Jazz - Preview for Monday, featuring Bill Cosby

We're going to start with Bebop - and here are 2 youtube clips.

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First, Bill Cosby being interviewed on a talk show in 1973. He's talking about playing Bebop (though he never says that).

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... and Wynton Marsalis playing the tune Cosby talks about: Cherokee

20th Century music........and the Class Piece

Click the title of this article to hear the results of our composition the other day. (You can also hear last Spring's version - but the audio quality is not nearly as good.)

So what TYPE of 20th century piece is it an example of... Quotation music? Expressionism?

Hmmm.......

Don't forget that copyright questions will be on the test, and that there is a study sheet linked down there on the right sidebar.

Is This Music?

Is This Music?

More about Synthesis

The text mentions "modular synthesizers" ; here's a vid of a college student who demos one. Watch all the stuff he has to plug in to make a sound.

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Electronic Music - Notes & Vids

1. We'll listen to a bit more of the Varese piece Monday - but I wanted you to take a listen to some other stuff. Using Electronics to make music is fairly old by now - CLICK HERE to read about the 1897 Cahill Telharmoium (all 200 tons of it - it took 36 boxcars to transport). So the idea of using electronic gizmos to produce music is nothing new.
2. Ever heard of the "Hammond Organ"? You've definitely heard the sound - it's also electronic, and can be called the first commercially available sysnthesizer. (But they called it an organ because an organ would - but a "synthesizer" no one would buy.
3. Another electronic instrument - the Theremin - is the only instrument you don't touch. It's electronic, and has been used all over. Here's a BBC story about the Theremin:
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. ....and here's another performance of an artist playing a Debussy piece on the Theremin:
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Watch this one, and look at how the experiments of the last century have produced something that you hear every day.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. ..and finally, an interview on "ScreenSavers" with Dr. Robert Moog, who took all the stuff the electronic musicians were doing and put it in a small, portable, easily usable (relatively speaking) case. He also demos a Theremin that the company makes.