Actually the music in twentieth
century is largely of
exploration and experiment,
and it also has a fascinating
melody from the new trends,
new techniques and sometimes
the music in twentieth century
entirely new sounds. So pupils
maybe cannot accept these all
new things in twentieth century
music, but in music learning
cannot neglect any different
parts in music history, no matter
if they like or not.
Impressionism, Atonality, Nationalism,
Neoclassicism…are
the new terms in the twentieth
century music, however, performance
need extreme techniques;
but pupils only need
to study what are the meaning
of these terms and hoe to play
them successfully. Moreover,
there are many different trends
followed by twentieth century
music, and some of them be the
complex mixture of style. Pupils
study four main period of
music, and they can find a great
many characteristics of style
which may identify in twenty
century pieces.
Melodies.
This topic is for
the ears, I investigate the sharp
and the mood in the music, it is
the first feeling of the twentieth
century music. And the
melody is very important, it is
because pupils study the music
with the first impression form
its melody.
Harmonies.
This topic is for
the theory, I investigate the
chord, cadence accompaniment,
key and notes which
use in the music, I like the
analysis. It can help pupils to
know why they always hear
dissonances in twentieth
century music, also find out
the harmonies can help us to
understand what is the meaning
in the music; which also
the idea form the composer.
Rhythm.
The topic back for
the ears too, it related with
phasing, pulse, tempo and
dynamic, it like the investigation
in melody of the music.
But investigating rhythm is
more detailed than investigating
melody; because rhythm
is both in the melody and accompaniment
parts. Also it is
the energy of the music, it give
more hard feeling for he pupils.
Timbres.
It also related to
listening, but in more detail
it is related with the touching
and pedaling in the playing.
That means it related to the
technique of the performance
playing. in this topic pupils
can know how to practice
twentieth century music.
And there are many great
composers in twentieth century,
such as Debussy, Bartok,
Schoenberg, Shostakovich,
Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Britten
and so on. But I will only introduce some of them who
are always meeting in pupil’s
piano examination or performance
piece, because
it is more
efficient to
study twentieth
century music.
the composers
and the
music pupils
meet
or choose
in their
examination,
competition and
performance are
most meaningful for them,
and they are willing to study
more detail no matter they do
not like.
On the other hand, the
music pupils meet or choose
in their examination, competition
and performance
must be more importance in
twentieth century music, also
sometimes the music which in
the syllabus of examination or
competition with the specially
study materials, examples are
the form, mood, tone-color
and the phase.
Study in twentieth century
music, I really want to understand
the musical characters
in this period and to improve
the performance of this period
piece. Also when I understand
twentieth century music it is
promotion and development
for the further study of music. And after this assignment and
investigation, I want to state
that music in twentieth century
also is the importance
section in our
music study life,
pupils do not
only focus
in Baroque,
Classical
and
Romantic
period.
Music character in twentieth century.
There
are many elements in twentieth
century music, but these
elements also have some similar
or same ideas. Music of the
twentieth century is like the
continuing growth of musical
styles which employed significant
elements from national
folk idioms, and the Neo-classicism,
new discoveries of the
early part of the century into
musical styles having more
or less overt connection with
principles, forms, and techniques
of the past; besides, the
transformation of the German
post-Romantic idiom into the
twelve-tone styles. These are
the main directions maybe
the major idea or character in
twentieth century music.
French composers had functioned
as very important force
to bridge the romanticism and
new direction of modernism. They do something to against
German Romantic: Basic
driving force in contemporary
music is one of the reactions,
composers’ development of
nationalistic musical style and
the inspiration from the Baroque
music. Moreover, many
composers looking back history,
they think that historical
periods were dominated and
unified by certain composers
form particular country; and
the basic repertory; forms;
idioms; and style they have
provided. After these study and
research, the composers of the
twentieth century can develop
new music and some new style.
Neo-classical (new Classicism), Neo-classicism.
Neoclassicism is a style in
twentieth century music
characterized by a strong reaction
to the German Romantic
(later Romanticism). It is more
clearly revealed in ‘Pour le
Piano’ and ‘Sonatina’ as to
use the old forms of Prelude;
Saraband; Minute and Toccata;
Rounded binary; Dance
rhythm; but employs the total
new sound. Thick, congested
textures for huge performing
forces were replaced by clarity
of line and texture characteristic
of music wrote in the
Romantic period before.
In Neoclassical, orchestras
become limited in size, presenting
instrumental timbres
which are sharply contrasted.
Also the Neoclassical style
is often ‘cool’, composers
emphasizing he sound of wind
instruments and percussion
rather than the more expressive
strings.
Impressionism.
A group
of French painters developed
a new style which came to be
called impressionism; there
are Monet, Manet, Degas,
and Renoir... and it like the
atmospheric, the composers
also imitate the idea of painting,
so be the new idea of 20th
century music: impressions of
light and color than sharply
defined contours, the impressionism
artists aimed to give
merely an impression, like the
eye might take in at a single
glance; therefore impression
of vague, hazy, outlines, and
the play of shimmering light
and movement. And musical
impressionism is not devoid
of romantic elements, and it
may be described generally as
having refinement, delicacy,
vagueness, and an over-all
‘luminous fog’ characters.
And in impressionism, music
always full with high-number
chord, the chords for their
expressive and color effect,
moreover, these chords always
the discords or similar chords
(frequently 9ths or 13ths), also
play these continues chords
with moving in parallel motion. And the scales used in the impressionism
are modal scales,
the five-note pentatonic scale,
or the whole-tone scale.
Polytonality and atonality.
In the music we refer to
the key to find out the tonic. In
the music written in C major,
we will sense a strong trend
towards the most important
note of that key: the tonic note
C and the next most important
note is the dominant note
G. But on the 20th century,
composers have experimented
with the technique of polytonality
–writing music in two
or more keys at once.
And the atonality means
a total absence of tonality or
key. Atonal music avoids any
key or mode by making free
use of all twelve notes of the
chromatic scale. Atonality has
not an importance note, therefore
each twelve notes are
given equal importance, and
there is no pull towards any
central tonic. Therefore some
composers (like Wagner) had
freely use chromatic discords, it bringing in notes from
outside the key to color the
harmonies. It is the reason in
20th century, polytonality and
atonality over the major and
minor key system. Moreover,
the development of polytonality
and atonality maybe the
use of parallel motion and the
use of whole-tone scale; they
also have he same concept to
avoid the key character, and
all these steps led eventually
become essential to the style
of Expressionist.
Expressionism.
This is
also a term form painting,
these painters expressed
their innermost experience
and states of mind: dark,
secret terrors and fantastic
visions of the subconscious.
And expressionism in music
began as an exaggeration, and
distortion even, also composers
poured the most intense
emotional expressiveness into
their music, therefore on the
20th century music composers
often use the mental breakdown
to express their minds.
Expressionist style
composers are Arnold
Schoenberg
who is a painter
too, and his pupils:
Alban Berg and
Anton Webern;
they became know
as ‘The Second
Viennese School’. Atonal styles, increasingly
chromatic and total rejection of
key or tonality are the character
of expressionist music harmonies;
composers use the extremely
dissonant harmonies,
frenzied, disjointed melodies
(including wild leaps), violent
tone color, and play explosive
contrasts with instruments to
expression to others.
Parallelism, Chromaticism and Serialism.
Parallelism
is an idea of all parallel
intervals of fifth, third and
octave. And the Chromaticism
is another composition idea of
inner part movement in chromatic,
also the chord modulate
by chromatic too. These two
new composition concept is
began on the 20th century music,
composers really wanted
to break out the old style of
music composition. Besides,
Serialism or twelve note system
is a composing which is a
new arranges all twelve notes of the chromatic scale in order
of the composer choice. It
become the ‘note-row’, or the
basic series which entire composition
will be based, also
all twelve notes are of equal
importance, there are no any
trendy to tonic, leading note
and the pulling toward to the
dominant. In this composition
concept, the series of these
notes have four difference
form: original form, retrograde
(backwards), inversion (upside
down), retrograde inversion
(backwards and upside down
at the same time).
Conclusion.
Music on the
20th century has many new
materials and new ideas,
therefore we have many new
sounds in our music life today,
also the period in 20th century
hasn’t finish, that means we’ll
have more creative and shock
news to us.
But to round up the development
of early 20th century,
there are Neo-classicism,
Impressionism, polytonality,
atonality, Expressionism,
Parallelism, Chromaticism and
Serialism. These elements use
to express the composer feelings,
and all of the composers
of the 20th century are aimed to
break through the old musical
style specially in Romantic
and Classical period, therefore
composers always avoid use
the form and the characters
which same as the music period
before 20th century.
And in later 20th century
musician in a special ways
to develop new music, they
directly onto magnetic tape
rather than in an abstract way
by writing notes down on
paper. The sounds were the
nature sounds around us, such
as a door slamming, a cork
popping from a bottle, and so
on. And musicians transferred
these recordings to another
tape: blending them, superimposing
hem one on top of
another, and modifying them
in various ways, this may be
the new music of our future.
Studying music is not like
studying history or language,
we cannot only remember the
theory and the music style,
also we cannot memorize all
the pieces and music characters
without enjoyment.
Therefore I think we must
refresh our memory about the
characteristics of different
styles of each period by learning
a new musical period or
new music style. It can help us
to understand better the new
style, not only compare with
two different music styles and
periods, and we can discover
that there are many creativity
on the 20th century music.
What has changed in the world
in which we live to say that
this should be a classroom. What do
we do in the classroom? The classroom
is characterized by the space in
which teachers and students gather
to share an experience that is called
learning. Learning involves a model
or paradigm of teaching and gaining
knowledge. The model we know has
the following elements: a paradigm or
model of science, teaching methods,
student conception and design of
leading learning: the above is inserted
into a form of society.
In this 2014 we have different
proposals regarding the model of science;
since 1950 the last century is the
questioning of science in the model
that for something to be true had to be
measurable; the proposal is that there
is unquantifiable so we talk about
holistic model and that the division
into disciplines must be replaced by
transdiscipline.
As the student ceased to be the
recipient of the knowledge passively;
the teacher is no longer the one who
knows and provides knowledge.
Also how trading is done as a whole,
globalization, and is also intended to
be a common culture and globalization.
To this must be added the development
of communication.
If they have changed the concept of
science, student, teacher and society
has a different structure how can you
make teaching and learning relationship
based on a single factor, which is
the classroom.
“The information age and knowledge
is creating a new way of life in all social,
political, institutional and business
systems. Organizations of this new era
do business differently, have different
expectations and values. The customs
and rituals become human; needs and
how to meet them modify and evolve.
Siliceo Aguilar (2007, p. 9).
Following Siliceo Aguilar there are
many elements that have to change
in this new society and one of them
is education. Necessarily it has to be
a change in education and must be
consistent with the model of trade or
globalization and global culture: human
beings have to be ready for the
new society in order for not to happen
what Binde says:
“A world in which less than 10% of
human beings have access to new
sources of knowledge and 90% is
excluded, is a structurally precarious
world”. Bindé (2006, p. 143).
The new model or paradigm of
education must take the world as
classroom and this is achieved using
digital communication; known science
should explain different aspects comprising
a problem; the student should
seek information from universities
in the world, having their diffusion
pages; he should also seek information
from various global organizations that
exist, related to trade and education;
he should study at institutions offering
quality although governments have
them out of what they call “recognition”
because we are living in the
absence of power of the world’s states,
hence the emergence of Non-Governmental
Organizations (NGOs).
We have to say with Siliceo Aguilar:
“The social demand for educational
services that truly prepare students
for the future will be increasingly
demanding, since security survival is
based on knowledge and higher skills
developed properly”. Siliceo Aguilar
(2007, p. 11).
It is urgent to change the educational
model because we have a different
society that needs human beings
integrated to the changes that global
society is developing with criticism of
one or the approval of others. So say
Toffler and Toffler:
“Today, nations around the world
strive to build, at different speeds,
advanced economies. What is not
yet clearly understood most of the
business, political and civic leaders is
a very simple fact: that an advanced
economy needs an advanced society,
as each economy is the product of the
society in which it is inserted and depends
on its basic institutions”. Toffler
and Toffler (2006, p. 63).
One of the basic forms of a society
is education and education should
be for all: everyone should have the opportunity for personal development.
Education has to be as fast as trade,
as innovative as communication
development, as wide as the natural
and social world and must be chosen
organizations for such purposes by the
quality rather than by authority States
that offer them.
The final question to us to choose
an institution to educate ourselves is:
if states do not have the power they
needed to be in society, how they
intend to tell us which university
or school is what should give us the
knowledge of this new world.
The world is a natural world and
the world is a social world and human
beings need to know these two worlds;
humans need to integrate these two
worlds because we are part of the
natural world and we must be part of
the social world we create.
Life is to live in the natural world
and live in the social world; if this does
not occur, humans are walking in the
opposite direction of our development;
Life is for living and to live means to
be satisfied with what we are and have
growth on sight. Otherwise to live, to
grow, means decay, means survival.
We in the same way that NGOs
have emerged, because states have
ceased to represent the society in their
rights, to choose educational organizations
that can give us THE WORLD AS
CLASSROOM.
