Today, when a musician sits down to tune, he or she probably pulls out just pulls out an electronic tuner, turns it on, and then makes the necessary adjustments until the little needle on the display points to A440Hz, the… Continue Reading
I’m going to begin this blog with an anecdote and do a slightly different format than usual. Usually, I just explain some principle or idea in music, but this is a little story of what inspired me to write today’s… Continue Reading
Recently, I had the pleasure of listening to Laura Brown, a PhD candidate in the music history program at Yale University, at one of the musicology talks given at the school of music last Friday. She is an SHC alumnus… Continue Reading
Well, which one? In music, there are at least ten forms of music (Source), with each of these having many sub-variations. There are four basic forms: Strophic, Through-composed, Binary, and Ternary, as well as six standardized classic forms: Sonata Form,… Continue Reading
The previous blog post analyzed the physics of sound, namely the sound waves which music is comprised of and how they function, particularly in intonation and volume as it is perceived by the human ear. This then leads into the… Continue Reading
(Source) It’s just physics! I can’t even begin to count the number of times my band director said, “It’s just physics,” when we were baffled by something that happened in music or a sound that could be produced. So many… Continue Reading
If you have ever been in a marching band or have at least been around marching bands, you are likely familiar with drumline cadences. These drumline cadences provide a steady groove and rhythm for the band to march to, keeping… Continue Reading
“That song has a sick beat!” Many of us have likely heard someone say such a phrase in our lifetimes, or at least something akin to that. Or, even if we haven’t heard someone say something like that, we have… Continue Reading
It seems that human beings are constantly searching for the key to something: the key to success, the key to happiness, or, in many cases, just the keys to the car! Within music, there are also keys and key signatures,… Continue Reading
Nearly every aspect of life, including human beings ourselves, have natural tendencies towards certain things; a propensity to do something or be something or to act in a certain fashion. Dogs have a tendency to bark at strangers, for example,… Continue Reading