Classical classical music?

Classical music.

So what is classical music, anyway?  Besides what they play on NPR stations in between listener pledge drives?  "For a pledge of just $50, that's less than $5 a month, you can get this lovely collection of Beethoven symphonies, performed under the direction of Maestro Schickele at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople..."

There's a tendency to think of classical music as a personal musical preference, as one genre out of several alternatives.  There's rock, country, jazz, pop... and there's classical.  But classical music has a history that distinguishes it from all the rest.  In rock, for example, there's no question that the music of Tame Impala in 2013 is different from Nirvana in 1993, which in turn is very different from The Who in 1973 or Bill Haley and the Comets in 1953.  It's obvious that the style of these artists is very different, so much so that perhaps it's only by convention that we lump them all in the same genre.  But yet, this only represents 60 years of musical history. Millions of people alive today remember them all, and some of them will still be around in 2033 to listen to whatever comes next.  

80 years ago, there was no such thing as rock music.  80 years ago was 1933 - the depth of the Great Depression.  Irving Berlin had a hit song, "Easter Parade", that was published that year.  In the same year, Béla Bartók premiered his Piano Concerto No. 2 in Frankfurt.  And Bartók is considered to be a modern composer!

Go back another 80 years. It's 1853.  Stephen Foster is all the rage, with songs like "Camptown Races" and "My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night".  In 1853 Franz Liszt wrote his masterwork, the Piano Sonata in B minor.

Back another 80 years. In 1773, Mozart wrote his Symphony #25 in G minor. In 1693, Johann Sebastian Bach was 9 years old.  He would begin studying music under his brother Johann Christian Bach the following year.  In 1613, the first performance piece commonly recognized as an opera - Euridice, by Italian composer Jacopo Peri - celebrated its 13th birthday.

The history of classical music goes back over 1000 years.  We have musical scores that date all the way back to the 8th century.  We have records of individuals, famous and noted in their time, who lived and wrote music even earlier than that, although their music has since been lost.

And yet, this thousand-plus years of musical history all goes under one common name: classical music.

Classical music????  Where did that name come from, anyway?  Among "classical" music aficionados, classical isn't a type of music.  It's a specific period of music, lasting from approximately 1750 to 1820.  

In the classical music biz, we divide the entirety of classical music (properly termed concert music) into a number of different musical periods.  In chronological order, these are:

• Medieval - from antiquity up to about 1400.  This was the era of Gregorian chant.  Polyphonic music began to develop towards the end of the medieval period.
• Renaissance - from 1400 to 1600.  This period saw increased use of instrumentation in performances, multiple simultaneous melodic lines, and the use of supporting instrumentation in the bass.
• Baroque.  Ah yes, the Baroque!  This was the time of Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel.  The Baroque era saw the invention of the opera, the development of counterpoint, the establishment of major and minor keys, the use of the harpsichord and organ - so many wonderful things!  The Baroque period lasted from 1600 (the year Jacopo Peri composed Euridice) to 1750 (the death of J.S. Bach).  The year 1750 is a fuzzy line, however, as by then a shift in compositional style was already well underway.
• Classical - from 1750 (or so) until 1825.  Haydn and Mozart fall into this category.  The Classical era saw the birth of the symphony as a musical form.  (Bach didn't write a single symphony!  Did you know that?)  The first pianos were built.  Many of the wind instruments began to be more frequently used.  
• Romantic - from 1825 until the early 20th century or so.  During the Romantic period, differences in national style were accentuated.  Many Romantic era composers used folk music as inspiration for their work.  The idea of the theme of a piece was no longer restricted to just a tune, but could be a rhythmic motif - as in Beethoven's Symphony #5, or an idea or mood - as in Gustav Mahler's Das Klagenlied.
• Impressionist.  Impressionism as a musical movement appears in France from about 1875 to 1925.  Properly speaking, it's part of the Romantic movement, but it's easy to pull it out because it's so, well, French.  Debussy, Ravel, and Satie fit the bill.
• 20th Century.  A bit of a misnomer.  Quite a few composers, such as Rachmaninov and Mahler, continued to write stylistically Romantic music well into the 20th Century.  But the 20th century saw an utter explosion of musical innovation: from the atonal and 12-tonal works of Berg, Stravinsky, and Weber, to quintessentially American composers such as Gershwin, Copland, Bernstein, and Ives, and then forward to the minimalism of Terry Riley, John Cage, Steve Reich, Henryk Górecki, and John Adams.
• 21st Century.  It's a bit early to say what the 21st century will be known for.  But composers like Adams, Salonen, and Dutilleux are still at it and writing.

Next time - the guy who put the Classical symphony on the map!

Major and minor modes

What's the difference between major and minor?  Well, I think if you asked most people, they'd say something like this:

If it's in major, that means it sounds happy.  It's upbeat.  Fun.  Something you'd want to dance to.  Songs in a minor key sound sad and gloomy.  Like a funeral dirge, or a haunted house or something.

That sounds clear enough.  Based on that description, it ought to be easy to tell the difference between a song that's in a major key, and one that's in a minor key.  Listen to these two songs and see if you can figure out which one is which:

Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive

The Beatles - Yesterday

Obviously, I Will Survive is the one that's in the major key, and Yesterday is the one in the minor key.

Wrong.  It's actually the other way around.  I Will Survive is in A minor.  Yesterday?  F major.

So what is the difference?

Prior to the Renaissance, the distinction between major and minor didn't exist, as such.  What we refer to as major and minor scales simply weren't in common use.  During the Renaissance, Europe experienced a renewed fascination with Greco-Roman art, architecture, and civilization.   Renaissance scholars looked back to the Greeks for inspiration, and noted their fascination with music.  If music is something so powerful that it can move the gods, surely the music we create today ought to be just as powerful and moving!

The major and minor scales came about as a result of a re-examination of Pythagorean tuning during the Renaissance era.  During the Renaissance, they took Pythagoras' ideas and stretched them even further.  We already know that a 2:1 ratio in vibrational frequency will give two notes exactly one octave apart.  A 3:2 ratio ratio will give two notes that are a fifth apart - the relationship between C and G.  By extension, that means that a 3:1 ratio will give two notes that are a fifth apart, but separated by an additional octave - the difference between a bass C and an alto G.

What happens if we extend the sequence?  Start with 2:1, then 3:1, then go all the way up to 6:1?  It turns out we get something like this:
When you put all six notes together, it sounds pretty good, doesn't it?  All six notes blend into each other.  The last three notes are particularly important.  When you put a C, an E, and a G together, what you get is a major triad.  Triad, because there are three notes, and major, because the three notes have frequencies in the ratio of 4:5:6.

What happens if we pick a starting note, and then go to frequencies that are 1/2, 1/3, and so on?  I'll start on a soprano C here and see what we get.

As the bass goes down, we get the notes F, A♭, and C, which are related by a ratio of 1/6 : 1/5 : 1/4 (or 10:12:15, if you don't like fractions).  This is called a minor triad.  

Isn't that interesting?  We usually think of major and minor as being opposite to each other.  But, in fact, they're actually closely related.  More like brother and sister!

We've already got a scale to go with the major (C-E-G type) triad: it's the major scale.  C D E F G A B C.  Now we need a scale to go with the minor triad.  The scale that we need has the same notes as the C major scale, but starts on A instead.  Let's compare the two scales.  I've taken the liberty of labeling the notes that form the major and minor triads.

Like the major scale, the minor scale is defined by a pattern of intervals:

• Major scale: W W H W W W H
• Minor scale: W H W W H W W

where H is a half step, and W is a whole step.

Let's take what we've learned and build a pair of scales.  Let's build the scales for D major, and D minor.  To build these two scales, we'll need the patterns listed above, plus one rule: in any scale, each of the lettered notes has to be used exactly once.  You can add a sharp or a flat as necessary, but you have to use each letter exactly once.

So let's start with D major.  We'll write down the letters of the scale: D E F G A B C D.

Two notes require fixing.  D to E is a whole step, which is good.  E to F, though, is only a half step, and we need a whole step.  So we raise the F to F#.  For the next note in the scale, we need a half step.  F# to G fits the bill.

G to A... whole step.  Check.  A to B... whole step.  Check.  But that C is out of place.  We need a whole step for the next note up from B, but C is only a half step.  So we raise the C to C#.  B to C# is a whole step... check.  C# to D is a half step... check.  We're done!

What about D minor?  Same process.  Write down the letters of the scale: D E F 

G A B C D.  Let's see which ones we need to adjust.

D to E is good.  E to F is a half step, that's good.  F to G, G to A, those are both whole steps, good.  A to B? We need a half step here - lower the B to a B♭.  B♭ to C is a whole step, as is C to D.  So we're done.

Let's try another one.  Let's do B♭major, and B♭ minor.  Write down the letters of the scale first: B C D E F G A B.

For the B♭major scale, you should end up with the B and the E flatted.  For the B♭ minor scale, you have to flat the B, D, E, G, and A.  You get to use all the black keys!  Cool!

I love the key of B♭minor.  It's so strange, so mysterious, so spooky.  When played slow, it has a deep, mournful feel.  Listen to this gem in B♭minor by Chopin:

Frederic Chopin - Piano Sonata #2 in B-flat minor, Op 35.  III: Marche funebre

One more.  This one will be tricky.  Let's do D♭ major and minor.  D E F G A B C D.

Major scale: Obviously the D is flatted.  D♭ to E♭ is a whole step, E♭ to F is another whole step.  F to G♭, a half step.  A♭, B♭, C, D♭.  We're done!

Notice that D♭ major has five flats, just like B♭ minor.  And it's the same five notes in both scales that are flatted.  We have a word in music for this kind of relationship: enharmonic.  The keys of D♭ major and B♭ minor are enharmonic to each other because the two scales share all the same notes.  Another use of the word enharmonic is to describe two different notes that have the same pitch.  For example, the notes C# and D♭ are enharmonic to each other.  So are F♭ and E. 

Now the minor scale.  D♭, E♭, F♭...  Wait a minute.  F♭???  Sure.  F♭ and E are enharmonic - two different names, but the same note.  This looks mighty strange, though. Usually we try to avoid referring to E as F♭, because it's confusing.

G♭, A♭, and now a half step...  what now?  A half step up from A♭ is A, but we've already used the A in our scale.  So what do we do?  Call the next note B-double-flat?

We could if we wanted to.  There do exist signs for double-sharp and double-flat, and they are used with some frequency.  But there's a much easier solution to the problem.  Since writing out a scale for D♭ minor is difficult, why not instead call it C# minor and see if the problem goes away?

There we go.  Much better!

We've covered an awful lot today, so I think it's time to wind things down and recap.  Here's what you need to remember about the major and minor modes.

• Major and minor have nothing to do with the mood of a piece.  A happy piece can be in a minor key, and a sad piece can be in a major one.  It happens.
• Both the major and the minor scales are formed by a specific sequence of whole and half steps.
• Every major key has an enharmonic minor, and vice versa.  When we're talking about enharmonic scales, what we mean is that the scales share all the same notes, but start and end on different pitches.

Whew!  A little bit of music next time, and then we'll continue on to meter and rhythm.