Mark Pepe’s ETEC 540 Course Site

Zoe’s Golden Record Curation Task

I connected to Zoe’s task because, being a musician, I thought it was clever of Zoe to use software to analyze the music. Using the DJ software Serato, which allows for analyzation of key and beats per minute (BPM), can give a music enthusiast access to information that a high level musician gets after years of experience and study. Key and tempo (BPM) are excellent ways making musical connections. One activity that is taught to conductors is to make a chart of pieces identifying keys, meter and tempo to help study and memorize a piece.

This is the point where I regret getting rid of my old binders from university. They sat around for 10 years, and I never thought that I would need my study charts until now! Thankfully, I still have some of my concert band scores which will do. In the chart, I would have information such as key, tempo, and texture (layers of musical instruments in a particular section of music. Below, you can see section C (at measure 50) with a forward slash at the top and a backward slash at the bottom. The slashes indicates a 4 measure phrase, and there are 5 more phrases after this with a few bars of cadence to conclude the piece. There are also colour coded note, a red FL for flutes, green ALT for alto saxophone, and blue TBN for trombone. The colours are to denote that instruments position in the texture. Red for melody, green for inner voices (harmony; notes that make music major or minor), and blue for the bass line. In chart form, this information makes the whole piece easy to “see” and make connections. This is a very short arrangement at 72 measures, but looking at a whole work, like the opera The Marriage of Figaro, looking at the key will help understand which character or piece of plot is centred. For example, Figaro’s music will always be in G major, so when that is seen in the chart it will help the interpreter make connections with before and after that scene.



Back to the assignment. What I find interesting about Zoe’s analysis is that she found that five pieces from around the world are either in the same key, or a closely related key. Closely related keys have many notes in common. In this case, the keys of D and A, they share all the same notes except A has G# where D has a G natural.

D: D E F# G A B C#
A: A B C# D E F# G#

The pieces in D are:

• India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar
• Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes.

The pieces in A are:

• Java, court gamelan, “Kinds of Flowers,” recorded by Robert Brown
• Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle
• Japan, shakuhachi, “Tsuru No Sugomori” (“Crane’s Nest,”) performed by Goro Yamaguchi.

I find it interesting that the non western pieces have the connection of being in the same key, or a closely related key. I am not sure what to make of it, or if it is just a coincidence.

One more point to look at is Zoe’s analysis regarding tempo and the feeling of the piece. We both spoke about Bach and Stravinsky. My connection with both was a steady pulse, I didn’t talk about tempo. Zoe mentioned that the Bach piece was at 70bpm and was “peaceful and hopeful,” compared to Stravinsky’s 137bpm (almost double that of Bach’s) and that it was “intense” and “represents some chaos.” Bach’s Gavotte is based on a French folk dance so the tempo is implied that it should be fun and lighthearted. Looking at the score for Rite of Spring, Stravinsky only gives a BPM, 126 for an eighth note, and no tempo marking, which would be allegro (fast, quick). That means the recording on the record is fast by 10bpm, making it feel a bit more agitated. Tempo has a big effect on musical feel for the player and for the listener.