Listening with the Music Elements

How to Listen?

Three short contrasting extracts of recorded music will be played by your Teacher.

Music can be understood and analysed with series of elements:

pitch, duration, tempo, dynamics, structure, texture and timbre.

In Groups discuss each element and what you think they mean. Tell the class your group answers.


Listening Analysis Task

Listen to 3 examples of music played by your teacher. Consider each music element and see if you can make some distinctions between the recordings by referring to Pitch, Instrumentation, Duration, Tempo, and Dynamics. Go through them one at a time:

Listen to Example 1. Can you hear differences in the following?

Pitch

Is the Melody:

  • High/Low

  • Steps/Leaps

  • Ascending /Descending


Is the Harmony:

  • Major/Minor/Atonal/Unpitched

  • Chordal instruments

  • Clear Bass Line

Instrumentation

What instruments can you hear?

  • Brass -

  • Strings -

  • Woodwind -

  • Percussion -

  • Keyboards -

  • Electronic -


Duration (Rhythm)

Are the Patterns:

  • easy enough to clap?

  • able to be written into a one or two bar pattern?

  • in the time signature of 4/4, 3/4, 2/4, 6/8 ____

  • straight/ swinging?


Tempo

Is the Speed:

  • Fast: Allegro?

  • Medium: Moderato?

  • Walking pace: Andante?

  • Slow: Adagio?

  • Getting faster/slower?


Dynamics

Is the Volume:

  • Loud: Forte?

  • Medium Loud: Mezzo Forte

  • Medium Soft: Mezzo Piano

  • Soft: Piano

  • Getting louder: Crescendo

  • Getting Softer: Decrescendo


Listen to Example 2 and 3 and repeat the process.

Can you compare the 3 pieces of music using music elements?

Guided Listening African Drumming

African drumming music is based around the ideas of rhythm, pulse and

tempo. Performance groups create interesting and often highly complex (polyrhythmic) pieces by combining individual rhythmic patterns and ideas, forming cross-rhythms and syncopation. Groups are directed by the master drummer. The master drummer is mainly responsible for conducting the music though he would also be playing a drum himself.

African drumming contains sections of music, some of which might involve different patterns or a change of tempo. The master drummer would decide when to change the pattern or tempo, with a specific rhythm pattern that acts as a signal for the other players. African vocal music often follows similar rhythmic patterns with the addition of call and response melodies. The drum parts could be said to be accompanying the vocal parts.


Look Up and listen:

Agbekor and Tamale (both from northern Ghana)

Listen carefully to the music without writing anything down initially.

Listen to the piece a second time, this time making brief bullet point notes

about what you can hear.


  • ______________________________________________________________________

  • ______________________________________________________________________

  • ______________________________________________________________________

  • ______________________________________________________________________

  • ______________________________________________________________________


Describe musical features: Can you work out the correct musical terms?

_______________________________________________________

Listen to the extract a third time to allow them to check over

their responses and thoughts and compare notes with your brain buddy (the person next to you).