Meaning in Music and Musical Identity

LS1 Presentation

Lewis Rosengarten

Links:

• RealPlayer (at RealPlayer page, scroll to bottom right for free player; required to listen to files below)
• National Anthems of the world: NATIONAL ANTHEMS Music of a nation?
• Star Trek Voyager Space music, perfect 5ths. Theme (at page, scroll down)
• John Lahr, Theatre scholar who observes that "to be human is not to know one's self...the 'I' is a fiction."
• Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Russian baritone who seeks "link of intimacy with everyone in the audience."
• Dr. Andrew Fabian, X-ray astronomer who has uncovered "the lowest note in the universe."
• Alex Ross, Music critic in Rock 101, who describes a "descending chromatic bass [as] a chilly staircase of semitones."

Other Listening selections (requires RealPlayer):

• Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001, A Space Odyssey) by Richard Strauss, 1896
  -Demonstrates shifting meaning; this music was originally written after work of Nietzsche, not for space travel.
• Take the A Train by Billy Strayhorn, performed by Clifford Brown, 1955
  -Demonstrates "musical onomatopoeia."
• Frankenstein by Grachan Moncur, 1963
  -Demonstrates that intended meaning is diffcult to understand.
• You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You) by The Notorious B.I.G., 1997
  -Demonstrates that even with accepted popular meaning, significant meaning can be missed.
• Mongolian love lament (ca. 13th century) performed by Namjil Norovbanzad, 1988
  -Demonstrates that rising figures tend to express yearning of some kind; FORM.
• When I Am Laid in the Earth, from Dido and Aeneas, perfomed by Ann Murray, 1983, written by Henry Purcell, 1689
  -Demonstrates that repeating descending bass lines tend to reflect lament; FORM.
• Use Ta Be My Girl by The O'Jays, 1978
  -Demonstrates music that is "me."