in line one after another, creating a very slow and steady tempo.

When I listened to “Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass” I was quite surprised as it was so different yet so similar to “Kyrie (monophonic)” at the same time. It possessed a faster tempo, in that the rhythm was faster paced and the song succeeded faster with each note following another in a quicker manner. Harmony also existed in this piece, unlike in “Kyrie (monophonic)” as there were multiple voices singing at once with different pitches, ranging from female and male voices. Yet, like “Kyrie (monophonic)” this piece also possessed a very distinct melody, as notes did not seem to fade into one another as much as jump from one to another, in that the tones sounded in succession in a very noticeable way. It was as if I could tell when each singer actively changed the tone with which they sang. Overall “Kyrie (monophonic)” and “Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass” are similar in that they both exhibit essential musical characteristics, yet they differ in their expression of those characteristics.

The two listening examples I chose to use were Alapana from Sitar, Sarode, and Tabla, and Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass, and the three musical elements I will be discussing in tandem with them is harmony, texture, and melody. Harmony is defined as the sounding of two or more pitches at the same time, and in Alapana, the harmony of the song was definitely consonant, as the song was pleasing (to me at least), and there were no harmonies that clashed or were extremely different from one another. In addition, the song had a conjunct melody (a unit of pitches [or tones] sounded in succession – one after another). It was conjunct because the time between the pitches was very short and not that far apart. The texture (the ways in which different musical parts fit together) of the song was polyphonic, as the different instruments playing each played different melodies at the same time.

The second musical piece I listened to expressed these same elements, but in different ways. The harmony of this mass is still consonant, pleasing to the ears, and satisfying. However, the melody is disjunct in this musical piece, because there is a long distance between the pitches that are played. Another difference is that this musical piece is homophonic, which means that it has melody plus it also has chordal accompaniment.

The first piece I listened to was “Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass”. It came to me initially as a very interesting and beautiful piece. I listened to it a couple of times to truly hear every element I wanted to. One of the first musical elements that stood out to me was harmony. Harmony refers to the sounding of two or more pitches at the same time. When listening you can hear the many voices singing in different pitches, which ends up classifying as a Consonant, which are harmonies that sound pleasing. The next musical element I wanted to bring up was the rhythm, which means the ways in which music is organized into distinct time units. The piece had a smooth rhythm and within that another element of rhythm was clear to me, which was the tempo (the speed at which a piece of music or part of it is played), which was slow. The last musical element was melody, which is a unit of pitches (or tones) sounded in succession–one after another (“tune of a piece of music, the part of the song that you would sing on your own”). From looking into the different melody types online, from a website called www.blog.holistic-songwriting.com, I concluded that this song had a direction melody. This is because it uses “different notes and doesn’t have a clear base pitch”. 

The second piece I listened to was “Alapana from “Sitar, Sarode, and Tabla””. I like the different sounds I heard from this piece right off the bat. one of the first musical elements I noticed was the texture, which is the ways in which different musical parts fit together. When you listen to it, you can hear many different instruments throughout it. I think this classifies it as having a polyphonic texture. Another musical element I can hear within this piece is timbre, which is the particular sound or color of an instrument that makes it unique. I heard an array of string instruments at the beginning, and later on heard more percussion. The last musical element is once again the rhythm, and the way the tempo in this piece has a much faster movement to it, rather than the slow paced tempo in the last one. 

My process of close listening entailed listening to each piece a couple of times. I would review the meaning of each element and try to listen for that specific one in each piece, each particular time I had listened to it. The pieces were both good in their own ways as they were very different from each other.

In Kyrie (monophonic) and Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass, the musical elements that I heard were texture, form and melody. Texture is how different musical elements connect.The specific texture that I heard in Kyrie (monophonic) is Monophony because I didn’t hear any instrument accompanying the voice. There was only one voice singing and I couldn’t hear anything else. While in Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass, I heard more than one voice in Harmony. The type of texture that I heard was polyphony. You can hear many different parts doing different things. Form is the structure of the music. The form played a role in the music because it shows why the person sings that way. This gives us insight on the genre this is. In Kyrie (monophonic), you can hear the singer switching his pitches and repeating it throughout the whole song. For Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass, each musical part has their own way of singing but it all came together. Melody is a unit of pitches sounded in succession to one another. The singer’s melody was repetitive and you could follow along after listening to it for a few seconds in Kyrie (monophonic). For Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass, the melody was unpredictable and it felt like they were telling a story with each section of the song. You can hear how they implemented the harmony in the song in the first few seconds of the song. 

My process of close listening to these musical elements was first reading all the slides and then listening to each musical piece to see what they incorporated. I made sure that I read the slides to refresh my memory on all the musical elements that we went over in class that I may have forgotten about. Having the song playing and looking on the slides helped me see which one musical element was the song showing.