In the musical piece “Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass” there are many musical qualities that are shown such as in the melody, texture, harmonies, and rhythm of the piece. This piece is an example of a polyphony which means several independent lines sounding simultaneously and you can hear it in the harmonies where there’s singers that are singing the lines on a higher and lower pitch with the dominant line. Moreover, the rhythm of this piece has a slow tempo as the notes sound drawn out like there’s disjunct between pitches, which means that there’s some distance in between pitches. The melody of this piece sounded calming and at the same time bright or uplifting to me, especially during the harmonies where the high and low pitches sounded pleasant.  

The second musical piece was Kyrie and there were many things I had noticed such as in the piece’s texture is a monophony, which means that it’s just one musical line with no accompaniment. Another thing I had noticed in this piece was that the tempo was slow, and the melody a dark and sad tone like a minor scale. To add on, the range of this piece’s pitches aren’t as drawn out as the first musical piece “Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass”, but there were still some pitches that were a little bit spaced out based on the musical notation on YouTube.  

My process of close listening regarding both musical pieces was that I analyzed one musical element at a time. Even though I had to listen to both pieces multiple times it helped me to focus on one element so I wouldn’t miss important details. Moreover, since I listened to the pieces on YouTube where it had the musical notation, I found that I could follow along to the melody better when I saw where the rise and fall of the pitches were.

The 2 pieces that I chose to go with is Kyrie (monophonic) and Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass. Before listening to either of these pieces I had thought that Kyrie (monophonic) would sound very childish, and was meant for little kids because of the name of the piece. And for the second piece that I chose I thought that it would sound like something “old people” would listen to because in the title it has “Pope.” These are my views of these pieces before listening to both of them carefully. Three elements that really brought my attention was harmony, texture, and melody. Harmony is when musical tones are played together in chords. Texture is the overall sound of a piece of the music. Melody is a group of notes that have different pitches in which the are played one after the other.

After listening to Kyrie (monophonic), it sounded nothing like I thought it would sound like. This to me sounds a lot like something that would be playing in a church. The sound sounds very religious, and it sounds like something you would listen to while praying, in a certain culture. The language the piece is in is Greek. In this piece I felt like I heard a lot of melody. This is because in this piece I hears multiple notes of the music that ha a bit different pitches to them which were being played one after the other. After listening to the Pope Marcellus Mass, this sounded a little familiar to the Kyrie piece, but a very important difference that I thought of while listening to this piece was that in the Pope Marcellus Mass, there is more of a feminine voice in the background then compared to the Kyrie piece. This piece sounded like it had harmony in it. This is because there was a lot of musical notes that were being payed together in which when the women is singing and then the men in the back start singing along. Also this sounds a lot more soothing.

In many songs today, there are a number of different musical elements that are used to create numerous styles of music. In pieces like Alapana from Sitar, Sarode, and Tabla, as well as Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass, you could hear a variety of different musical elements which include texture, harmony, and timbre.

In the song Alapana from Sitar, Sarode, and Tabla, the musical elements, texture, and timbre could be found while listening to the piece. To be more specific, one thing I noticed while listening to this piece was that it was a biphony. Biphony is when there are two separate lines, consisting of melody and a drone. If you listen closely to this music, there is a light staticky sound heard in the background of the song. The same number of chords are being played repeatedly as well. Chords are when three or more pitches that sound at the same time, are built according to specific rules. The musical element timbre is also shown in this piece, as there are instruments that sound like woodwind, strings, and percussion could be heard all throughout the song.

To add on, the song Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass uses the musical elements of texture and harmony. To be more specific, throughout the song heterophony could be heard. Heterophony is a single basic melody performed slightly differently by two or more performers. There were a bunch of different pitches of voices all singing in slightly different paces than each other. In addition, the musical element harmony was also heard throughout the songs, more specifically consonant, which are harmonies that sound pleasing. Although there were a number of voices singing, they all seem to match perfectly together creating a nice, and well put together sound.

I chose to listen to Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. The first element I noticed was the harmony throughout the piece. There were female and male singers; females singing the higher pitched vocals and males the lower pitched vocals. The harmony of this piece created a full sound as if one were at a mass. The piece itself is a smooth flowing mood with not a very distinct rhythm. The singers definitely follow some sort of tempo, however it was hard for me to distinguish actual beats with the singing. The texture of these pieces are homophobic as the vocals are accompanied by the instrumental organ all following the same melody.

The second piece I listened to was Kyrie (monophonic) which was surprisingly very different than Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass. By listening to this piece after the first, I was more able to understand the melody of the piece. On a first listen, this version of the song is a more solemn mood  It has a monophonic texture as the singers are not accompanied by any other instrument. There is a distinct different in timbre compared to the previous song. While the first song at the mass was more bright and layered with several harmonies, this song is just a melody and stays in the lower pitch range throughout the entire piece. I also could pick out the rhythm better in this piece as there was only a melody and no harmony. 

I picked Kyrie (monophonic) and Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass. The first element I want to discuss is harmony. Harmony is when at least two different pitches and sounds at the same time. In Kyrie (monophonic), there is no harmony, simply just a melody, since it’s a Gregorian chant, It several people singing in one voice. In Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass, the harmony is prominent. You can here the different singers: Alto, Baritones, tenors and so on. They each also have different textures, it’s the way the musical parts fit together. Kyrie (monophonic, is monophonic, it has one voice and no accompaniment. There’s more than one voice but they’re singing the same lines and notes. In Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass, there is a Homophonic texture. There’s the melody, the harmony and other voices including the organ playing accompanying the voices. The last element I chose was the Melody because both Kyrie’s seem to have this in common: their melody is similar in the sense that there’s no part in these songs I’d necessarily want to go singing, but it does have a noticeable angelic, flowing feel to it. Listening to it as a whole was different than listening to it with an intention for specific parts and descriptions of the pieces. There were the noticeable things you could pick put and the things you’d pick out only after close listening. 

The first thing that stood out to me when listening to Kyrie (monophonic) was the rhythm. Rhythm is the way that music is organized into distinct time units. It tells the order and the length of the pitches. In this piece, the pitches stood on the notes for long periods of time, especially at the end of the verses (such as on the lyric “son”). The tempo stood out to me as well, as the tempo is the speed at which a piece of music or part of it is played. In this piece, certain pitches had more emphasis and took up longer periods of time than others. Certain pitches were assigned to longer durations of time than others, such as at the end of the piece where the last note had a particularly longer duration. Additionally, I took note of the melody, which is a unit of pitches that are sounded one right after the other (in succession). There are higher and lower pitches and those show the differences in the sounds that are heard. I noticed especially higher pitches towards the middle of the song as the music progressed. Furthermore, some pitches had shorter distances between each other, known as conjunct, and some had longer distances, known as disjunct. At some points, the words seemed to blend together faster, and at other times it sounded like it was taking a bit longer to get to the next verse, showing the disjunct. One thing I did not notice in this piece was the timbre, which is the particular sound of color of an instrument that makes it unique. There are no noticeable strings, woodwinds, brass, or percussion that was heard. However, after playing the song for a second time, I noticed a slight mystical sound in the background, almost like an echo, that was being played along with the singer’s voice. 

The next piece I listened to was Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass. I really enjoyed this piece and found it pleasing to listen to. After learning the musical elements, I concluded that this could be from the consonant harmonies, which are harmonies that sound pleasing together. This piece had a very excellent use of harmony, which refers to the sounding of two or more pitches at the same time. This piece had multiple pitches that were being sung simultaneously, some going much higher, while others much lower in the background. I also noted the polyphony, which are several independent lines sounding simultaneously, which is what all the different voices sound like as they blended beautifully together. This contrasts with the ending, which I believed showed monophony, which is a single musical line that ended off the song in a satisfying way. I would say this piece of music is structured similar to church/gospel music, as it has that spiritual, higher power feeling to it.

I chose to listen to Kyrie (monophonic) and Alapana from “Sitar, Sarode, and Tabla”. Alapana from “Sitar, Sarode, and Tabla ” was a very interesting piece of music. The melody had a lot of different pitches. A melody is a unit of pitched sounded in succession, one after another. In some of the songs, such as “Pallavi”, there was harmony. Harmony is the sounding of two or more pitches at the same time. I found the harmony to be quite consonant. Many of the songs had a timbre which is the particular sound or color of an instrument that makes it unique. Some songs had violin and drums in it. The particular drums used were unique since they sounded like a type of African drum being played lightly. The violin was also an interesting and unique instrument which added the music piece. Kyrie (monophonic) was also a very interesting piece. It sounded a lot like a song sung in church. Many of the songs, such as “Surge Illuminare Jerusalem” had harmony. The harmony sounded very beautiful. Harmony is the sounding of two or more pitched at the same times and that is exactly what they were doing. There is a very high pitched voice and a very low pitched voice singing together. The musical piece had a very specific form used by choruses. Form is the overall shape or structure of the piece of music. Many of the music pieces had choruses which repeated the same melody and words. The songs in the collection also have great rhythm. Rhythm is the way the music is organized into distinct time units. There is a very slow tempo in many of the songs. Tempo is the speed at which the piece of music or part of it is played.