Rounding your Musical Knowledge

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Now that you know how easy it can be playing the piano by knowing some music basics, it is time to round out your knowledge with a few other elements that you will find at the time to play your piece of music.

Like fabrics music has texture, but in other context. In music, textures are made of blocks of chords that shape it with tune and harmony. Unison is the primal musical texture characterized by a no-choral accompaniment, but different instruments play the same notes over and over again.

The homophonic texture, on the other hand, is played as a block of chords that sound at the same time, but which parts are not the same so it is commonly called chordal music texture.

As your skills playing the piano improve, you may challenge with music of polyphonic texture, known as contrapuntal music. Mastering this texture allows you to play different voices or sounds than weaving in and out of each creative imitation voice in a concert. This means when the tune is played by an instrument it is replicated by another. The Brandenburg Concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach are an example of this texture.

If you are devoted to your studies of both piano and music, you will be taught to play "fugue" and “a capella", a couple of special types of polyphonic texture. Fugues are tunes played on a solo voice or instrument that begins in unison texture then, following a piece of music, other voices and instruments play the same tune, but usually in another pitch making a musical ensemble.

A capella, however, is a texture that can be only performed by voices with no instrumental accompaniment, being the only musical texture that can be unison, homophonic, or polyphonic.

Textures for songs which are sang playing your piano as the only instrument are called melody and accompaniment, although, this name applies to any other instrument that provides a soloist or ensemble player with the music for singing.

Finally, call-and-response is the musical texture characterized by a solo playing and then a group of instruments or voices reply by playing or singing another tune.