[FONT=Courier]My GOD!!!!!I've got a grade 5 exam pretty soon and i don't know my periods e.g. baroque. I don't know the properties of them. Please help!

Hi! Hope this helps:
baroque- no legato pedalling as it was written for harpsichord and quite often has a lot of trills
classical- quite simple rhythms and harmonies
romantic- heavy use of legato pedalling and chromatic harmonies
modern- irregular time and often has disschords
(please excuse spelling!!)

QUOTE (hellokitty @ Jul 6 2004, 05:16 AM)

[FONT=Courier]My GOD!!!!!I've got a grade 5 exam pretty soon and i don't know my periods e.g. baroque. I don't know the properties of them. Please help!

There really is no other way to do this other than listen to baroque, classical, romantic and modern pieces.

can't believe the questions that get asked here.

what's that supposed to mean?

My teacher gave me 'History of Music' by Roy Bennett when i done my grade 5 and in it has lots of explanations of how to indentify the periods.

Aparently, according to my teacher, the only periouds you will get is:
Medieval music (which is quite rare in exams). before 1450.
Renaissance music. 1450-1600.
Baroque music. 1600-1750.
Classical music. 1750-1810.
Romanticism. 1810-1910
20th Century 'Modern' music. 1900 +.

Medieval is quite rare according to my singing teacher and is sacred. It consists of a single melodic line-monophonic (like a nokia 3410...) It is early church musi and woudl suit an organ. The music is flowing and ranges between an octave. It moves up in steps rather than jumps and there are irregular rhythms.

Renaissance Music. Renaissance means 'rebirth', a shape of music that sharpened interest in learning and culture. Musical texture of Renaissance music is very different to that of medieval. It has weaving patterns that build up layer by layer. Imitation is also used alot in this period and the music is contrapuntal, or polyphonic (like the motorola V525...).

Baroque. Baroque, in portuguese stands for Barocco, meaning and irregular shaped piece of jewellery. It was used to describe ornaments and architecture until musicians and composers used it to describe music. Bach composed during the Baroque period. It was mainly sung with opera and the acompaniment is simple. On a score, all that was written was the melody, the bass line , and patterns of chords to be played by the harpsichord or a lute. But later fugues were invented with imitating phrases weaved together.

Classical Music. This was the period of when Mozart and Beethoven was alive. Orchestras were also introduced with woodwind and brass instrments complimenting percussion and strings. But for the piano, clasical was an important time. The alberti bass (a bass line with simple broken chord patterns) was introduced along with harmonious lines. The bass would be more piano with the treble being 'cantabile' (in a singing style). Classical is not fast or slow either.

Romanticism. The romantic period consisted of pretty harmonies and excessive use of the pedal to create a loving and peaceful atmosphere. At this moment in history, the piano range was lengthened, making romanatic music have a larger range. This was the time of Chopin and Liszt and these composers were able to express their feelings and emotions, something that was not recognised in classical music.

20th Century music. Often has cringy dischords and free and irregular rhythms, and most prove a struggle to play because of these strange chords that always appear. The timbre is that of strange, exotic sounds with dynamic rythms. This was also the rise of Debussy and the impressionist composers, who had a more thoughful, or pensieve aproach. Percussion was used a lot more and these modern pieces were polyphinic, and a wide range of jazz piees were composed.

I hope this helps, it helped me! Good luck in your exam,

Kees xxx

all informatino based from 'history of music' by Roy Bennett. Cambridge University Press. Written for Aural and GSCE exams.