Research Paper on Music: The Timeless Expression of Human Culture

Introduction

Music is one human activity that is common to all human beings irrespective of space and time. All people have some musical expressions and abilities embedded in their culture. Historically, music has transcended across all eras and human cultures, changing and evolving together with people, thus becoming one of the oldest manifestations of people's culture. Due to the close relationship between people and music, their histories are intertwined. As a result, little is known about ancient people across the world acquired musical ability and why music has become part of human species (Strohm, 2018). Even in prehistory, humans developed sound ability by imitating the phenomena of nature. Music theories suggest that early music among humans might have involved singing during prayers for successful hunting and gathering. The skins from gathered animals were used to make drums.

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What is Western Music?

The term 'Western' means social structures and traditions whose origin can be traced to Europe. These traditions include modern cultures in different parts of the world, influenced by European immigrants. Western music, therefore, is an organized sound and instrumentation created and produced in Europe and other societies that were established by European immigrants. Such societies include the United States and Australia (Strohm, 2018). Music genres such as rock and roll, jazz, classical music, and country-western music are examples of western music.

The History of Western Music

The origin of Western music is mostly rooted in Roman and Greek antiquity, although music existed a long time before these civilizations. In ancient Greece, music played a critical role in people's lives (Fenlon, & Wistreich, 2018). Notable scholars in ancient Greeks wrote extensively about music. For example, philosophers wrote about the power of music, playwrights used in music in their comedies and tragedies, while mathematicians explored the mathematical principles behind the music sounds. The Romans and Greeks used several instruments in music (Burkholder et al., 2019). The Greeks invented musical notations such as Lydian that was based on specific nodes, as well as the orderly arrangement of musical tones and their notes (Wang, 2017). These innovations allowed music to strive and would have continued in a different direction at the later stage of music. The growth and development of western music have a long history that span six significant eras: the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and modern era.

Six Major Eras of Music

Medieval period music (400-1400)

The genre of music during the period were predominantly the liturgical (sacred) music used church and on-religious rituals with the instrumental pieces developing between 500 A.D and 1500 A.D (Fenlon, & Wistreich, 2018). Apart from sacred, secular music strive as well. In the earlier medieval period, sacred music is mostly monophonic Gregorian chant. Polyphonic genres, however, developed at a later time between the 13th and 14th centuries under the influence of Ars nova music style (Burkholder et al., 2019).

The earliest known innovations of music from monophonic plainchant were the creation of heterophonic. Besides polyphony, the motet was another sophisticated music genre that developed during the period. The motet was an evolution from the plainchant medieval clausula genre that become popular medieval polyphony (Wang, 2017). The earliest motets were predominantly sacred; however, during the 13th century, it expanded to include secular topics such as romance.

Piped musical instruments were popular tools that accompanied most music during the medieval period. Some of these tools are still in use today, though, in different forms. These instruments include flutes, the recorder, gemshorn, pan flute. In the medieval period, the flute was made of wood made as end-blown or side-blown instruments. The pan flute originated from the Hellenic society and was quite popular (Wang, 2017). Gemshorn, on the other hand, was a type of ocarina that was similar to the recorder but with finger holes on its front (Fenlon, & Wistreich, 2018). All these piped instruments were made of wood with different lengths to produce varied pitches. Apart from the piped musical tools, plucked string instruments such as psaltery, lute, gittern, and mandore were also used. The zither and dulcimers that were initially plucked; however, in the 14th century, they became stuck due to the arrival of technologies that made it possible to use metal strings (Burkholder et al., 2019). The Byzantine Empire bowed Lyra became the first bowed string instrument to be recorded in European history. Other devices used during the era include the Urghun, shilyani, and Salandj, which were types of organs, lyre or harp, and bagpipe, respectively. Another bowed instrument included a hardy-gurdy, a kind of violin that used a rosined wooded wheel attached to a string (Selth, 2016). Other famous devices were those with sound boxes such as haw harp, while early types of trombone, fiddle, and organs also existed.

The earliest music during the period lacked the notational system. The orally transmitted tunes were mainly monophonic. The available form of notation only served as a memory aid for singers who were conversant with the melody of the song. (Xu et al., 2018) When Rome attempted to centralize most of its religious tradition, there was a need to pass the chant ideas to believers in different regions.

Consequently, signs called neumes above the chant texts were introduced to guide the singers. Examples of neumes were acutus '/' which showed the rise of voice, and gravis '\' indicating the lowering (Burkholder et al., 2019). Other symbols, such as punctum and virga, developed later on.

In terms of rhythm, the period was characterized by several dramatic changes in both its notation and conception. In the early period, there were not techniques for notating rhythm; however, the first written rhythmic system appeared in the 13th century using a serried of modes (Fenlon & Wistreich, 2018). Modes were different was in with braves, and longs can be organized, with each mode establishing a rhythmic pattern in beats that are repeated frequently.

Renaissance Period Music (1400-1600)

The music of this period covered music developed between 1400 and 1600. Most of the music was dominated by the church and rebirth music. During the period, music a critical aspect of religious, courtly, and religious life. The fruitful exchange of information and ideas in Europe, together with the political-economic and spiritual occurrence between 1400 and 1600, fostered significant changes in methods of distributing music, styles of composing, development of new instruments of music, and new genres of music (Thomas, 2020). The most critical music development during the period was polyphonic songs that were sued by churches in their masses, and motets songs were used in both court and church chapels. However, by the 16th century, the use of writing of music had broadened to include Protestant churches, music printing firms, and wealthy amateurs who were all sources of revenue for composers.

In the early 15th century, the music industry was dominated by North European and English composers (Selth, 2016). The Burgundian court was particularly influential since it attracted musicians and composers from different parts of Europe. Notable composers such as Guillaume Du Day (1397-1474) played critical roles in the development of music (Wang, 2017). Guillaume music included masses and motets for chapel and church services, with most of his musical structure based on Gregorian chant. His interaction with French poetry enabled him to compose sweet melodic lyricism.

By around 1500, the European music industry was dominated by Franco-Flemish composers, such as Josquin des Prez who was the most prominent at his time (Selth, 2016). Josquin and many other leading composers of his time traveled across Europe, working for patrons in Ferrara, Paris, Aix-en-Provence, and Conde-Sur-L'Escaut (Wang, 2017). Such travel enabled the exchange of musical ideas between Low countries, Italy, and France leading to the development of a genre that was considered an international European style.

In the early 16th century, western music experienced several momentous changes (Selth, 2016). For example, Ottaviano Petrucci, a Venetian printer, published Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A, which was the first collection of polyphonic songs in 1501 (Thomas, 2020). His success led to increased printing of music across Europe, particularly in Germany, France, and England, among other countries. Before 1501, all music was either learned by ear or copied by hand, with wealthy courts, religious establishment, and household having exclusive ownership of books (Xu et al., 2018). After Petrucci music publications, many people were able to own music books and learn to read them.

At the same time, technological development in musical instruments led to the invention of viola da gamba, a bowed string fretted instrument. Amateur musicians experimented with the use of the viol, harpsichord, lute, organs, and recorder (Selth, 2016). The recorder and viola da gamba were often played together in ensembles or consorts with sets or families playing them. Different sizes were used to perform different lines of music (Wang, 2017). The music publications by Petrucci gave instruments players in Europe a notated music, thus replacing the initial improvised performance by professional instrumentalists. The period also saw the development of instrumental music such as variations, canzona, contrapuntal dance, fantasia, and ricercare as independent genres (Wang, 2017).

Between 1520 and 1600, composers across Europe used polyphonic language development by Josquin's generation to explore various musical expressions across French chanson, the Spanish villancico, German tenorlieder, Italian madrigal, and the English songs and also in many sacred pieces of music (Strohm, 2018). The period of Reformation and the resulting Counter-Reformation had a direct impact on the sacred polyphony in these nations.

The 16th-century humanist scholars explored ancient Greek writing on music, especially on the close relationship between poetry and music and how music can alter the emotion of a listener (Selth, 2016). With the inspiration from such classic works, composers in the Renaissance fitted music and words together in a more dramatic style, as evident in the development of Claudio Monteverdi's operatic works and Italian madrigal. The adaption of music style where musicians sing alongside stringed instruments was common during the Renaissance and is evident in artworks such as Venus and the Lute Plater by Titian's and Musicians by Caravaggio (Selth, 2016).

Baroque Period Music (1600-1750)

Baroque music is a western music style that was composed between 1600 and 1750 (Xu et al., 2018). The word 'Baroque' is used by historians to describe a wide range of music composed in Europe during the period. The origin of the term is a Portuguese word barroco, with means a misshapen pearl, which was a negative description of ornate and highly ornamented music that was popular during the period (Xu et al., 2018).

The Baroque music period saw the development of tonality in music. During the period, music performers and composers used sophisticated music ornamentation, innovated new techniques for playing instrumental, and made changes to the notation of music. Music during the period expanded the instrumental performance's range, size, and complexity and also led to the development of oratorio, sonata, opera, concerto, a...