Music

Music is an art that puts sounds together in a way that people like or find interesting. Most music includes people singing with their voices or playing musical instruments, such as the piano, guitar, or drums.
The word music comes from the Greek word Greek language μουσική (mousike), which means "(art) of the Muses".^[1] In Ancient Greece the Muses included the goddesses of music, poetry, art, and dance. Someone who makes music is called a musician.

Music is sound that has been organized by using rhythm, melody or harmony. If someone bangs saucepans while cooking, it makes noise. If a person bangs saucepans or pots in a rhythmic way, they are making a simple type of music.
Blues music is music that is played by singing, using the harmonica, or the acoustic guitar. Jazz musicians use instruments such as the trumpet and saxophone (formerly clarinet).
Music started many thousands of years ago. When early people first banged pieces of wood together and enjoyed the sound, they were discovering music. Early people also discovered that when they cut off the horns of animals they had killed and blew through them, they could make interesting sounds. People also blew into conch shells and made sounds that they liked. They probably started to sing or shout in celebration.
There are four things which music has most of the time:

• Music often has pitch. This means high and low notes. Tunes are made of notes that go up or down or stay on the same pitch.
• Music often has rhythm. Rhythm is the length of each note. Every tune has a rhythm that can be tapped. Music usually has a regular beat.
• Music often has dynamics. This means whether it is quiet or loud or somewhere in between.
• Music often has timbre. This is a French word (pronounced the French way: "TAM-br"). The "timbre" of a sound is the way that a sound is interesting. The sort of sound might be harsh, gentle, dry, warm, or something else. Timbre is what makes a clarinet sound different from an oboe, and what makes one person's voice sound different from another person.

The oldest flute ever discovered may be the so-called Divje Babe flute, found in the Slovenian cave Divje Babe I in 1995. It is not certain that the object is really a flute.^[9] The item in question is a fragment of the femur of a young cave bear, and has been dated to about 43,000 years ago. However, whether it is truly a musical instrument or simply a carnivore-chewed bone is a matter of ongoing debate.^[9]
In 2008 archaeologists discovered a bone flute in the Hohle Fels cave near Ulm, Germany The five-holed flute has a V-shaped mouthpiece and is made from a vulture wing bone. The researchers involved in the discovery officially published their findings in the journal Nature, in June 2009. The discovery is also the oldest confirmed find of any musical instrument in history.^[14] Other flutes were also found in the cave. This flute was found next to the Venus of Hohle Fels and a short distance from the oldest known human carving.^[15] When they announced their discovery, the scientists suggested that the "finds demonstrate the presence of a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe".^[16] Scientists have also suggested that the discovery of the flute may help to explain why early humans survived, while Neanderthals became extinct.

It is not known what the earliest music of the cave people was like. Some architecture, even some paintings, are thousands of years old, but old music could not survive until people learned to write it down. The only way we can guess about early music is by looking at very old paintings that show people playing musical instruments, or by finding them in archaeological digs (digging under the ground to find old things). The earliest piece of music that was ever written down and that has not been lost was discovered on a tablet written in Hurrian, a language spoken in and around northern Mesopotamia (where Iraq is today), from about 1500 BC.

Middle Ages

Another early piece of written music that has survived was a round called Sumer Is Icumen In. It was written down by a monk around the year 1250. Much of the music in the Middle Ages (roughly 450-1420) was folk music played by working people who wanted to sing or dance. When people played instruments, they were usually playing for dancers. However, most of the music that was written down was for the Catholic church. This music was written for monks to sing in church. It is called Chant (or Gregorian chant).

Renaissance

In the Renaissance (roughly 1400-1550) there was a lot of music, and many composers wrote music that has survived so that it can be performed, played or sung today. The name for this period (Renaissance) is a French word which means "rebirth". This period was called the "rebirth" because many new types of art and music were reborn during this time.
Some very beautiful music was written for use in church services (sacred music) by the Italian composer Giovanni da Palestrina (1525-1594). In Palestrina's music, many singers sing together (this is called a choir). There was also plenty of music not written for the church, such as happy dance music and romantic love songs. Popular instruments during the Renaissance included the viols (a string instrument played with a bow), lutes (a plucked stringed instrument that is a little like a guitar), and the virginal, a small, quiet keyboard instrument.

In the arts, the Baroque was a Western cultural era, which began near the turn of the 17th century in Rome. It was exemplified by drama and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music[1].[citation needed] In music, the term 'Baroque' applies to the final period of dominance of imitative counterpoint, where different voices and instruments echo each other but at different pitches, sometimes inverting the echo, and even reversing thematic material.
The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church which had decided at the time of the Council of Trent that the arts should communicate religious themes in direct and emotional involvement.[citation needed] The upper class also saw the dramatic style of Baroque architecture and art as a means of impressing visitors and expressing triumphant power and control. Baroque palaces are built around an entrance of courts, grand staircases and reception rooms of sequentially increasing opulence. In similar profusions of detail, art, music, architecture, and literature inspired each other in the Baroque cultural movement[citation needed] as artists explored what they could create from repeated and varied patterns. Some traits and aspects of Baroque paintings that differentiate this style from others are the abundant amount of details, often bright polychromy, less realistic faces of subjects, and an overall sense of awe, which was one of the goals in Baroque art.
The word baroque probably derives from the ancient Portuguese noun "barroco"[citation needed] which is a pearl that is not round but of unpredictable and elaborate shape. Hence, in informal usage, the word baroque can simply mean that something is "elaborate", with many details, without reference to the Baroque styles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

"Musical notation" means "the way music is written down". It is very useful to be able to read and write music because this is how composers (who may have lived a long time ago) can tell the person playing their music how they want their music to be played. Music is written on five parallel lines called a staff.
Notes are put on the lines and in the spaces between the lines. It can be seen from the shape whether the music goes up or down. The lengths of the notes (how long they are played for) are shown by making the note-heads black or white, and by giving them stems and flags. Reading music involves being able to tell what the note is called and where to find it on the instrument, and being able imagine the sound, as well as learning about music theory (how music works: all about scales, intervals, ornaments, form, etc.). This all helps someone to become a good musician.
It is also useful to be able to play "by ear" (when people try to play music they have only heard). Most rock musicians, blues musicians, and folk musicians play "by ear." This means that to learn a song, they listen to other people singing it, or to a recording, until they know how the tune of the song goes

By listening

People can enjoy music by listening to it. They can go to concerts to hear musicians perform. Classical music is usually performed in concert halls, but sometimes huge festivals are organized in which it is performed outside, in a field or stadium, like pop festivals. People can listen to music on CDs, Computers, iPods, television, the radio, cassette/record-players and even mobile phones.
There is so much music today, in elevators, shopping malls, and stores, that it often becomes a background sound that we do not really hear. Sometimes it is good to listen more closely to music: by trying to hear the different instruments and what types of notes the instruments are playing.

By playing or singing

People can learn to play an instrument such as the piano, the guitar, the bass, the trumpet, the drums, or the tuba. They must choose an instrument that is practical for their size. For example, a very short child cannot play a full size double bass, because the double bass is over five feet high. People should choose an instrument that they enjoy playing, because playing regularly is the only way to get better. Finally, it helps to have a good teacher.

By composing

Anyone can make up his or her own pieces of music. It is not difficult to compose simple songs or melodies (tunes). It's easier for people who can play an instrument themselves. All it takes is experimenting with the sounds that an instrument makes. Someone can make up a piece that tells a story, or just find a nice tune and think about ways it can be changed each time it is repeated. The instrument might be someone's own voice.

The term "classical music" was not used until the early 19th century. People then started talking about classical music in order to praise the great composers such as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. In the 20th century many different ways of composing were used, including music played by electronic instruments or very modern music using strange sounds (experimental or "avant garde" music), for example the music of John Cage. Some people feel that this kind of music cannot really be described as "classical music".

Instruments used

Classical music can be for instruments or for the voice. The symphony orchestra is the most common group of instruments for the playing of classical music. It has four families of instruments: the string instruments which include the violins, violas, cellos and double basses, the woodwind which includes flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons together with related instruments of different sizes, the brass instruments: trumpet, trombone, tuba and French horn, and percussion instruments which nearly always includes timpani as well as many other possible instruments which are hit or shaken. This is very different from a typical rock band which has a drummer, a guitarist, one or two singers and an electric bass and keyboard. Instruments that play classical music are not normally amplified electronically.
The same applies to the voice. Singers may be sopranos, altos, tenors or basses, depending on their vocal range. Their voices are not amplified. Opera singers, in particular, have to develop very powerful voices which will be heard over the orchestra and project right to the back of an opera house.
The instruments used in classical music developed at different times. Some of the earliest were known in Medieval music. The trombone and the triangle have hardly changed for hundreds of years, but the violin family developed from folk instruments such as fiddles and gradually replaced the viols to form the basis of the modern orchestra. This was happening by the beginning of the 17th century, which was the time when opera was invented.

In Western countries a vast amount of music was written for Christian worship in churches and cathedrals. This is called “sacred” (religious) music. All other music is “secular” music. The word “secular” means things that are not sacred. Sacred and secular music have influenced one another in many ways during the course of music history. Secular music was largely influenced by dance, and this in turn changed the style of sacred music. For example: the church music of the 16th century composer Giovanni da Palestrina has nothing to do with dance music, but both the sacred and secular music of Johann Sebastian Bach two centuries later is full of dance rhythms. At some times in music history there have been different styles of composing for sacred and for secular music. Claudio Monteverdi uses two different styles for his church and for his non-church music. When composers were experimenting with new ways of writing music they usually did this with secular music, and sacred music caught up later.

Meaning of "classic"

The word “classic” tends to mean: an art which is so good that it will always be enjoyed by future generations. It is something that has become a model for future artists. The period of Ancient Greece and Rome is known as the Classical Period because, many centuries later, people looked back to those ancient civilizations and thought they were perfect. In recent European history the 18th century was known as the Classical Period because musicians, artists, writers and philosophers were inspired by the art forms of the Classical Period of Ancient Greece and Rome. Something that is a “classic” is therefore something that will always be remembered as something great. Famous books such as the novels of Charles Dickens are called "classics". “Classical music” therefore tends to mean music that will not be forgotten soon after it is written, but is likely to be enjoyed by many future generations.

Compare to pop music and jazz

Although people sometimes think of classical music as the opposite of pop music, it can still be very popular. Like all kinds of music, classical music can be in many different moods: happy, sad, scary, peaceful, thoughtful, simple etc. Mozart wrote his serenades and divertimentos to entertain people at parties. Classical pieces of music can be quite short, but they can also be very long, like a big, musical story. A symphony by Mahler or Shostakovich can last for nearly an hour, and an opera is a whole evening’s entertainment.
Classical music is also different from jazz because true jazz is improvised. However, the differences are not always obvious. Classical music has often been inspired by jazz, and jazz by classical music. George Gershwin wrote music which is both jazz and classical. Classical music, too, can be improvised. The great composers Bach, Mozart and Beethoven often improvised long pieces of music on the organ, harpsichord or piano. Sometimes they wrote these improvisations down. They were, in effect, compositions which were composed in one go.