Questions tagged [history]
For questions about how music has developed and changed over time or for questions about concepts and ideas of a historic period of music. Do not use just because the subject of the question is a historic figure or piece.
398
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Did Rachmaninoff make his pieces hard to perform to challenge the pianist?
I'm not sure if this question belongs here, so I apologise if it doesn't.
When when I was in high school, I was really into Rachmaninoff's pieces. My teacher once heard me trying to learn one of his ...
6
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1answer
105 views
Did Bach name his pieces?
I was listening "Brandenburg Concerto N° 4" and "Concerto for 2 Harpsichords in C minor, BWV 1062", and wondered: aside from the catalog number (that came later), did Bach name his ...
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1answer
138 views
How did Glenn Gould know, in 1955, the proper ornamentation for Bach's "Goldberg Variations"?
This question has its origin in Why does the Open Goldberg score have a G rather than A in bar 9 of variation 25?. See that Q&A for background information.
At what time, and on what basis, was ...
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4answers
879 views
Outside of Equal Temperament, what decides the spelling of notes in a major scale?
I've been reading up on the history of temperament, and how enharmonic notes are more of a limitation of the modern piano (only one black key), and also mathematically they are the same if you use ...
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0answers
32 views
Identify song name and artist [closed]
I think it was in 70s or 80s a young woman from U.S. went to work for awhile on an island, maybe Jamaica. When she was ready to return I believe there was a problem taking her earnings with her so she ...
5
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1answer
99 views
Where can I find related materials in connection with Johann Joseph Fux's The Study of Counterpoint?
Allegedly, Beethoven condensed Fux's work into a "cheat sheet" version for ready reference (from the back cover of the Alfred Mann translation), and Mozart apparently annotated his own copy (...
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4answers
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Why didn't more composers who composed violin concertos compose viola concertos?
Wouldn't the glut of violin and cello concertos from the Baroque and Classical eras motivate composers to compose Viola Concertos? Isn't adding to the deluge of violin and cello concertos more ...
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0answers
38 views
How was mixolidian mode introduced in Northeastern Brazilian Music?
Northeastern region of Brazil has a great variety of traditional and folkloric music genres. The most well-known genre is forró, followed also by baião and xaxado.
These music genres are usually ...
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3answers
224 views
Has such an anti-musical tune ever been composed?
The following part from chapter 84 of the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality fanfic describes a tune that appears to be designed to be unnerving.
The humming started as a simple children's ...
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4answers
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Why did it take a millennium to use harmony/polyphony (900 AD) when Pythagoras discovered perfect fourth and fifth around 500 BC?
Considering the fact that Pythagoras formulated the properties of Perfect Fifth and Fourth around 500 BC, why did it take so long to include them in Music?. The first instance of using the Fifth in ...
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2answers
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When was the concept of a "triad chord" first introduced?
Chiara Bertoglio, “A Perfect Chord: Trinity in Music, Music in the Trinity,” Religions 4, no. 4 (December 2013): 485–501, §6. A “Harmonious” God, p. 493, claims:
It was not before the 16th century, ...
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6answers
242 views
Why does guitar have so much more shape/tone variety than all other instruments?
For acoustic guitars, we have dreadnaught, auditorium, classical, jumbo, mini, grand concert, arch top, parlor (then there are new shapes coming from Taylor) Even if I count the whole orchestra family ...
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4answers
152 views
Accidentals - what's that?
We are aware that an accidental is a sign which changes the pitch of a note usually stated in the key signature, like a natural sign before a C in key D makes that into C♮, etc. Sometimes even the key ...
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2answers
100 views
What are the trends that led to fizzling of ars antiqua and rising of ars nova?
What is the trends that led to the fizzling of ars antique and to the rising of ars nova?
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2answers
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Who decides chord details in published songs?
I like to make lead sheets of songs like this to learn to improvise from, condensing the published sheet music down to a single page with no turns. In working from my two copies of It's Only A Paper ...
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1answer
158 views
History of "strumming" the piano (Rhythmic repeated chords)
In many songs, a particular chord gets played over and over on a piano, very similar to how you might strum a chord on a guitar.
Examples:
...
2
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1answer
117 views
Did the first piano use an equal-tempered or natural scale?
Both the piano and the equal-tempered scale were invented in the 1700s (according to Wikipedia, at least). But what I'm wondering is whether the first piano constructed used an equal-tempered scale, ...
2
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1answer
125 views
What is the origin of the notation A4, B3, F5, etc. (i.e. <letter><number>)
Long before I started to play an instrument I used to tune my young son's guitar for him using a device which told me how close the strings were to the correct notes of E2, A2, D3, G3, B3 and E4.
When ...
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2answers
82 views
Chants in Renaissance vocal music
In notice that in some vocal works composed during the Renaissance, especially masses, long chunks of music (sometimes the whole piece) are preceded by a monophonic, often short chant which is ...
4
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2answers
118 views
What are the earliest examples of using the circle of fifths in western music
While reading about Vavilov's "Ave Maria" previously attributed to Caccini, I met an interesting argument, that probably nobody in the USSR and maybe later in the western countries noticed ...
3
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1answer
90 views
Is there literal correlation between sounds and the words to describe them?
In English, we describe pitches as "high" and "low", as being "sharp" or "flat". A timbre can be "fat". At least one study suggests that there is a ...
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Do the world-renowned classical composers ever seriously modify their compositions after their works got published by publishers?
Do the world-renowned classical composers ever seriously or in minor ways modify their music compositions after their works got published by publishers and after their works are already openly ...
3
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1answer
136 views
Was Nina Simone really refused admission to Julliard on racial grounds even though she passed the audition? [closed]
I recently watched the movie 'Green Book'. While I was watching it I was reminded of someone who once told me that Nina Simone was refused entry to Julliard on racial grounds. Is this accurate and if ...
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4answers
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Who was listening to Bach's compositions in his lifetime?
Who ever encountered his work? Was his music played somewhere else in Europe, or only where he lived? What strata of society had any chance of coming into contact with his music? What might be the ...
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1answer
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What was the amount of repertoire learned as an adult professional musician in various time periods?
As an adult professional musician (church organist), I discovered that, once I became a mother (a year ago), I had less time to practice (from approx 4 hrs a day to about 1.5 hrs a day), but--now I am ...
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4answers
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Who decides how a historic piece is adjusted (if at all) for modern instruments?
Here we have a video of a historically-informed (or period) performance of Moonlight Sonata's first movement.
Wikipedia notes:
Some critics contest the methodology of the HIP movement, contending ...
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3answers
428 views
Latin voice denotations in Renaissance vocal music
I see that in the original printings of renaissance vocal music, the voices are labeled with Latin words like cantus, triplex, medius, etc... Assuming that these words denote the ranges of their ...
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1answer
558 views
What is the origin and original meaning of "tonic", "supertonic", "mediant", etc.?
Each of the pitches in the diatonic scale has a "name":
tonic
supertonic
mediant
subdominant
dominant
submediant
subtonic
I was first introduced to tonic, dominant, and subdominant in the ...
3
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3answers
255 views
60's pop music. How well known was theory, e.g. the pentatonic scale?
Many years ago, at school some friends and I played versions of instrumental guitar pieces by the Shadows and other bands.
Our method was to slow down the vinyl record and listen to what was played ...
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2answers
89 views
Are there folk music families, analogous to language families?
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestral language or parental language, called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects ...
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2answers
79 views
Music that comes before its time [closed]
I was discussing a time travel premise, where someone from our time finds themselves say in 1980, and how they would manage. Some people seem to think it obvious that such a traveler could, if they ...
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2answers
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What are the primary historical piano training methods, and what are their defining characteristics?
There are various historically important or well-known piano training methods or schools (“schools of thought” as opposed to institutions, which are not the focus here):
• The Leschetizky method
• The ...
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3answers
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Does Schoenberg or Glenn Gould have a point? Does a great deal of music remain to be written in C major?
There's a great interview online where Glenn Gould talks about Stravinsky and Schoenberg (circa 1960). His comments about Stravinsky certainly haven't aged well but nonetheless, he does make some ...
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2answers
51 views
Which tempo indications have changed meaning over time, and how so?
I recall a piano teacher once telling me that the tempo marking in a piece I was learning (andante, if memory serves) meant different things in different eras. (Maybe slower in the Baroque than in the ...
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3answers
638 views
How did the ancient Greeks notate their music?
Ancient Greece had a sophisticated musical system that allowed for transposable modes and flexible instrument tunings. Known as the Greater Perfect System, it is discussed in detail in What are the ...
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2answers
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Did Beethoven "invent" ragtime with Piano Sonata No 32 Op 111?
I had an interesting question. It is common knowledge that ragtime came about as a genre with Scott Joplin. However, I am curious if anyone has any information about Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 32 in ...
4
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3answers
199 views
Come to think of it, who did put the bop in the bop shoo bop shoo bop?
There have been "la la la"s and nonsense lyrics in music since ... well, since a long time back. Why, who could forget that sixteenth-century classic "Nos Galan"? And Nigunim have ...
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1answer
91 views
Schubert G flat impromptu harmony
In my score, during the repetition of the opening theme, bar 5, the G flat major chord changes directly to an E flat minor chord, as is played in this performance.
However, the performances by Kissin ...
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1answer
138 views
Why are notes created the way they are today? [duplicate]
The main question I have is admittedly broad. I'd like to know why the notes we use today are the way they are. By that I mean how is it that we have converged upon the specific discrete set of ...
8
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1answer
194 views
What is the meaning of the "chiaroscuro" sound that was considered ideal in Classical and early-Romantic Italian opera?
Apparently, in Classical and early-Romantic Italian opera (the "bel canto" opera repertoire), the ideal kind of vocal colour was a so-called chiaroscuro sound. The chiaro- part translates as ...
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2answers
97 views
How do our music and music technology compare with those of Francis Bacon in 1627? [closed]
In The New Atlantis a European ship, lost in the Pacific somewhere west of Peru, comes upon the mythical island of Bensalem: Bacon's vision of a utopia. The Father of its state-sponsored scientific ...
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1answer
186 views
Where did Scriabin define his note to color mapping?
I'm searching for the root source of Alexander Scriabin's note color mapping.
Wikipedia states in: Clavier à lumières
that it is located in the score of Prometheus: Poem of Fire.
But, but, but in ...
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3answers
1k views
How seriously did romantic composers take key characterizations?
I just came across this list of key characterizations by Christian Schubart in 1806. I was aware of this phenomenon, and also know that it predated Schubart, e.g. influencing some choices in Handel's &...
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2answers
677 views
Where did "The Real Book" originally come from?
I saw my first copy of The Real Book when I was 15. The coolest, hippest, jazziest trumpet player I knew (he was 17 and knew who Miles Davis was) had a copy of this spiral-bound badge of savvy: a ...
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2answers
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Etymology of crotchet [duplicate]
A crotchet in British English is one beat - a quarter in American English.
In French, the very similar word croche means a quaver (eighth note), just half the value of a crotchet.
The two words are ...
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1answer
83 views
Why is the Proper Sarum mode notated differently than it sounds (in the Yattendon hymnal)?
For context, image 1 is where I found this tune in another hymnal, and it looks like a sort of free-flowing attempt at notating (in standard notation) how a choir or congregation would sing. Images 2 ...
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4answers
144 views
What is it precisely in the music that makes you a 'Neoclassical' Composer?
I'm a little confused by what is meant we when say the 'Neoclassicism ' movement. Particularly this phrase from the official Wiki page.
Neoclassicism was an aesthetic trend rather than an organized ...
0
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1answer
86 views
What are these medieval musical instruments called? [closed]
What are the medieval musical instruments used in
La Bouree
Ballet des Sorciers
Ballet / Ballet des Bacchanales / Ballet des Matelotz /...
2
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2answers
64 views
How to incorporate a chorus sheet?
I'm in the process of re-producing some sheet music from the Civil War. My question involves the 'chorus sheet' found at the end of nearly every piece. For example, in this song: Save Our Flag, the ...
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1answer
147 views
Bach Die kunst der fuge reference in Beethoven Op. 111
In Beethoven last sonata's arietta, the variations starting at bar 33 seems to be clearly a reference to the contrapunctus 2 from die Kunst der fuge. Since as well Beethoven seems to attempt to do ...
