Music Routine

From my research, I learned that Debussy was alive around the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, but if I was not provided that information I would have had to consider the style of the music and the instrumentation to determine when the song was composed. “Clair de Lune” was performed with a full orchestra with all strings, winds and percussion. It wasn’t until the Romantic era that such ensembles were being used. “Fast Forward” was a little harder to find a time period to categorize it into because African music does not use the same instrumentation, so another element had to be analyzed to determine which era the piece was written in. “Fast Forward” uses the ABC form, and most of the sections are repeated with slight alterations, which leads me to conclude that it is a Western piece composed in the modern time because modern composers enjoy making music with small changes.

Every time I try to fall asleep now, I have “Clair de Lune” running through my head. Most importantly, I have learned the different elements that form the piece, so when I repeatedly listen to it, I pay closer attention to sections rather than letting it be background music. I also do the same with “Fast Forward” that keeps my motivation up when I do homework. It may get annoying sometimes when I repeatedly listen to a piece that has many parts that repeat, but I enjoy the sound of the piece, and through further exploration I appreciate the repeats in the piece even more as I find it easier to absorb. Listening to music before bed time has helped me calm down a lot before going to sleep; perhaps I should make it a routine now, that way I can open up more doors to listening to a wider range of music, and something to contrast with the upbeat music I listen to when I have to do homework. 

Western Orchestra vs Marimba Band

When I heard “Clair de Lune” for the first time a week ago, it was an orchestral version performed by an orchestra with strings, winds and percussion. I listened to a few solo versions, with instruments like the piano and harp, but I still liked the full orchestra version the best. The orchestra opened “Clair de Lune” with their upper woodwinds, and oboe, which depicted the floating feeling. As the piece entered section B, the part with the augmenting and diminishing chords and the strings were being added and created a push and pull feeling. When the piece reached its peak, and the arpeggios started again, the upper woodwinds like Clarinet, Flute, and Oboe, and the Violins, once again depicted the floating image. On the other hand, “Fast Forward” was performed with only percussion instruments. The marimbas that “Fast Forward” was performed on were made out of wood, and pipes were added at the end to help the sound project. You could hear a little fuzzy sound between the bar and the mallet because of the pipe. With this in mind, the soprano marimba had more complicated parts because the sound did not take as long to travel as the bass marimba would, who typically played quarter notes for a majority of the piece. There were also shakers and drums added to the ensemble, but their purpose was also to help keep time. A difference between marimba band and an orchestra is, there is no conductor. The lead soprano player in a marimba band plays the melody and when a certain section has been repeated a few times, the rest of the band becomes aware that a transition is approaching, which is the why the soprano player both is the lead player and the conductor. Typically most orchestras are much bigger than a marimba band, so to have one player take on the responsibility of leading the group and playing their part may be quite difficult. With a conductor’s help, more emotion is exerted from the piece, and it ensures that everyone in the ensemble is playing together. 

The ABC's of "Clair de Lune" and "Fast Forward"

“Clair de Lune” is an astonishing solo piece, but it is actually the third movement from the Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque. The Sonata form was a common form during this era and the piece is part of a symphony, but I choose to analyze it using letters because it was not the first or last movement of a piece, where Sonatas are typically found.  “Clair de Lune’s form is as follows; A B C C¹ A¹ C. The piece opens with chords grouped into three counts as the piece is played in nine eight time. Following this section, comes a series of augmented and diminished chords, I labeled this section B. Section C is a series of arpeggios, and C’ is also arpeggios with a slight variation. After the arpeggios, comes a part similar to the opening, but the chords are more broken so I named this section  A¹ . “Clair de Lune” ends with a series of arpeggios, so the ending group is also C. “Fast Forward” has a slightly different format, and it is as follows; A B B¹ C C¹ D B C D¹ A B B¹C C¹D¹. Unlike “Clair de Lune” “Fast Forward” has more parts, but parts also repeats more often, and when the next part comes in, it is only slightly altered. The opening of the piece is the baritone marimba playing a split third, which I have labeled as section A. As the soprano marimba gets added, the section transitions into B section and when another soprano marimba is added, that section then becomes  B¹ . The first soprano marimba, also known as the lead marimba then goes on into something completely different, so I named the section following section C and when that part gets altered it becomes section  C¹ . Suddenly, the piece transfers into a minor mode, and the ensemble narrows down to just the two soprano marimbas and the baritone marimbas, I called this section D. Slowly, a transition is made from the minor section back into a full ensemble with the baritone as the lead, playing something similar to the opening, transitioning back to section A and everything from there on is played the same up until the transition into D. This time, instead of the same minor melody, something minor is brought up again, but there were some slight changes so that section is entitled section  C¹ . “Clair de Lune” and “Fast Forward” follow different patterns in terms of form, but both pieces use the ABC format. Even though “Fast Forward” may have more sections, and is a shorter piece, it does not imply that “Clair de Lune” is less complicated. “Clair de Lune” had bigger sections, so instead of grouping sections in terms of two or four measures, I grouped them by nearly twenty measures. 

"Claire de Lune" and "Fast Forward"

When I came home yesterday night, I was exhausted from a long day at school and wanted to do nothing more than dive into my bed for a good sleep. After my shower, I went to sleep, but thoughts about all of my unfinished school work kept me up. I needed something to calm me down, so I decided some orchestral music would be a good idea. In my search for something soothing, I came across a piece entitled “Claire de Lune”. In comparison to marimba music that I listen to when I do homework, “Clair de Lune” instantly put me to sleep because of the dreamy effect the piece had. I liked the piece so much, I listened to it some more when I got up this morning, and began comparing some of the aspects to marimba music.

I began my research of “Clair de Lune” by exploring the origins of the piece. “Clair de Lune” was written in 1890 and published in 1905 by Claude Debussy, a French composer. This piece is considered by many as Debussy’s most famous composition, and he was only twenty-five when the piece was composed. Learning about “Clair de Lune” also inspired me to learn more about the roots of marimba music, so I did some research on my favorite piece, “Fast Forward”. Marimba originated in Zimbabwe, a country in Africa. “Fast Forward” is a composition by a local music teacher Eric Schopmeyer. I began listening to marimba music when I saw his students performing downtown. I bought a copy of their CD and instantly fell in love with the style of music. As I repeatedly listened to “Clair de Lune” and “Fast Forward” I began noticing some elements about both compositions.

Most instrumental pieces are typically composed of scales, a series of notes played in a particular order. “Clair de Lune” appears to be played with a diatonic scale because it uses more than five notes so the possibility of it being pentatonic is eliminated. The notes connected smoothly with one another which also lead me to believe that it was not played in a mode. Applying the same knowledge, I listened for tonal qualities in “Fast Forward”.  At the beginning of “Fast Forward” it was a split third being played repeatedly, but as the song progressed, a wider range of notes were being used. “Fast Forward” used all the notes in the C major scale which led me to the conclusion that it was also played with a diatonic scale. It was easy to pick out the key “Fast Forward” used because marimbas from Zimbabwe only consist of the white keys on the piano.
Bibliography:


"Claude Debussy Biography - life, family, children, wife, school, son, information, born, time, year."Encyclopedia of World Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. <http://www.notablebiographies.com/De-Du/Debussy-Claude.html>.


"Eric Schopmeyer, Adrienne Leverette, Rebekah Phillips, & Lars Campbell - Books - Dandemutande Catalog." Dandemutande: A resource for Zimbabwean music worldwide. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. <http://www.dandemutande.org/catalog/?cat=Books&subcat=&artist=ScottTom&