StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Concepts of Wooten and Levitin in Two Versions of Bolero - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
The essay "Concepts of Wooten and Levitin in Two Versions of Bolero" focuses on the critical analysis of the major issues and peculiarities of Wooten's and Levitin's concepts in two versions of Bolero. There are two versions of Bolero, Levitin's and Wooten’s concepts…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER96.1% of users find it useful
Concepts of Wooten and Levitin in Two Versions of Bolero
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Concepts of Wooten and Levitin in Two Versions of Bolero"

Levitin and Wooten look at music how people perceive it within a large paradigm. Bolero is a moving musical piece that was pioneered by Maurice Ravel. It would later stand out as one of the most famous musical compositions of his time. As such, it is appropriate to use this piece to analyze these musical concepts (Levitin, 78).

The music features unique musical composition with a new style of composition and dance gestures, with the musical instrumentation largely utilizing a sopranino saxophone in F. Furthermore, this form of music has been characterized as having a plain structural composition being in C major of ¾ timing. In its composition, Bolero music starts with pianissimo progressing in a crescendo and ending up with a fortissimo being played so loud. The music is anchored on a constant ostinato in the entire composition.  Wooten’s “The Music Lesson” brings out a rich collection of concepts that he has come up with over the years in his Bass camps. A combination of the ten ideas seeks to illustrate music as a language all interwoven into musical concepts. Quite distinctively, Wooten identifies these concepts as elements of music that he identifies as notes, articulation, feel the musical technique, rhythm, dynamics, tone, listening, phrasing, and space (Wooten, 98). Similarly, Levitin’s “This is your brain on music” offers insightful information regarding how humans perceive musical sounds and how the human brain processes musical sounds. In his point of view, humans have been successful in their standing due to music (Levitin, 56).

In using these concepts to analyze Bolero music, several issues come into mind. These issues are related to how music is perceived and how humans interpret it. Fundamentally, Ravel’s Bolero music takes fifteen minutes repeating each of the song themes’ two sections approximately nine times using the same key. The composition uses various orchestrations varying considerably the musical texture. Consequently, it creates a crescendo. Using Wooten’s core concepts, Bolero puts into focus a repeat pattern of AA BB four times, and AB being repeated once. All these serve to offer the composition a sort of modulation that creates a cataclysmic musical closure. In putting Levitin’s perspective, the melody used in the compositions makes the music stick in human brains because of simple rhythm use. The effects of most of the repetitive concepts of Wooten seek to make the musical patterns stick to people’s brains. Therefore, occasionally people can be able to feel the beats and sounds of particular music without physically listening to it playing (Wooten, 45-8).

Much of Andre Rieu’s renditions were based on classical music creating a new niche in music from the period ending up to the twentieth century. His approach to classical music was mostly anchored on involving the audience during musical performances so that the audience can appreciate music. However, these renditions combined the admired compositions of great classical musicians of the time with a rather informal musical performance environment that was mostly associated with pop music. His articulation of music provided a festive atmosphere for the audience where they are encouraged to participate in the performance through dance and song. Wooten would later describe this perception of music as more of a language of the learning process to understand music (Wooten, 72). The way the audience was introduced to music during Rieu’s performance is quite similar to introducing a child to language. Thus, music becomes a form of expression, where people join through dance and song to convey their heart most felt feelings to the song being performed. People learn music and it gets into their brains and when treated as a language, Wooten argues, then people can learn new things and skills.

In conclusion, it is evident that Wooten and Levitin’s concepts of dynamics, rhythm/tempo, phrasing, and tone color in Bolero are not only used in understanding music in totality, but they progressively come out clearly as concepts that can be utilized in the articulation of human’s perceptions of various musical sounds. Their work generally leads up to the generalization of musical perception as intimate build-up processes operating as a whole rather than individual components. When people hear music in terms of tonal framework, they can relate the tones within the broader framework of beats. The integration of these concepts in Bolero makes the music lively and attractive to the listeners (Wooten, 67-9). Besides, the rhythm, tone color, and even the use of dynamics in the music make it possess the ability to stick to the minds of the audience. No wonder this was one of the excellent compositions of Ravel.

Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Bolero Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/music/1462070-bolero
(Bolero Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 Words)
https://studentshare.org/music/1462070-bolero.
“Bolero Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/music/1462070-bolero.
  • Cited: 1 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Concepts of Wooten and Levitin in Two Versions of Bolero

Who Killed Palomino Molero by Mario Vargas Llosa

2The Foucauldian link between sex and epistemology suggested in Who Killed Palomino Molero indicates that these two roles are not all that different.... As the last surviving son of a widow, Palomino Molero was exempt from military service.... Indeed, Molero was not a fighter, he was a musician: He played the guitar and sang boleros to the young women in Talara, a small Peruvian town....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Condensing Boilers

The living room is the largest room in the house and also has two windows which, in the wintertime, will be a major source for heat loss in that room.... Bedroom one and bedroom two would require around the same amount of heat due to the fact that they are approximately the same size, in about the same location within the house, they have the same size windows and doorways, as well as the same number of occupants....
6 Pages (1500 words) Assignment

Development of Bolero Dance

The essay "Development of bolero Dance" critically analyzes the issues concerning the development of bolero dance.... The bolero originated in Spain in the late 18th century as ¾ dance that combined the sevillana and contradanza.... bolero refers to a genre of music of slow-tempo Latin music.... bolero by Maurice Ravel is a one-movement orchestral piece between 1875 and 1937.... Structurally, the bolero is an all mediums straightforward composition....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Physical Workload in Boiler Operations

In the essay 'Physical Workload in Boiler Operations,' the author describes boilers, which are commonly utilized in Brazil to help meet the energy demands of industries and other sectors.... Steam is utilized to manufacturing dairy-related products such as cheese, and to clean utensils and machinery....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Why the modern world is bad for your brain by Daniel J Levitin

This essay analyzes Daniel J levitin's article 'Why the modern world is bad for your brain'.... levitin argues that multitasking mania, information overload, and the accelerating pressure of expectations create unreal positive impressions on human brain but end up causing significant harm to human body.... levitin argues that email overload compounded with response-time pressure has become a serious problem and costs us time and health.... levitin draws on the research and works of several Neuroscientists and Psychologists to break the myths of multitasking and explain the physical and mental effects of the modern obsession and addiction to technology....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Organizational Systems Theory

This paper "Organizational Systems Theory" discusses an autopsy of a dead organization such as Enron as extremely valuable for leaders in any era.... Before any manager embarks on a change journey for his organization, such an autopsy would help understand the mistakes that past tycoons had committed....
12 Pages (3000 words) Case Study

Boehm Test of Basic Concepts Preschool Version

People who have prior experience in such testing would be able to administer the test after one or two practice sessions while those who are relatively less experienced would require formal training by testing supervisors.... At the end of the test, the examiner enters the scores for each response and calculates the concept score for the two concept items and the total score for the whole test.... The paper " Boehm Test of Basic concepts Preschool Version" describes the Preschool version of the Boehm Test of Basic Concept is intended to find out how well a child has understood and is able to describe things around them....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Boiler and Condensing Boiler

This report "Boiler and Condensing Boiler" discusses the concepts of boilers and condensing boilers in relation to their use, selection, and control.... Depending on the manufacturer, the specifications have to be followed during the installation as well as the use of the boiler....
10 Pages (2500 words) Report
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us