A Comparison of a Good and Bad Music
Music has a profound influence in society, and there no doubt that its architecture –tone, pitch, rhythm, and melody –has been carefully crafted to achieve its intended purpose. Moreover, individuals, concerts, and religious ceremonies have maximized the medium of music and its dynamics to produce magical qualities for inspiring, healing, and entertaining society. Fundamentally, music is the control of sound and manipulation of its tone pitch, tempo, melody, and rhythm would determine the quality of music as in the case of the two music pieces I have considered in this essay.
Indeed, there is no easy way to pinpoint exactly what makes a good piece of music enjoyable. To give a good music piece the regard that it merits, I picked a relatively short piece, the Prologue from the Prophetiae Sibyllarum, by Orlando di Lasso, for evaluation. In particular, this piece appears to overlook plenty of rules, for example, general tonality. Tonality is simply a constitution of the seven pitches of the common scale (Dannenberg, 2010). Orlando di Lasso’s works were rather pre-tonal that I find interesting because of the equal dominant and subdominant root progression typical of premodern music (Di Lasso, 2012).
Moreover, the piece is lace with concordant harmonies and rhythm making it desirable to listen; the harmonic rhythm in this music transitions smoothly before moving on to the next one (Olcayto, 2015). For instance, the pattern in this piece is fairly steady, changing chords at averagely every six beats. Harmony and a single dominant melody have been deployed in this piece (Di Lasso, 2012). Typically, Orlando di Lasso’s voice carries the melody, and concurrently with each melody note. As the music plays, it manifests some level of unexpectedness in it; that is, it has notes that the listener does not expect as it nears near the end. In other words, one does not expect change; since one will only expect the same tune over and over again, so when something does change, it grabs audiences’ attention. Although it is difficult to explain this change, an attentive listener can pit out this to the first 20 seconds of the Orlando di Lassos prologue. However, even in overlooking these guidelines, the piece presents a wonderful test to the audience, in any case, sound delightful to less experienced listeners of music. Yet, the piece isn’t only a scatter of rule-breaking deceives as it bodes well. The last rhythm is brilliantly fulfilling( Di Lasso, 2012). At the end of the music, when he sings the same line only higher, the accompanying instruments progress simultaneously. It’s the same song, same sound, same words, but the music, including her voice, changes to a higher key. Also, melodic range, dynamics, tempo, and rhythmic intensity progress gradually from the first ten seconds to climax, making this piece of music outstand (Di Lasso, 2012).
On the contrary, “Ade! Ich Muss Nun Gehen”, by Friedrich Nietzsche, doesn’t make a list of a good musical piece. It is worth noting that harmony plays an important role in the determination of melody when accompanied by matching rhythm (Olcayto, 2015). A good musical harmony happens any time two or more differently pitched notes are played at the same time (Dannenberg, 2010). However, this is missing as the Friedrich Nietzsches piece progresses. The harmony and rhythm in this musical piece monotonous in the sense that the same combination of notes is repetitive, resulting in the boring melody (Olcayto, 2015)
Secondly, Nietzsche’s piece composition lacks a smooth progression between its successive notes. When rapid transitions are manifested in musical pieces, the listener can bare resonate with each note. Therefore, this tune piece is a whole lot to basic. I find it not all that much triggering the audience attracted to it (Olcayto, 2015). Furthermore, there is likewise something interesting about Nietzsche’s piece, that is, the pounding, trudging plummeting bass line at around 11 seconds, an indication haphazardly-handled dissonances and random fragments of melody. They shout at 40 seconds bodes well musically, however, appears to be constrained. Another notable feature in this piece is the musical texture (Dannenberg, 2010)e. The texture is an important combination of melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic progression, which appeal to the listener (Olcayto, 2015). This way, it makes the impression that short, repeated patterns of few pitches fail to attract the emotional connection of the listener. In the absence of an emotional connection, I believe the musical piece tends to be flat and boring. Emotional connection in a musical piece makes a positive experience as the listener is entertained.
Conclusively, I have attempted to think of good and bad music based on the style employed and what it is intended to achieve. A combination of stylistic devices encompassing tonal variation, rhythm, harmony, and texture in music has a purpose, and as such, any musical piece that deviates from the intended goal is fails to qualify as good music. Importantly, good music will, as much as possible, strive to adhere to the goal. Therefore Di Lasso’s piece meets the requirements of satisfying music.
References
Friedrich Nietzsche (2015).Ade! Ich Muss Nun Gehen. 2015. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fE3tmmITxA
Di Lasso (2012). Prophetiae Sibyllarum. .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpxeOBs0T1k
Olcayto, T. (2015). `A New Theory of Harmonic Motion and Its Application to Pre-tonal and Tonal Repertoire.` Masters, Istanbul Technical University; Istanbul. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4882.3840
Dannenberg, R. B. (2010). Style in music. In structure of style (pp. 45-57). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
(Dannenberg, 2010)