Listening to music and describing sound

Music is a tricky thing to talk about.

First of all, it’s everywhere and feels like it can be anything. The idea of “music” is so broad, that it is hard to consider as a whole or as a useful category. But we’ll try.

Second, music can be intimidating. Some people get training in music, whether through learning an instrument, performing with a school ensemble, or in more informal ways, like singing often with others who know a tradition well. When someone says, “All I can play is the radio,” it reflects the doubts that arise from a culture of specialization where we assume that we cannot participate in something unless we’re really good at it. But that’s not what music is, or at least, it’s not what it has to be. Singing poorly can bring us joy or laughter. It can bring people together in some cases or, in others, our music can split us apart. Listening can bring solace or memories of grief. Participating and can mean so many different things.

Another type of intimidation comes from the vocabulary. It’s common to assume that we need to know musical jargon to be able to say something of value about what we hear. But people are experienced connoisseurs of music thanks to our lifetimes of listening. We have thoughts and ideas about what we listen to, even when we don’t have the words to articulate them.

In this module, we will try and alleviate some of these things and make it a little bit easier to talk about music.

The readings for this module are two sets of short essays in the World Music Textbook. The first is in four parts and discusses rhythm and how music builds and uses our expectations. The second is in two parts and does the same for pitch and melody. The listening for this section is embedded within the reading as links and examples.

As you prepare, know that there are six short essays here, so plan ahead and get started sooner rather than later. These essays introduce a number of concepts and terms that you will use in an assignment later in the module, where you will discuss a piece of music of your choosing.

Required reading

This section uses Chris Witulski's "Rhythm and Expectation" to explore some of the features that we often hear and experience when listening to sound. It is in four parts, all accessible through the same link:

1. Part 1: Expectation and repetition
2. Part 2: Cycles of time
3. Part 3: Feeling the beat(s)
4. Part 4: Consistent inconsistencies from Morocco

With a basic groundwork of rhythmic concepts in hand, we move into thinking about what we can say about music. For this section, you will choose among a handful of readings where authors consider how music is working by describing different musical characteristics. In some cases, they introduce and focus on ideas related to pitch, in others, the focus is on rhythm. In each situation, someone is using this vocabulary to share ideas that would otherwise be difficult to grasp.

Choose two of the following readings for this section.

1. In How does “Hamilton the non stop, hip-hop Broadway sensation tap rap’s master rhymes to blur musical lines?", Joel Eastwood and Erik Hinton of the Wall Street Journal use data visualization techniques to explore how Lin Manuel Miranda’s compositional style makes use of internal rhymes and relates to earlier hip hop artists.
2. In "Visualizing hip-hop melodies", Ethan Hein uses an audio analysis of some famous hip hop examples to push back against the idea that rap has no melody.
3. In "Are men singing higher in pop music", Matt Daniels of The Pudding consider how pitch relates to the sound of pop music over time.

Assignment: Making and analyzing music

This discussion has two parts, each of which gives you the chance to use the terms and ideas that you learned in the first section.

Part 1: Musical analysis

You are going to choose a song from any genre or context and analyze it in terms of the musical elements that we have covered so far. Beyond the concepts that relate to rhythm and pitch, you can also discuss the instruments used, how repetition works in form (do some melodies come back?), and the sound or feel of the music more broadly.

The guidelines for choosing a song are fairly straightforward.

1. First, it must be appropriate for the class, and I suggest you avoid those that are exceptionally vulgar or contain offensive content. You will be posting a link, so any videos should be similarly appropriate for the class. This does not mean that you cannot have a tune that swears, but crossing the line of what I deem appropriate for this context can result in a penalty. (Yes, that is vague and subjective. Plan accordingly!)
2. Second, you will want to choose something that gives you things to discuss in your analysis. If you find this assignment difficult, it may be because you have chosen a tricky song. There is always rhythm, pitch, texture, and so on, but in some instances the elements can be more complex and nuanced than in others. Choose your song with this in mind.
3. Third, it must be accessible to your classmates through a link so that everyone can hear what you are discussing. This can be through YouTube, SoundCloud, or some similar service, but cannot be something that is behind a pay wall.

Once you have chosen your song, write a short (300 word) essay describing it musically. Be sure to include material from the reading where appropriate. Make specific connections to demonstrate your work and understanding of the assigned articles.

I challenge you to try and describe what you hear in whatever way you can. If the reading does not touch on an element (in the case of instrumentation, form, lyrics, etc.), then don’t be afraid to drop the jargon and use your own words to reflect how the music works, to you.

For your comments on each others’ posts, listen to the examples and read over the discussion. What suggestions or additions do you have for the analysis? What do you think of the song? If you knew it before, did the analysis change the way you felt about it? Did anything surprise you through this assignment?

Part 2: Making Music

For this part, you will create some music, share it, and describe your choices. You can use any system to create music however you want. There are many options that range from game-like ways to play with a few ideas to fully-fledged professional systems. I’ll link to some accessible and easy-to-use tools below. Your description of the decision making process is the main focus of this assignment, so don’t feel like you need to spend hours making something professional.

In your post, you will:

1. Share your creation in some way. You can upload the file using the “Media Upload” or “Attachment” buttons or you can link to it. A link may be to an audio file in a cloud service like Office365, Dropbox, or Google Drive or it may be a link to whatever the tool is that you used. Just check the link to make sure it works from a second browser!
2. Describe your final product in some detail using terms and ideas from the reading. Try using the vocabulary, even if you think you might get it “wrong.” How would you describe any melodies, harmonies, or textures that you created? What about rhythms or grooves? Remember to use specifics from the course material and connect it to specific moments in your piece of music.
3. Describe the thought process that went into making some of your decisions. Were you exploring a new tool and playing with sounds? Did you write words or melodies ahead of time or try to recreate something that was in your head? Give some detail and point to specific moments so that we can hear what you are writing about.

Some potential tools

I’ll keep a list here with some links and short descriptions. It’s not in any order and I’d be interested to hear about similar projects that you think should be added!

• Blob Opera is a machine learning project where you drag blobs to sing different notes using different vowels. The system creates harmonies automatically, as you go.
• GarageBand is preinstalled on all Apple devices. You can record to it, but even just using the built in loops is pretty fun and easy. Look for a tutorial online for your specific version since some are a bit different.
• NodeBeat costs a little money, but it works really well and is a fun way to waste some time. It’s available on Apple and Android devices.
• Figure is a high-quality—but simple to phone app. It sounds fantastic and really flexible for how clever the interface is.
• IncrediBox lets you layer different musical ideas on top of each other, so you’re playing more with texture than other things. It’s another one that you can fall into for a while to waste some time. It’s a fun take on pop a cappella styles.

Take some time exploring a few of these before making your choice!

An important note

Remember to connect your thoughts for both parts to the readings in specific ways: what relates, what caught your attention? Why was it relevant in the analysis and creation of music? Without clear references to the readings, you won’t be able to get full credit! Review the discussion grading rubrics for details.