Music During the Baroque Era
Ever wondered when music became stylized and dramatic?
Stylistic Advancements in Music of the Baroque Era
Baroque music; ornate, dramatic, powerful. A time of innovation. A shift towards tonality and keys and making music more interesting and varied. Most performers were skilled improvisers and could provide an even greater sense of intrigue. There were developments in melody and accompaniment parts became popular. Concert arrangements had a group of strings that sat separately from the rest of the orchestra which consisted of brass and woodwind instruments. Musical notation and composition also changed with advances in methods of writing. Music became polyphonic and complex. Chord progressions and other musical techniques. A popular technique and arrangement was to have multiple independent melody parts playing over top of each other. Baroque style went through several periods with distinct sounds and multiple composers. One of the most notable composers were Handel and Bach whose pieces are still studied and performed to this day.
Honors Component
Equal temperament tonality had an immense impact on Baroque music. The concept of equal temperament tuning is to divide the the octaves into twelve semitones. This made for several different combinations of theses tones to be molded into keys. This allows certain instruments to play between several keys without hesitation or flaw. This allowed for smoother transitions in notes as well as an easier transition between actual composition and improvisation. Equal temperament tonality allows for music to take on many different sounds. This added to the intrigue and experimental nature of Baroque music. Composers no longer had to limit pieces by tone and key but could instead use keys as they pleased, resulting in the new influx of tonal jumps in music that arose during the Baroque period. Equal temperament tonality allows for a more unified sound especially when changing between keys. This opens up a world of possibilities in terms of composition. It can also help to unify sounds between two instruments. This is helpful since the increasing size of orchestras during the Baroque period made it hard to ensure that every instrument was tuned properly and was playing in the right key. This new system also changed how some instruments were made. In order to be compatible with other instruments using this method of tonality, some string instruments had to be modified to be able to produce sounds that would fit with other instruments. These new, more pleasing note combinations in combination with compatibility and unified nature of arrangements added to the variations that existed in Baroque sound. Pieces ranged from lighthearted and whimsical to more intense and serious. It was dramatic and grandiose and the development of the equal temperament tonality allowed for the features of these pieces to be accentuated. This grandeur was the epitome of the Baroque period.