Catalog Search Results
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Not all aspects of musicality mature in the brain at the same rate. Trace the developing music faculty in infants, who have already learned to recognize their mother’s speech patterns and singing while in the womb. Examine research showing that singing is more effective than speech in calming infants..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2018.
Language
English
Description
The 20th century ended with a trend toward "pluralism" - the practice of employing a range of different musical languages within a single work or movement. Witness the incredible range of this musical inclusivity and synthesis in composers ranging from the Americans Joseph Schwantner, Martin Bresnick, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Jennifer Higdon to the British composer Thomas Adès.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Turn to cases where music cognition breaks down in disorders such as dystimbria and amusia. General Ulysses S. Grant and novelist Vladimir Nabokov appear to have been affected by amusia. Investigate what they and others with similar deficits miss when listening to music, and explore the underlying cause..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Consider how the biological effects of listening to music might affect people with a wide range of medical conditions, from those undergoing surgery to premature infants, stroke victims, and Alzheimer’s patients. Search for the biological mechanisms that make music a powerful balm for the mind and body..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Begin your study of musical rhythm by distinguishing periodic from non-periodic rhythmic patterns. Periodicity can be thought of as beat; non-periodicity involves expressive techniques such as timing variations and phrasing. Close by asking whether composers write music in the rhythmic patterns of their native language..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2018.
Language
English
Description
After warming up with a waltz, you'll learn "Rameau's Minuet," a piece widely anthologized for music students. Then, go back to the Baroque to learn about Bach's fugues and Pachelbel's famous Canon in D. This lesson gives you a chance to refine your skills in harmonization.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2020.
Language
English
Description
Regular and effective practice is crucial for developing your singing skills. Study three primary facets of efficient practice: Evaluate your progress; strategize a plan of action, and integrate your new skills. Grasp what a typical practice session will look like, from your warmup and assigned exercises to applying your new abilities to the music. Also, remember to sing for fun!
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
Trace the career of violinist Malcolm Watson, as it illustrates principles of success for musicians, and consider seven habits of highly effective guitar players. Then learn the technique of artificial harmonics. Add half diminished and full diminished chords to your repertoire, play the Mixolydian scale, and finish the course with a jazz and flamenco inspired song.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2020.
Language
English
Description
Clear diction and phrasing are fundamental to vocal artistry. In this episode, explore how we communicate meaning through pronunciation and syllabic stress. Begin to work with phrasing, how words are stressed relative to each other, and which words to emphasize as important. Consider how to place vowels and consonants in a sung phrase, and start to address intention and meaning in singing text.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Darwin believed that musical behavior arose because it gave our early ancestors a biological advantage. But what advantage? Investigate Darwin’s theory and other adaptationist explanations for the evolution of music. Then look at two alternatives: invention theories and gene-culture co-evolution theories..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Melodies and harmonies combine pitches according to rules that we have internalized through experience. Listen to musical examples that demonstrate unresolved and resolved expectations. Consider the analogy to grammar in language, and search for a connection between music and language in the brain..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2018.
Language
English
Description
Relive The Rite of Spring's riotous premiere, and examine the qualities that made it the most influential musical work of the 20th century. Observe how Stravinsky evoked ancient pagan rituals through stunning rhythmic asymmetry, bi-tonal harmony, and other daring compositional techniques. Take account of how the Rite changed the way composers thought about rhythm, melody, and orchestration.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
Take the measure of guitarist Charlie Christian and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, each of whom transformed jazz and their instruments. Grasp how to work for greater speed and accuracy when playing melodies. Learn "movable" chord shapes for major and minor seventh chords, practice the Dorian modal scale, and use them in a minor blues tune.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2018.
Language
English
Description
So far, you've been practicing five-finger scales, but in Western music, a complete scale is an octave, or eight notes. Expand your abilities to play full eight-note scales, and practice with C major, G major and D major. In addition to working on your existing repertoire, you'll add the jazzy "Minor Romp" and "A Turkish Tune" to the mix.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2018.
Language
English
Description
Investigate the qualities of Debussy's music that connect it to French art and poetry as well as to the sensuality of the French language. Learn how his landmark work, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, began musical modernism. Study the wealth of compositional innovations in his piano Prelude #10, and note how his impact on 20th-century music mirrors Beethoven's in the 19th century.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2020.
Language
English
Description
In approaching lyrics, begin by researching the piece, learning about the librettist, the time period, and the historical context. Also research the composer and how the piece was written. Using the text of an original song, and your character analysis worksheet, work to find your own expressive connection with the piece and create your interpretation of the song.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
Here, encounter two classical guitar titans, Agustín Barrios and Andrés Segovia, and grasp their contributions to the instrument. Study tremolo, which gives the illusion of a sustained note. Learn to read sixteenth-notes, add the E major chord, the major pentatonic scale, and use your tremolo and finger technique in the "Raindrop Etude".
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2018.
Language
English
Description
Learn how the advent of musical synthesizers and the tape recorder gave rise to both electronic music (using sounds created electronically) and musique concrète (manipulating real sounds with a tape recorder). Witness how Ultraserialism developed within Europe, leading paradoxically to hyper-complex music which in performance sounded random - a fatal problem for listener comprehension.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Look beneath the surface of a seemingly simple feature of music: beat. Discover that beat perception in humans is exceedingly complex and incorporates six distinct criteria. Then survey animal studies to see if other species share our talent for getting the beat..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Music is an integral part of humanity. Every culture has music, from the largest society to the smallest tribe. Its marvelous range of melodies, themes, and rhythms taps into something universal. Babies are soothed by it. Young adults dance for hours to it. Older adults can relive their youth with the vivid memories it evokes. Music is part of our most important rituals, and it has been the medium of some of our greatest works of art. Yet even though...
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