Textures and Acoustic Environment

Textures and Acoustic Environment

 

 

(Track 1)

Pitt State Marching Band - Gangnam Style

 

1. Are the stands having any impact on the music/sound? If so, what?

Yes, the stands are having an impact on the music/sound because if there weren't any stands in the stadium the sound coming from the brass instruments wouldn't hit the stands and then bounce back and people wouldn't hear properly what is being played.

There are some reverb/echo on this track and that is because of the place where they are performing which is big and outdoor, the sound can travels everywhere in this atmosphere but because of the stands in both sides of the stadium the sound waves is bouncing off the walls to the other side which is making the slight hearing of reverb/echo.

2. Why do marching bands have so many instruments, and loud ones!

The reason why Marching bands have so many loud instruments is because the places where they usually perform are open air places, stadiums, big environments and for people to hear clearly what they are playing they need instruments where you don't need to use an amp to make it louder, for example, there's no electric guitar in a marching bands because the only way for you to hear an electric guitar in open place is if you use the amp to plug it in, so that's why they have loud instruments, so that's why they have a lot of loud instruments because if not then people would struggle to hear what is being played.

3. Is this music suitable for the acoustic environment? Why?

Yes, the music is suitable for the acoustic environment and the reason why is because in marching bands there aren't only 5 people or less, there are loads of people and they need big places to fit them all together.

The music they are playing is 'Gangnam Style' and it is up lifting which means that people when listen to it they feel like singing along, happy, want to dance and is good for marching bands to play in stadium because the energy and the mood of the people who are watching are happy and energetic and will support them.

 

 

(Track 2)

Phoenix - Lisztomania (Live at 89.3 The Current)

 

4. Can you hear any reverberation. Do you think that comes from the room or might there be some digital reverb? Give reasons for your answer.

Yes, there is reverberation,it is not digital it is naturally coming from the room and what is causing the reverb is the vocals because the studio where they are has a lot of room, the distance from one wall to another is long and also the ceiling and because of that the sound of the vocals is going around the room and bounces off the surfaces around and you can hear it when the guitars stop playing for a bit and only the piano and vocals are playing.

5. Do you think the guitars are recorded through a mic or down a line?

The guitar is being recorded through a mic, but in my opinion because there are not much things going on and there are no drums or bass on this track and they don't necessarily need to use the mics to catch the sound of the acoustic guitar because the guitar itself has your natural acoustic sound witch comes from the sound hole of it.

6. Describe the texture of the music. Does the acoustic environment suit the music?

The acoustic environment suits the music because the music itself doesn't have much things going on and the only instruments are acoustic guitar, keyboard and vocals and because the environment where they are is quite well for them and don't have that much thing in it the sound coming from the instruments and the vocals are clean, maybe because of the quality of the mics they are using and because the acoustic guitar and keyboard are not too loud or to quite, they are all with the right volume where you can hear all clearly and what they are doing.

 

 

(Track 3)

Allegri: Miserere - Choir of St Paul's Cathedral - Jeremy Budd, Soprano

Describe the texture of the music (it is not the same throughout so mention where it changes.

Is the music suitable for the space / is the space suitable for the music?

The are a lot of things going on in this track , the beginning of it is homophonic because there are loads of people singing the same lines but in different pitch and the different harmonies, then the texture of this piece changes because in the middle of it there are only two people singing it which is called polyphonic and then it goes back to all the people singing together.

Because the place where they are is a church which is a place where there are loads of spaces between the walls and the ceiling to the floor there will be reverberation.

The harmony of the choirs singing are very rich and very together. the way they sing is almost very slurred and in unison among each other voices and i think the slurring gives the whole song life and full of contrast. There are a lot of dynamics that go on in this song, during the middle of the piece there is a slight change of singing where the male voices sing in unison while the female vocals come in slowly (crescendo in - quiet to loud)

Roles & Contracts (Live Performance - Tour Manager & Booking Agent)

Tour Manager

What do they do?

In the music industry the tour manager is the person who is going to take care of the band or artist, be their mom/dad and take care of everything for them during their tour, be in charge of all the details during the tour. For example, they will have to sort out the transports and hotels, booking crew, make sure the artist is at the venue on time for their performance and spend a lot of time on the phone.

Job Description:

 

Duties

The responsibilities of the tour managers when they are on tour with their artist/band are:

• Deals with promoters, managers, ticket agents
• Look after the band/artist 24 hours when they're on tour.
• Confirm shows
• Make sure the artist is on that for their concerts.
• Sort out the transport for when the band/artist arrives at the venue and for when they leave.
• Prepare band and crew schedule sheets for the next day.

Skills

The skills you will needed to be a tour manager are:

• Speaking skills: That's the most important skill you will need, because you will be contacting and talking to people all the time.
• Listening skills
• Be able to work with other people because in the music industry you can work by yourself there will always be someone you will have to work with and sometimes is someone you don't like, and if you can't then music is not for you.
• Business skills.
• If working abroad, then it's good if you can speak more than just your own language.

Salary/Hours/Working Environment

The salary of a tour manager variates, if you are just starting out on the business then your salary will be around £500 per week, if you are an well-established tour manager you will receive around £1,000 per week and if you are successful then your salary will be £2,000 per week.

Tour manager works 24 hours per day, because he needs to be always available for their artist/band, and also to organise and sort out things.

A tour manager doesn't have a working environment, he/she is always on the road and on the phone managing their artist band stuff.

 

Working conditions/Appearance

Tour managers will deal with long hours of work and need to travel long miles, Periods of time away from home may have an impact on your personal life but that's the tour manager and he/she needs to be physically fit and health because when they're on tour they won't stop, that's the life of an tour manager, and he/she will spend more time working and sleeping in differences hotels.

Tour managers will be in every single show of their artist/band to support them and look smart because there might be people at the venue to talk to about the artist or something.

Pros

If you are a well experienced tour manager then you will get a high salary because of your experience you had working  with other artists.

Tour managers spend most of their time away from home, because they need to take care of the band when they are on tour and because he will be travelling long miles for work but even though  it is tough, who doesn't enjoy travelling to new cities you've never been before, so for the tour manager may be fun visiting new cities all the time.

Cons

One of the disadvantages of being a tour manager is that you will be responsible for everything that happens during the tour and everyone who's part of it, which means if something during the tour or to the artist/band or the performance, the first person to be blamed will be the tour manager. Another disadvantages which was mentioned before, was the tour manager being away from their family for months because they need to travel and be with their artist all the time during their tour taking care of everything for them.

Contract
Tour managers contract are usually freelance or fixed-term contracts, but most of them are freelance (they are self-employed) and work on short-term contracs, and the contracts usually lasts the whole summer season but sometimes tour managers can work all year round.
For the tour manager be working in the summer seasons is great because that's when they just started and they will have work to do, because when the winter season comes they will have much less work to do.
During winter season, tour managers should  maintain a full-time working career such as teach English so they can make some money when they are not on tour with their artists.

 

Booking Agent

 

What do they do?

 Booking Agents are the people who connect the artist/band with their fans by setting the artists or band's date at the appropriate place where they perform which is the venues, they locate gigs for their artists. When a new band or solo artist decides it's their time to go on a tour, they will hire a booking agent to hep them with the schedule shows in the cities they will be visiting/performing.

The booking agents also works with other areas such as promoters and record labels to make sure that the artist or band they are working with are being shown to the public in the correct way so the people will know who the artist is and to listen to their work.

Job Description:

Duties

The responsibilities of the booking agent are:

• Discussing about how much the artist is going to earn from the venue.
• They'll be in the charge of organising and booking press releases.
• They look out for new talents, by going to where they usually perform to see if they're good or not.
• They try get as many bands as they can, to get larger fees and more profits.

Skills

The skills you will needed to be a booking agent are:

• Be able to work under pressure because you will have to be prepared if the gig doesn't work as planned.
• Be able to work for long hours.
• Have excellent communication skills because most of the time you will be on the phone trying to sign one contract.
• Marking abilities, because as a booking agent you will be trying to sell your artist or band.
• Your negotiation skills have to be excellent, specially when you are working with promoters and venues, because you will spend time negotiating to try to get the best deal for paying for your artist's performances.
• Be able to manage well your own imes and the time of others (Bands/Artists).

 

Salary/Hours/Working Environment

The salary of a booking agent per year is between £13,000 to £39,000 but it variates, booking agents can earn more than that, it depends on how many gigs their artist is doing and how well paid they are.

Booking agents working hours would be between 7-9 hours of work, because they spend a lot of time on the phone negotiationg something or out looking for new artist by watching bands or solo artist non stop.

Their working environment is on the office talking on the phone or scouting for new artist/bands.

 

Pros

One of the good things of being a booking agent is that because will be going around, scouting for new talents, you have the opportunity to watch & attending live gigs all the time to see how the artist are and through their music learn about them.

Booking agents don't just work with booking agents, they also work with promoters, managers, the aritsts, and with all of them the booking agent needs to have a good relationship with because all of them has the same goal which is make the artist known worldwide so people know his/her music.

 

Cons

One of the disadvantages of being a booking agent working independently is that you will be working between 7-9 hours and you won't get much money and sometimes you won't receive any more at all but as I said that is only going to happen if you are working independently.

Some people have the courage of starting from the beginning and working independently, but it's best for you if you start working in a large talent agency because the opportunities you will have working in a large talent agency people know is that working hard and focused you can get a big opportunity to start dealing with major artist. 

Listening style (Lesson 5 (Electro)

Q1: Give as clear as possible an account of all the different sounds and instruments in the first 3 minutes and 35 seconds. You probably won't know exactly how each sound is made but you should be able to make an educated guess whether something is sampled, synthesized or actually recorded in.

• The first thing you can hear you will hear in the song will be the drums which is recorded/programmed by a Drum machine.
• After the drums what comes next is the synthesized baseline and this two instruments keep playing for about a minute.
• The next thing you will hear in the track is the breakdown and there is only one instrument playing which is the drumbeat and then the synthesized baseline.
• then there's a guitar added in the song but it doesn't sound synthesized and after the guitar being added the vocals comes in.

Q2: What is this song about? How do the electronic instruments / sounds help to create the mood?

I don’t know really know what this song is about because there isn’t a specific theme for it but I know that this type of song are created to be played in clubs. As you can see, in the song the instruments are stronger than the vocals and the tempo of the song is moderately and the song has a sci-fi type of feel.

The name of this track is called ‘Blue Monday’ and because of the title of this song the first thing people will think when they start listening to it, is that the song is sad because that’s what most of the blue songs are about.

Listening style (Lesson 4 (Blues)

Q1: Describe the harmony in this song. (Try and describe the pattern even if you cannot pick the chords - eg. the first chord lasts for two beats then it changes to a chord that last for 8 bars). Is the pattern familiar at all?

The first part of the song which is the introduction lasts for 2 bars and then then they add the instruments (Guitar, bass, drums, piano. The chords being played in the song don't change much, because they just keep playing the same chords for another 12 bars and then they change to a different chords for 2 bars.

Q2: This song has "Blues" in the title. Is it a blues song?

This song is a blue rock song and there are things in this track that tells you if it is blue or not, for example:

• In the song there's a element of the 12 bar blues.
• The blue rock sound of the song is coming from the electric guitar, the drums and the bass.
• The fast tempo in the song distinguishes it to be a blue rock song.
• The song also go through the blues scale.

Listening style (Lesson 1 (Reggae)

Question 1: In the first song, describe the melody (especially saying what notes it uses - feel free to use a keyboard to help you with this).  

• The chords used in this song are I, IV and V.
• The melody of the song is what the singer is singing.
• In the song you can hear the pentatonic scale in the key of E flat.
• In the first songs the instruments play for a few seconds and then the singer comes in and sing a phrase and keep repeating it for 3 times singing a minor 3rd. 

Question 2: For each song, name the style/genre of the song and list three things (musical and/or sonic) that support your assertion.

The first song:

• The genre of it is Reggae.
• They use a rhythm on the guitar called 'Skank'. It is a off beat guitar and it plays on the beat of 2 and 4.
• The tempo of the song is slow.
• Use of the syncopated rhythm.
  

The second song:

• The genre of the second song is also Reggae but it is a different reggae called dub.
• Just like the first song, the second one uses the same chord sequence which are I, V and IV but there are some changes that make it sound different from the first song.
• Different from the first song, the second song has the instruments playing for about a minute and then the vocals come in.
• Use of the syncopated rhythm.
• Use of shifts.

Listening style (Lesson 3 (Latin)

Question 1: Give an account of the vocals in this track. Things to consider: effects, timing, style, articulation/phrasing, improvisation etc.

• She sings wide variety of notes.
• She pronounces her words differently from the original version, giving the song a more jazzy feel.
• She does a lot of  improvisation in the song such as scatting.
• She sings the song in a swayed and free way.

Question 2: Compare this track with the other version above. Does the track feel different? If so, why?

When you hear the original track which is in Portuguese you can recognise the genre of the song which is Latin because of the instruments and what they are doing, the tempo of song is slow which gives for the people who are listening to it a calm feeling, because of the way the vocalist is singing the song which is very calm, gently and quietly. Also what helps the song sound so calm are the instruments in it, because they are not that loud so what you can hear more is the vocals which is ahead of the instruments, but you can still hear what each of the instruments are doing, for example, there's a acoustic guitar and it is not playing chords it is just playing notes and the way the guitarist is playing the guitar is the same way a bassist play a bass which is just using the fingers and thumb to pluck the strings.

On the second track which is in English by 'Amy winehouse', you can see that the track doesn't sound Latin like the first one. The second version sounds more Jazzy and one of the reason for that track to sound like that is because that is Amy's style of music, so she made the song sound different and unique because of what they she sings because every word she says she improves it and make it sound different. The tempo of the second version is faster than the first one which makes the song sound jazzy and dancing.

Listening style (Lesson 2 (Funk)

Question 1: Describe the mixing and panning in this track. (Which instruments are prominent and which are in the background; which are central, which are left and which are right?) Make some suggestions about why the track has been mixed and panned in this manner. 

The instruments used in that track are:

1. Bass

1. Keyboard

1. Vocals

1. Trumpet

1. Saxophone

1. Drums

1. Horns

1. 
   

The bass is the strongest instrument in this track, it's the instrument opening the intro and it is also the main groove of this track.

As you can see while you listen to the music is that the vocals are behind the bass and the piano  is on the left and the trumpet is on the right, and about the horn and the drums they are panned to the centre.

Question 2: Is this track a funk track? What musical / sonic components of the track suggest that it is and which suggest that it is not?

When you listen to this track you will recognize the genre of it which is 'funk' and the reasons why are:

• The instruments in this track (Bass, Drums, piano, trumpet, saxophone) and these are The instruments you will find in funk songs.
• The bass being in the front and maybe being the main instrument in the song, because as you can hear in this track the bass is the main groove and that's what many funk songs have the bass doing in it.