Understand the stylistic elements of improvisation across a range of musical genres
Looking as there styistic aproach
Rock / Blues
When improvising Jimi would more often than not be using either
the pentatonic scale of the blues scale. There’s are two of the most commonly found
scales in rock and blues music and since Jimi Hendrix’s music is a combination or
rock and blues it meant that those scales did fit very well into his music.
Hendrixs Guitar Effects units
Hendrix did not always feel the need to use pedals in all of
his songs but he did very often use guitar pedals to enhance the sound of the
guitar in the important sections of the song for example his use of an octave pedal
in the guitar solo of purple haze. The octave pedal ads a octave above the note
that is being played on the guitar giving the sound of two guitars and making
the overall sound of the guitar a lot fatter and more powerful. The octave
pedal is not the only pedal that handix used to use though. He was also known
to use pedals like of core the pedal made famous by jimmi Hendrix the Wah Wah.
He used the Wah Wah in a lot of his songs but he did not over use it. The wah
is a very effective pedal when used right. He also used a univerb pedal and a
fuzz face. The fuzz face is a distortion pedal that Hendrix used to control the
distortion on the marshal stack amps and the univerb is an echo pedal of sorts.
He used that to shape his tone and make it more interesting.
In the picture to the right of his paragraph you can see jimmies
use of the wah wah peal and how he plays a right handed stat upside down. You
can also see his marshal stack amps at the back of the stage witch one again
are a big part of his sound.
Looking at his lyrics
Jimi Hendrix has written a lot of music in his time and a
lot of lyrics to go with that. I have found that a lot of jimmi hendrixs lyrics
are written very clever and do some times not talk about the actual subject of
the song title, in fact only talk about in by referencing in an/o referencing
things about it to help the listener to build up a picture in there head instead
of having the story read to them, It means that they have the freedom to interpret
his lyrics in their own way. This also means that they can be easily relatable
to lots of people of lots of different types all relating to his lyrics
differently and feeling t that they were meant for them.
One example of this is the song purple haze – he says this – purple haze in my brain – and – excuse me while I kiss the sky. Both of these lines can be very open to interpretation form the different was that different people look at itand preserve it to mean. When he sings live he often threw in some improvised shouts and yeahs and whos and things like thawhen the time felt right. |
Jimmi Hendrix - Jimmi Hendrix had a very distict sound of his guiar playing. He alwasys played a strat but unlike a lot of guitar players he was left handed and he strung his right handed strat the wrong way round and played it like a left handed guitar. He always played a strat trough a big Marshal stack. He always had his amp very loud and would get feedback fom i when he was on stage. As you can see in the picture to the left of this paragraph Jimmi is playing a stratacaster up side-down through some Marshal stacks.
Jimmi Hendrix always used a wide variety of different rhythms to give
different feels to his songs. Some of the songs that it is very clear he is useing interesting rhythms in are, Hey Joe and Purple haze. When Jimi improvises or plays parts of the solos
that he has written you can hear that he has a very sophisticated ear for
hearing when some notes pushed forward a tiny bit to give the phrase a sense of
momentum and lots of other little things like that that he did. He used rhythms
very effectively and managed to craft some very memorable melodic and rhythmic phases
on the guitar. An example of one is Voodoo Child. As well as Jimi Hendrix’s
brilliant guitar playing making him well known and creating his own kind of style
his vocals also contribute massively to his overall sound.
One of the things that Jimi does a lot is swap between the pentatonic at the 12 position antd then go down to the pentatonic in the open position.
He picture above shows jimi getting feedback from the
marshal stack amps that are very important to his sound. As see can see prom
the picture he is really getting into the performance and moving around and
making it a performance as opposed to just plain his songs.
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Hendrix’s use of interesting rhythms and phrasing and other
stylising elements in his songs
eg. 1:10 - shows hammer ons - pull ofs - vibrato and slides
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Example using Voodoo Child
In the song Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix he does a lot of
small stylistic techniques in the guitar playing that makes it stand out as
being different to most to the music at the time. In the intro he uses some rhythms
that are held back a bit so that the listener is contently on the edge and not
sure what is coming next. He then goes on to make the playing a lot more
passionate by using vibrato and by bending notes to perfection. He plays with emotion
when he played his riffs with hammer on and pull offs, he uses slides on the
guitar to make it more interesting and make it unique. What his use of all of
these things in this song does is make the song more very emotional, and hard
for another guitarist to recreate on the guitar. Because he putts in all of
these little thing that make it his own, he is the only one who can deliver the
performance of the song properly.
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Example using Hey JoeIn the song Hey Joe Jimi uses some elements that are
from different types of music giving different feels. But a lot of the same
things that he has in a lot of his music are still there. There are still the usual
vibrato and bends and slides that make his music his own and there are still
the very heavily overdriven guitars doing what Jimi dose best. In this song
there are some elements that you can tell that Jimi has taken from early blues
music and making his own. What he has done with the bass guitar in this song is
taken a typical walking bass line from a 12 bar blues song and altered it to
fit his chord progression. What he ended up with is a waling bass line that
goes up in notes and creates tension but happy at the same time. It is very easily
recognisable when you listen to the song.
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Eg of hammer ons and pull ofs and vibrato and great uses or rhythms can be found throughout this whole song
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Examples using guitar tabs from the Voodoo Child guitar solo
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-15b17-15b17rb15^12-15b17-15b17----15b17rb15^12-----12^15^12 -----------------------------------------------------------------14b16------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -14^12--12^14b15---14b16rb14-12---------------------------------------- ------14---------------------------------------------12-14-14------------------- ---------------------------------------------12^14------------14\12-10--12-14 ------------------------------------------0-----------------------------------0----- ------------------12-15b17-12^14^12--12-------12------------------------- -----12-15b17---------------------------15--15b17--15^12--15^12-15^12 -----------------------------------------------------------------------14----------- -14-14----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------12------------------------------- -14-12^15^12-14^12--12-15b17---15^12----------------------- ---------------------------14---------------------14b16br14^12------ --------------------------------------------------------------------14---- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
Analysis of the tab
If you look at the tab and think about it on the guitar neck
you will realise that the vast majority of the notes are in the pentatonic
scale. In this case they are in the pentatonic scale as it would be played on
the 12th fret of the guitar. This means that it is the E minor
pentatonic. The E minor pentatonic is a very commonly used scale in this kind
of music and may artists have made great use of it. One of the most famous
being Slow Hand (Eric Clapton).
I have uploaded an example of the E minor pentatonic on the
guitar above this paragraph. This picture shows the E minor pentatonic on the
guitar neck at the 12 position as opposed to on the open position. This is the
same scale that Hendrix built his solo in Voodoo Child around. In the exact
same position.
Hendrix has added in a FLATTEND 5TH to this scale. That mkeen that it is a 6 note scale. This anouther thing that makes his playing unique. |
Jimi's use of - Vibrato - Bends - hammer ons and pull offs ect.
Bends (b)
When you look at the tab above and see a symbol like
this (^) it usually means bends. In the voodoo child solo Jimi Hendrix uses
bends to create and release tension. If you look at the tag you will very often
see this ----15b17---- what this mean is that Jimi putts his fingers on the 15th
fret and bends the string up until it makes the note of the 17th
fret. He sometimes bends the not up and then sustains it using the feedback on
the amp that is created by such high levels of gain on the amp and by positioning
the guitar in front of the cab.
Hammer ons and pull offs (^)
In the voodoo child solo there are a lot of hammer ons
and pull ofs. When you read the tab the hammer on and the pull ofs are all over
the place. This is because Jimi used them to make his guitar playing more emotional
and more unique. When you read the tab you will see things like this ---
14-12^15^12-14^12----. What this would mean is hammer to the 15th
fret from the 12th and then pull off from the 15 to the 14th.
The reason that Jimi dose this is
because this is because it would create a very different effect that it would
to just plucking each note individually.
Slides (/)
There are also slides in this solo. The slides are another
one of the little things that Hendrix dose to make the songs virtuosic and his
own style. When you see the slides written on the tab above it will look like this
--------12/14-------. What that example would mean is that you slide from fret
12 to fret14.
Vibrato
Vibrato is one of the things that Jimi dose to make his
music more expressive and more interesting. Vibrato has not been written into
this tab because it is something that he dose automatically. It is basically
when he wobbles his finger a bit when hes pressing down on the freeboard.
Dose Jimi Hendrix share some of the same stylistic elements as Miles Davis and Mozart in his improvisations even though there are improvising in different styles?
Even though they were all improvising in different genres they shared some of the same things. Like there use of octaves and how in all of their improvisation they jump between octaves. Also there uses of speed I there playing to capture the listener’s attention. How they all play at a slow speed and then they speed up very so that there is a variety in there playing. There are also other things like there use of dynamics. They play quietly and then when everything gets going and feels like there is some momentum they increase the volume. All three of them do this in there improvisations. They all share a lot of techniques although there genres are totally different. Jimi Hendrix uses the vast majority of the same techniques as the other two and then apply them to his improvisations in different ways. He obviously plays his improvisations more beefy and more gritty that the others.
Who influenced Jimi Hendrix?
When you listen to Jimi Hendrix’s music it becomes very
clear who his influences were. He was very heavily influenced by a lot of musicians
before him and he was also very open about who they wore and showed them the
upmost respect for inspiring him. Some of his earliest influences form when he
was a very young lad not much older than 10 years were “Buddy Holly, Eddie
Cochran and Muddy Waters”. I have looked at some of the music that these artist
have produced before the times of jimmy Hendrix and although they are not
really that similar to the style of jimmy you can tell that he has taken elements
of the genre and element so there stylistic approach and harvested them in his
music and recreated them in his own ways.
Some sore influences that influenced him in a different time period that the three I already mention are these three. They are all very famous and they were lucky enough to have Hendrix listening to them during the time in his life where he began to write purple haze. When you listen to the track purple haze you can hear the influences of all three of these artists. The artists are – Jeff Beck – Elvis and Little Richard. When you listen to the purple haze intro and the unusual note choice and the odd phrasing of the song it is clear that it was very heavily influenced by Jeff beck. Jeff becks music if full of unusual intervals and funny timings so it is clear that Jeff beck did indeed influence Hendrix. If you are then to listen to for example – Hound dog by Elvis you hear Elvis’s strong lead vocals singing the phrase – You ant nothing but a hound dog. I think that think kind of thing that Elvis did inspired Hendrix to right the lyric and the strong vocal melody - Purple haze, in my mind. |
Who did Jimi Hendrix Influence?
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It is very easy to
look and listen to Jimi Hendrix and see who it was who influenced his music and
his look but it is even easier to look at jimmy Hendrix and the years that came
after him and who it was that he inspired with his music. Jimi Hendrix has inspired
so many musicians all over the world. One of my favourite examples of this is
Joe Satriani. Joe Satriani is one of the biggest guitar names in the world at
the moment and in an interview he talked about how he was such a massive fan of
jimmy Hendrix that when he heard the horrible news of jimmies tragic death when
he was a young boy he was at his football practice. He then walked of the
football pitch and quit and went home to concentrate on his guitar playing. Watch the interview on the left to hear the story. When
you listen to a song called friends by Joe you can hear the influences of Jimi
in it everywhere. It is a song that’s made up of a guitar solo full of massive
guitar bends and slides and tremolo and hammer on’s and pull offs exactly like
almost everything that Jimi has done. The guitar tone on his amp too is not
that dissimilar to the guitar tone of Jimi. Very heavily distorted and very
fat. Joe Satriani has talked about Jimi Hendrix as being a massive influence to
his music and even more that that a missive influence to his life.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another artist that has made a massively big name for himself in the music industry and been a part of the band that began the grunge movement that is a genre that is still very make alive today is Dave Grohl. Dave began his career as the drummer of nirvana. When Curt Cobane came to his tragic end Dave formed a new band called the foo fighter. He is the front man of this band and they have been very successful. Dave is a massive Hendrix fan and has said tin interviews that Hendrix is one of his biggest interviews and in his eyes a tre legend of rock. He said to rolling stone - Hendrix was a genius on fire… People had there asses blown out by Hendrix”. These are very passionate words from Dave. The songs that he wrote with his new band the foo fighters have a hint of Hendrix’s influence in there. The guitar distorting the wah wah pedal makes a few appearances in there earlier music and many more. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Another guitarist that has been hugely influenced by Jimi Hendrix is the world famous guitars is from Guns n Roses. His name is Slash. Slash has moulded his guitar tone to be very much like Jimi Hendrix’s. He played through Marshal Stack amps and his solos are made up of all of the same things that build up Jimi Hendrix’s solos. These are things like: bends and slides and tremolo and pinch harmonics and hammer on’s and pull offs. Hendrix plays through his amp with a much distorted tone just like Hendrix sis. He often went up to his amp stack to get feedback too just like Hendrix did. Slash also used that wah wah pedal a lot to make certain parts of his guitar lines stand out more and grab the listener’s attention. I have attached an interview with slash talking about Jimi Hendrix and how he was inspired by his music below. When you read this paragraph of slash talking about Jimi then it is clear to see that Slash is very passionate about Jimi music and he was heavily influenced. ---------------------Slash interview----------------------- twken from www.ultimateguitar.com "I think the attraction with Jimi was just that he had this uninhibited, fluid guitar style that basically screamed," recalled Slash. "It had this over-the-top sound to it that just kind of drew me in. I think all of my favourite guitar players have a sort of manic quality to them." He continued, "The thing about Jimi is that he was American born and with a talent from on high, but was discovered by an English crew that brought him over to London where everything was really happening and they appreciated him for what he was. It's sort of funny, because you think of all the really amazing rock guitarists that were coming out at that time basically the English rock guitarists were all a bunch of white kids who wanted to be black and play that kind of guitar, and then there's this black kid coming from America who kind of brings it part and parcel from over there and everybody just stands back and says, 'Wow!' Everyone was tripping out on Jimi, who's really the sort of embodiment of that young lead guitar player, using a lot of distortion, a lot of feedback it must have been interesting being, say, Jeff Beck at the time." |
Jazz
The picture above shows Miles Davis smoking a fag and
sitting behind a piano playing it. The piano is not the instrument that he is
most famous for in his career but he is an all-round musician so this dose help
to show his diversity. I have also attached a photo to the right hand side of this paragraph
of Miles Davis playing the trumpet witch is one of the instruments that he is
very famous for playing. As you can see in the picture he looks like he is
really putting in a lot of effort and a lot of emotion into playing that
trumpet and the sound that he makes from that instrument really did blow the
minds of the people listening.
Stylistic elements
Some of the stylistic eminent of miles Davis music really do
make it stand out from a lot of the other genres. They are mostly stereotypical
stylistic elements of the Jazz genres. An example of this is his use of unusual
time signatures. The one song that jumps out to me as one of the main ones
where this happens is all blues of the album – kind of blue. This song is in
6/8 and is in the key of G (7). On the right of this paragraph I have uploaded
a screenshot of the double bass part. In the screenshot you can see that it is
a walking bass line kind of thing, like there is in a lot of pass music, so the
song feels like it’s going somewhere. In the screenshot you can also see that
the time signature of the song is 6/8.
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Miles Davis -
Miles Davis is a Jazz musician. His music is very famous
worldwide and he has inspired many musicians in the generations below him. In
this music there is a lot of improvisation. In his music there are often long
section that are put aside for one person to do an improvised solo over the
rest of the band in the background who would then play a lot quieter. The solos
can be on all sorts of different instruments. Sax, Alto sax, piano, vocals and
many more. One of the rhythmic things that Miles Davis dose quite a lot in some
of his music is having the drums swung, he does this a lot because it
automatically will give the piece of music a jazzy feel. An example of one of
Miles Davis’s songs where there are a lot of different instruments doing solos
in all blues of the album Kind of Blue. In this song there are piano solos and
sax solos many more. The song goes on for a long time but it never loses
momentum or gets boring because of all the changes of the instruments taking
the lead.
One of the stylistic elements that is very obvious that he
uses in his recording and in his live performances is his uses of a mute on his
trumpet. The mute gives the trumpet a different sound and it is a very distinct
stylistic element of his music. You can see him using a mute in the photo
above.
More stylistic elementsMelody's -The melody's in Miles Davis in music are generally very repetitive. For example when you listen to All Blues by Miles Davis you will hear the swung rhythm and then a repetitive rhythm in the back ground. The rhythm comes in and drops out a lot in the song, sometime comes in with more harmony's and then drops out with more layers.
Trademarks - |
All of miles davis trademarks are trademarks that he has picked up of the American jazz scean when he was growing up. This is where his music gets the relaxed swung feel and where it gets the melodic lead lines that are more often that no surprisingly simple. Of cores tho, miles davis main trademark, the one thing that is in almost all of his songs is his trusty trumpet. He fell in love with the trumpet when he was 1 years old and his dad bought him one for his birthday that's where it all began and he decided he wanted to move to New York and be a jazz musician, he began to build te trademarks that would stick with him for life and never leave his music.
Stylistic elements of Miles Davis and how they changed
throughout his career
In the early stages of Miles Davis career he began with contemporary
B-Bop. In this style of music Miles stuck to the standard stylistic elements
that the other big names who were composing and performing in the genre did.
This is things like very fast lead lines using 1/8th notes over the
jazz in the background. Another thing that you will find, especially if you’re
listening to Miles Davis is that his lead lines tend to move with the chords
changes in the music. This is good because it keep the piece flowing and it gives
it momentum. Miles Davis began to lay with a B-Bop musician called Charley
Parker. He soon found himself in charge of Charley Parker band and that’s how he
began to shine and grow as a musician.
As Miles Davis music progressed on to post B-Bop you will notice that the music is a lot more modal. The most famous of miles albums that demonstrates this well is the album kind of blue. Instead of having all the really quick fast lead lines using 1/8th that he was very well known for in his B-Bop music, he had long sustained notes and he had overall a more modal approach. A very good example of this is one of the songs from the album Kind of blue is called so what.
So what - Miles Davis
So what is a song that’s is based around a bass riff played
on a double bass, and around that there are some short chords that he has added
to give it some more texture. The song has a all-round very modal approach.
Miles Davis and the band play over a D Dorian chord. D Dorian is the second
chord in the key of C, this single chord remains for the whole of the A A section,
with miles modal trumpet playing over the top. The trumpet dose get more virtuosic
and more fast and complicated as the track progress but its roots are very
simple with long held sustained notes. The song dose change in the B section. The
bass line is moved up a half tone and the chord rises chromatically to Eb, this
is a modal approach to Eb Dorian. This continues throughout the B section.
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This is the mode used in Miles Davises - So What
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Miles Davis stylistic elements in his choice of notes and
chord extensions
Miles Davis’s stylistic approach is very much determined by
his choice sf notes and the choice of chord extensions that he uses that give
of his overall feel to his music. Miles Davis has been known to often not play
the notes that are in the basic try-ads that build up the vast majority of
music but instead he preferred to play what’s called coloured notes, these are
things like adding 9th notes and 13th notes to chords and
to scales.
More stylistic elements in his improvisations
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Speed in his playing
The video on the left of this paragraph is a great example for more than one of the stylistic element in miles davs trumper improvisation. It shows how he holds back the speed and vetuosic playing and then lets rip and plays some very fast stuff all of a sudden when your not expecting it. He changes from what he sometimes dose witch is long held and sustain notes to some very quick trumpet run. It is important to understand that in most of his songs he dose not just let rip the whole way through, he dose take the lime out to slow it down and then maybe speed it up again.
Controlling volume in his playing
Miles Davis controls the volume in his playing so that when he wants to make some notes stand out he can emphasise them by playing them louder than people where expecting. Much like a lot of other great musicians he holdback and then as the song starts to build up and feel like it is going somewhere he will let loose and play loud and blow everyone back.
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Did Miles Davis share some of the same stylistic techniques as Jimi Hendrix and Motzart even though there improvisations are each in different genres?
The answer to that question in short is yes. Even though they were all improvising in different genres they shared some of the same things. Like there use of octaves and how in all of their improvisation they jump between octaves. Also there uses of speed I there playing to capture the listener’s attention. How they all play at a slow speed and then they speed up very so that there is a variety in there playing. There are also other things like there use of dynamics. They play quietly and then when everything gets going and feels like there is some momentum they increase the volume. All three of them do this in there improvisations. They all share a lot of techniques although there genres are totally different.
Who inspired Miles Davis?
Miles Davis was influence by a lot of musician before and
throughout his career. Some of the musicians that influenced him are Dizzy
Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Clark Terry. Even though he was very heavily
influenced by these musicians he did not sound anything like them. By the age
of 19 he was making his own kind of sound and he found that other musicians
were being inspired by him and taking some of the elements of his music and
pitting in to the own music. In other words, he found that other musicians were
copying him. He loved Dizzy’s music but he found that he could not play as fast
or as high as him so he took elements out of Dizzys music and made them his own
by slowing them down and changing the keys and changing the time signatures and
things like that. In an interview he did surprise everybody by admitting that
his chilled out style and the mellow vibes that his music sends was in fact
very heavily inspired by the world famous singer Frank Sinatra.
At a later date in his career when he began to play with a bigger band and was beginning to be very successful he began to play a lot more shows and do a lot more public performances. In order to do this he had to recruit some of the finest musicians in the land to play in his band and back him up and in a lot of cases take the lead role from time to time and blow the audiences away with solos. One of the musicians that inspired him a lot is one of the ones that played the piano in his band. This pianists name is Bill Evans. He learnt a lot form the style of Bills playing as I am sure Bill learned a lot from the style of His playing. Much in the same way that He was influenced by musicians who have nothing to do with jazz. He also went on to inspire music in the generation to come that had nothing to do with jazz. |
Who did Miles Davis influence?
The picture below is a picture taken of Wallace Rooney playing the signature trumpet that Miles Davis gave to him as a gift before he died.
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Miles Davis has inspired so many musicians in the generations below him and his music can be found in so many places. Elements of his music ant the feel of the music or the vibes as some might say have universally been passed down and copied by other musicians keeping the jazz / miles Davis feel alive. There are so many people and styles that he has influenced. To get the ball rolling then whole fusion eara was inspired by the late great miles Davis and then that went on to inspired many more goners of music. One of the musician that stood out to me that was massively influenced my Miles Davis is a trumpet played called Wallace Rooney. The reason that this one stood out a lot to me is because there was a physical connection between the two musicians as well as them just being inspired by each others music. The story is that miles davis gave Wallace a signate trumpet as a gift for him. The gift was to say thank you for Wallace performing with him in Montreux Switzerland in 1991 this took place a few months before he tragically died. Wadada Leo Smith is another musician who miles Davis influenced a lot! If you listen to his Golden Quartet album, you can hear the Miles influence on his trumpet playing. Smith was also in a band called Yo! Miles. That was a Miles cover band. This just goes to show truly how influential he really was on musicians. If there going out of there way to form bands just to perform songs that miles wrote that really dose say something. |
Motzart |
Motzrt is a classical musician. He is a very famous classical composer and he has shown that he is a very talented musician from a very young age. He was able to improvise great musical melodies in his early childhood, and as he grew up and kept exploring his musical potential his music got better and better. He has gone on to compose a lot of music in a lot of different forms. A lot of the music that he has written follows the AAB format. Some of the stylistic elements of the music that can be found very often in Mozart’s music is all of the layer and all out the build-up section that create tension also known as crescendo building up and dimundos going down. His music often goes from one extreme to another. An example of this is that it will start with a very thin layers like a violin and a flute and then it would build up to all of the string section. The melody that Mozart wrote into his music were often very easy to listen to and were very simplistic and did not have big jumps between notes so they all had moderately small intervals. Where as in some of the songs that he has composed it has got big and unexpected intervals. Stylistic elements |
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The stylistic elements of Motzarts music are generally the same stylistic elements of most classical music. The reason for this is that most classical musicians and composers have copied Mozart and have taken elements out of his music and put it into there own.
RhythmicIf you listen to any motzart song then you will hear a wide range of different rhythms. For example rhythmic counter point where he has different rhythms sounding like they are battling against each other. And there are constantly feelings like there are changes in tempo when the song picks up ad then when the song drops back down. For example in the song to the left of this paragraph he song goes from a very quiet section where not much is happening very quickly into a section that is lead by 16notes and feels like it has a lot of speed and a lot of power behind it.
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TonalityMozart has written all sorts of different songs in all sorts of different keys for example he wrote40 symphony's in different keys and named each one what the key was. like the example above that is called - symphony 40 in the key of g minor. Mozart wrote in major and minor keys and was very effective at doing both.
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Melody'sThe melody's in Mozart's music show so much variety. there are section that are very simplistic melody's with very long and held notes so that it feels like the song is chilled out and then it will suddenly go into a very virtuosic melody where everything picks up and has a lot of momentum. I have also found that he rights very catty's melody's and more often that not he will bring the melody's back into the piece lots and lots of times. He would have to do this if he was righting such longs songs! But he dose very often ad in little subtle differences to keep the listener thinking and not knowing what was gong to come next.
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Explain Stylistic elements of Mozarts improvisations
The dynamics in his improvisations
Mozart uses a lot of dynamics in his improvisations. He uses the dynamics of the music to make certon things stand out. In his improvisations he would play very gentle and lightly and then as the feel of the song and the volume of the song begins to thinking he too would start playing a bit harder and there would b a loud section where everything is happening and its all explodes. When the improvisations begin at quiet levels it automatically makes it easier for the song to go somewhere and for it to capture the audiences attention.
How is the dynamics an important stylistic element in Mozart’s improvisation and genre?
It is so important because it makes keeps his improvisations interesting. Much like what Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix did when the hold back a bit so that when they want the solo to have momentum and feel like it’s going somewhere they have the ability to add move volume as well as other playing techniques.
It is so important because it makes keeps his improvisations interesting. Much like what Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix did when the hold back a bit so that when they want the solo to have momentum and feel like it’s going somewhere they have the ability to add move volume as well as other playing techniques.
His improvisation (especially on the piano)have virtuosic playing
When you listen to the improvisation i have linked below you will hear some of Mozart’s stylistic elements in his improvisation. This is an improvisation in C Maj. If you listen to how skilled the playing is in this improvisation it is very impressive. He goes up and down the piano at a staggering speed for the vast majority of the improvisation. He will be playing staggeringly fast and then slow it right down and just play slow chords and then straight away speed it up to the fast virtuosic playing again.
This kind of virtuosic playing is very important to the genre because it is what makes it so impressive and enjoyable to listen to
Did Hendrix and miles Davis uses speed to capture the audience’s attention and make the music more impressive too?
Yes. They both used virtuosic and skilled playing in the same way as Mozart.
Did Hendrix and miles Davis uses speed to capture the audience’s attention and make the music more impressive too?
Yes. They both used virtuosic and skilled playing in the same way as Mozart.
His use of octaves in his improvisation
Motzart used octaves in his improvisations in the same way that Hendrix did in his improvisations. When Hendrix did it he would swap from the 12 position to the bridge position ion his pentatonic scale. What Mozart did what do them both at the same time and play little bits of the same melody’s with both hands to give it more oomph! He did this in a lot of his compositions as well as his improvisations.
It is not as important as some of the other things in his playing but it is still important because his use of octaves is one of the many small things that makes his improvisations a bit unique and different to outer peoples.
It is not as important as some of the other things in his playing but it is still important because his use of octaves is one of the many small things that makes his improvisations a bit unique and different to outer peoples.
Motzarts use of Primary harmony
Mozart is very well known for his use of primary harmony. What this is in musically terms is basically he uses the chords one, four and five a lot in his music and in his improvisations.
- Listen to 0:47 to show how
he uses speed effectively changing from very fast to very slow in his
improvisations
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There is not much physical evidence of Mozart’s improvisations these days though there have been countless reports of songs that he has improvised. I have managed to find one improvisation which is the video I have linked above. The world famous composer Wolfgang Hildesheimer assumes that KV397 is one of Mozart's improvisations.
Who inspired Mozart?
Mozart's mane inspiration was his father. His father is the man who got him into music through playing the piano. Motzart came for a natruly very musicly gifted family. His father Leopold was Vice-Kappellmeister (concert master) to the court in Salzburg, it is not at all suprising that motzart followed in his fathers footsteps. Mozart's father trained his son in playing both the violin and the piano, or as it was known at the time a clavier, he was being taught right from the time he was a toddler. Young Wolfgang Amadeus was paraded as a "wunderkind", a wonder-child or prodigy, he was so young and he shows so much potential.
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Joseph Haydn |
Motzart was said to have been heavily influenced by the music of this man. I have put a link to one the pieces of music that Joseph Haydn composed and it in sot hard at all to see Mozart's influence and the elements that he has talent from Haydns music and recreated and remade in his own music.
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Improvising Mozart in Mozart’s creative
In the video above he talks about Mozart and how he improved in most of his performances at some point. He talks about how people responded to it and the receptions he got.
Who has Mozart's music inspired and influenced in the generations after him?
Beethoven
Beethoven was very heavily influenced by Mozart and in a lot of his symphony's it is easy to see even on paper that he has take a lot of Mozart's ideas. hear are some examples that I have found:
<<<<Beethoven like Mozart>>>>>
The Mozart c minor sonata, K 457, is believed to have inspired Beethoven's "Little Pathetique" Sonata, op. 10 no. 1, and his "Pathetique" Sonata, op. 13. Check this out.
<<<<< Beethoven like Mozart>>>>>
It seems that both composers regarded the subdominant as a way of saying goodby. Both composers emphasize the subdominant in the coda.
In the C major sonata, K 279, second movement, Mozart emphasizes the subdominant chord with a secondary dominant in ms. 70-71. He does the same thing in the F major sonata, third movement, ms. 178-180. In the second movement of the C major sonata, K 545, we see a rarity in ms. 65-66: a secondary subdominant.
In the second movement of the G major sonata, op. 49 no. 2, Beethoven emphasizes the subdominant with a secondary dominant in ms. 108-109.
<<<<< Beethoven like Mozart>>>>>
Take a look at the slow movement of the Mozart Sonata Facile, K 545. and that of the Beethoven "Pathetique" Sonata, op. 13. In both movements, all of the cadences are feminine cadences (dissonance on the strong beat, resolution on the weak beat) until the end of the last statement of the main theme. At this point, we hear the first masculine cadence (dissonance on the weak beat, resolution on the strong beat). This is ms. 63-64 in Mozart and ms. 65-66 in Beethoven. In both movements, the composer apologizes by giving us masculine cadences galore in the coda
<<<<Beethoven like Mozart>>>>>
The Mozart c minor sonata, K 457, is believed to have inspired Beethoven's "Little Pathetique" Sonata, op. 10 no. 1, and his "Pathetique" Sonata, op. 13. Check this out.
<<<<< Beethoven like Mozart>>>>>
It seems that both composers regarded the subdominant as a way of saying goodby. Both composers emphasize the subdominant in the coda.
In the C major sonata, K 279, second movement, Mozart emphasizes the subdominant chord with a secondary dominant in ms. 70-71. He does the same thing in the F major sonata, third movement, ms. 178-180. In the second movement of the C major sonata, K 545, we see a rarity in ms. 65-66: a secondary subdominant.
In the second movement of the G major sonata, op. 49 no. 2, Beethoven emphasizes the subdominant with a secondary dominant in ms. 108-109.
<<<<< Beethoven like Mozart>>>>>
Take a look at the slow movement of the Mozart Sonata Facile, K 545. and that of the Beethoven "Pathetique" Sonata, op. 13. In both movements, all of the cadences are feminine cadences (dissonance on the strong beat, resolution on the weak beat) until the end of the last statement of the main theme. At this point, we hear the first masculine cadence (dissonance on the weak beat, resolution on the strong beat). This is ms. 63-64 in Mozart and ms. 65-66 in Beethoven. In both movements, the composer apologizes by giving us masculine cadences galore in the coda