Listening Journal Assignment Instructions Overview Since this is a music course,

Listening Journal Assignment Instructions
Overview
Since this is a music course, you must dedicate time to listening! To really understand and explore the songs, you must listen multiple times to each song. Active listening takes time and cannot be rushed. Please find a quiet place without distractions and listen to the music actively. Oftentimes, we let music become the background for other activities; this is passive listening. In this course, you will need to focus closely on the music. A guide to active listening is posted on in Course Content, which will help you to focus on appropriate details needed to have success in the course (and to grow as a music lover!). Each piece/song of music will demand anywhere from 10-30 minutes of active listening, depending on the genre (e.g., art music pieces may take longer than pop songs).
Scroll to page 3 (after the prompts) for a guide to completing these assignments.
Instructions
You will create ‘playlists’ comprising relevant and appropriate YouTube links to pieces/songs, which you will then analyze using the appropriate technical terminology learned in the “Introduction” chapter of the textbook.
Each analysis entry must be at least 100 words (i.e., each LJ will be a minimum of 500 words total)
Other than the first LJ, do not discuss your personal experiences or feelings about the entry/entries.
Use technical language to discuss the elements of each entry as the book does in the ‘Gateways’ (sound, harmony, melody, rhythm, form).
Your analytical skills will improve with each assignment, but you must put in effort to earn points. For example, writing that the melody “varies and sometimes takes on a random nature” will earn zero points, as it is ambiguous and does not display any growth from the readings or listenings. Writing that the melody “is repetitive and features yodeling” is also not very good and would be the bare minimum effort that could earn points, but it will result in at least some credit because it provides two basic observations.
Do not discuss your personal relationship or history with the song, or how (you think) the music makes people feel, or how it relates to scripture.
You will lose points if you use filler in an effort to meet minimum word count. For example, writing, “this song’s melody is . . .” or “the harmony of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67, is . . .” will result in a loss of points. I know you’re discussing the melody because you’ve written “Melody:,” and I already know the work you’re discussing. Just write your observations and what you’ve learned or read about the music.
All links and citations should conform to current Turabian style.
Number of citations: Minimum of one (1) YouTube link per entry (i.e., minimum of five
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per LJ), in current Turabian format—not just a URL or hyperlink.
Acceptable sources: YouTube.com for song links. Additional sources are not required, but must be reputable if included (e.g., scholarly articles, books, or websites that include appropriate attribution from verifiable sources, which excludes most .org sites and blogs).
Omitting a link will result in a zero for that entry, regardless of analysis quality.
Submit each LJ as a Microsoft Word document with the title of the assignment and your name as it appears on Blackboard.
Note: Your assignment will be checked for originality via the SafeAssign plagiarism tool.
Listening Journal: Five Songs of You
An expansion on Music in Your Life (i.e., do not repeat or copy and paste your Discussion: Music in Your Life material). This is a chance for you to share what you love about five songs/pieces of music that you believe represent your musical interests and tastes. These songs/pieces may be from any style or genre and must include a short analysis, as shown in the textbook. If a song/piece you choose exceeds ten minutes in length, highlight and analyze what you perceive as the entry’s most important aspects and include timestamps.
Listening Journal: Five Songs of Small-scale Societies
You will choose five different examples of songs/pieces of music noted in this module’s readings, then you will find and analyze an example of each genre or category not discussed in the book. For example, in Gateway 7, Machaut’s “Gloria,” from Messe de Notre Dame, is a setting of a polyphonic mass about which you will read and listen. An acceptable LJ entry for this LJ would be to find an example of a polyphonic mass from the same period that is not discussed in the book, then write a short analysis (as shown in the textbook).
Listening Journal: Five Songs of the Common Practice Period
You will choose five different examples of songs/pieces of music covered since the last LJ, then you will find and analyze an example of each genre or category not discussed in the book. For example, Gateway 27, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67, is a symphony about which you will read and listen. An acceptable LJ entry would be to find an example of a symphony from the same period (early Romantic) that is not discussed in the book, then write a short analysis (as shown in the textbook).
Listening Journal: Five songs of the Twentieth Century
You will choose five different examples of songs/pieces of music covered since the last LJ, then you will find and analyze an example of each genre or category not discussed in the book. For example, Gateway 49, Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower” is a rock song about which you will read and listen. An acceptable LJ entry would be to find an example of a rock song from the late-1960s that is not discussed in the book, then write a short analysis (as shown in the textbook).
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Guide
Using the Listening Journal: Five Songs of the Common Practice Period prompt and readings as an example, here is one way you can tackle your assignments.
Scenario, Part 1; Location: Sitting at my desk
I’m reading the textbook and listening to the examples from last week and/or this week (Chapters 4-8), and I respond emotionally to Gateway 25: Piano Sonata in C Minor No. 8, Op. 13 (Pathétique), Mvt. I, by Ludwig van Beethoven. I’m not exactly sure why, but I love the way it sounds and know this is one of the types of pieces I want to analyze. So, I open up my preferred internet search engine and type something like “Classical Period piano pieces,” because that’s what the book says this is, which results in a plethora of examples on all kinds of web pages. One result that I enjoy is Brahms Capriccio in F#- op.76 no.1.* So, I get ready to analyze one of the movements just like the book does for the Beethoven piece, then I realize, “wait a second, I’m not a musician. I don’t know how to analyze complex music like the book does! Now what do I do??”
*Brahms was a Romantic Era composer, but you may choose works from similar adjacent periods.
Scenario, Part 2; Location: Still sitting at my desk
I open up a search engine in another window/tab and type “Brahms Capriccio in F#- op.76 no.1 analysis,” and a few reputable sources appear. There aren’t a ton of reliable sources, but I see a journal article from the Society for Music Theory, I see a dissertation from a major university, and I see a journal article titled, “Brahms’s Capriccio in C Major, Op. 76, No. 8: Ambiguity, Conflict, Musical Meaning, and Performance.” Along with the other two, I think this looks like a great resource, but I can only see the first page. “Just a second,” I say to myself, “I remember the syllabus and Writing Tips document directing me to the university library’s website for research.” I open another browser tab/window and paste the article’s title into the search bar on the front of the page and BAM! There it is. “Hold the phone,” I declare, “if the professor said to use the library for my research, and I found the exact thing I was looking for on my first try, will I find more high-quality, academic sources on the library’s website?” So, I type, “Brahms Capriccio in F#- op.76 no.1 analysis” into the library’s search engine and BUH-BAM, usable results appear.
—The above scenario was my exact process. I Googled “Classical Period piano pieces,” but didn’t love the top result, and the second result wasn’t super helpful because it was all sorts of pieces when I was looking for piano pieces only. I went to the third result and right at the top was this Brahms piece, so finding the piece was quite quick. If I had chosen a piece from the first result, it would’ve been even quicker, but I wanted to find something less popular because that’s what you might do. I have never studied this Brahms piece, so I had no idea what I’d find, yet I easily located numerous sources to help me discuss the works as a non-musician would.
Below is an excellent example one of a student submission after, I assume, they loved the sound of Haydn’s and Mozart’s symphonies. This is far from a perfect analysis, but the student was not a music major, just a beginner guitarist who worked hard and accomplished very, very good work. If you analyzed this piece, you may have thought some aspects were worth examining more while
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others demanded less, but I expect to see the effort they exerted to understand and explain the music.
The fourth song that I chose to listen to is “Mozart Symphony 41 in C Major, Movement IV,” written in 1788. The category that this particular song falls into is classical period symphonies.
Timbre
The song’s timbre initially starts with the strings leading the melody until the introduction of another instrument five seconds in, and then finally the entire orchestra at seven seconds. It is reminiscent of a motet. This particular movement in this specific piece of music elicits a wide variety of tones. Some of these tones include the violins’ strings as they play their part, the flute, and the robust orchestra sound. While the violins and the full orchestra are the primary players within the music, if one listens closely, they will hear the flute’s sound for very brief intervals, such as at three minutes and twenty-three seconds in the music. For a second, the flute comes out and then returns to the background very quickly.
Texture
The song’s texture is contrapuntal, with momentary interludes of monophonic texture when the strings work alone in the piece. This allows the song’s melody to put on full display by the strings, and their working together with the other instruments within their contrapuntal lines. This demonstrates that Mozart was a master genius, knowing the right moments to showcase the melody with the strings and then unite them again with the full orchestra. It is reminiscent of moments of clarity within a sea of madness.
Rhythm
The rhythm of the song is duple meter, also known as a regular occurring two-beat meter, which was typical of classical period music.
Melody
The melody is fascinating because of the use of two primary ideas or concepts. These two concepts are the shift from the strings playing solo, then the transition onto the full orchestra working together in harmony, then a return to the strings. It reminds me of a motet. Motets use the idea of imitative polyphony. Imitative polyphony is when one voice leads the melody, and the rest voices follow one after the other until everyone is present. An example of this shift is demonstrated five seconds into the video. The song starts with the strings; then another instrument is added until the whole orchestra comes together.
Harmony
The harmony of the song is in the key of C Major.
Form
The form of this particular movement is in sonata form, which is typical of classical period symphonies.
Performance Techniques
The symphonies of Mozart, especially Symphony 41, employ a unique performance technique called dynamics. Throughout the song, one will notice the sudden change from loud to soft tones and vice versa, which means the music decrescendos and quickly crescendos. Furthermore, another performance technique that Mozart uses in this piece is a transition of the tempo. For instance, at 2:15 seconds into the music, the tempo starts getting slower and eventually changes to
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the strings.