Claude Debussy died on the 25th of March, 1918. H e was one of the men who pioneered the Impressionistic movement within music. His work was known as symbolism, as he often focused on a subject while he composed.
In simple terms, he painted a picture within one's mind, through music. And he was very successful with this.
In his life he created many works, and if you want to take a look, here is a link to Wikipedia for a list of his works. There are waaay too many to write a quick list.
Debussy composed 141 pieces all together, he composed these in his fifty five years of life. He died of rectal cancer, fun fact- he was one of the earliest of colonoscopies ever performed.
Debussy's music is, (mostly), calming. It is perfect to sit back and close your eyes and imagine what he is trying to paint with the colours of the notes within the music.
Debussy was a talented man, I hope you all enjoy his music as much as I do.
Clair De Lune is French for 'Moonlight'. Debussy's song, Clair De Lune is inspired by the moonlight. A lot of impressionistic music was about looking at something and imagining what it would sound like. The song itself is very beautiful, elegant but somehow still blurred. I advise you to listen and read at the same time.
The song is in Db major and in 9/8 timing. This time signature is an unusual time signature and isn't used very often in music. The first dynamic mark that we see is pianissimo, and that means very quiet. The first note we hear is in the bass, which is actually treble because it makes it easier to read, but for clarification, I will call it bass to differentiate. It contrasts the high notes, but still sounds good. This is called parallelism within music. It was a tool that many impressionist composers used. We have a marking in the first bar that means 'muted'. Debussy wanted the beginning of the song to be quiet so it progresses in bar fifteen to more. This makes it sound like it louder and like the song is coming together in a way. In the sixth bar the second treble is turned back into a bass.
Debussy liked to use trebles in the bass and vice versa, because it made it easier to read, other than the super high notes in bass. This was a little confusing, well it confused me, but once I reminded myself that it was for an actual reason and not because Debussy just felt like putting this here because it looks cool, I got the hang of reading it and it wasn't much of an issue.
Most of the notes are being played with an accent, this means to play them harder so they come out louder and more prominent. There are also some accidentals being played in the first couple bars.
In bar eight things start to get a little more interesting and difficult to read. There are more notes that swing into each other. The accents are still present from bar eight. The next few notes are quavers, they are half a beat, they have been used here so they sound a little quicker and more can be fitted into one bar. In bar nine the bass turns into a treble again and stays this way for a few more bars.
Overall, I think this song is very beautiful, I also think that Debussy was a fantastic composer and I am happy I chose him to study. He was a very talented man and I enjoy his work very much.
I hope that anyone who reads these posts learned something.
Good afternoon!
Today I am going to do a other quick analysis of one of Claude Debussy's compositions, Valse Romantique.
Valse Romantique is in the key signature of Ab major, just by the key signature we can see that this song will sound happy or 'nicer' because it is in a major key. Remember: major = Happy and Minor = Sad!
Valse Romantique means the Romantic Waltz. The first tempo marking that is given on the score is 'Tempo Di Valse Moderato' which means Waltz time moderate.
The bass starts with the melody while the treble is silent for the first five bars. The tempo is in three/four which is a common beat. The bass starts with triplets and we see and accidental note in between the forth and fifth note. The bass plays the same notes for eight bars, but in the first six we have accents on top of them. This is telling us that we need to press harder on this note to make it sound a little more sudden.
In bar seven the treble takes over the melody and plays quavers that ascend. The live that appears under them and over the notes in the next bar mean that we play them so they 'run' into each other and don't sound separated. This is a common impressionistic theme as before this period in time, we get the stiff and regal sounding piano that I have mentioned in my first post.
The song sound really jagged as the bass begins the melody at the beginning. As the treble takes over the melody the song then moves into a rhythmic stability for two bars as the treble starts. Then in bar seven as the notes ascend, as I mentioned earlier, which gives a blurry feel because the music isn't totally stabilised. The bass clef takes the same notes until bar eight . This gives as a small melody in the background that compliments the notes being played in the treble. The bass then comes in a lot deeper as the notes in the treble start to differentiate from what they have been playing before, in bars five, six and seven.
The notes in bars nine, ten and eleven, start to make the music more interesting by being carried into one another. With the crescendo underneath the notes the music gets louder as the bass carries the lower notes. The swing-y looking lines in bar twelve tell us that the notes in treble and bass are supposed to sound somewhat together and not to work seperatley.
Okay, as I wrote in my first blog post, I am going to show you all a bit of Claude Debussy's work.
I also wrote about Voiles, Debussy's piece about sails. Since I have done work in class on this particular piece, I figured I'd start somewhere where I knew what I was talking about.
So:
I'm going to do some short analysis of a couple bars in the score of Voiles, and show you guys what I'm going on about.
Okay, so in the first nine bars it is pretty darn evident that this composition isn't exactly like any other composition that I have come across. Many scores that I have studied, have been in class so they are usually quite defined and stabilized.
Debussy uses one crescendo and three decrescendos in the first four bars, making the starting impression that lasts throughout the song. It makes the music become louder and then very, very quiet again. Debussy uses the dynamic markings of p and pp, which mean piano and pianissimo. Piano means soft and pianissimo means very soft. He used these markings to make the piece super quiet.
In the sixth bar we can see a random bass clef in the treble. At first I was really thrown off by this as I hadn't seen in any scores I have looked at. I was really confused as to if this was a mistake or if it was on purpose. After talking to my music teacher about it, I understood reasoning why the bass clef is placed here. Having the bass clef in the treble helps make it much easier to read. The lines above the notes in bars are signifying that they are supposed to 'swing' into each other. The way I say it is to 'swing' but the quick explanation is that the lines instruct the musician to play them some what together and not ridged and to not play the notes one-by- one.
From the tenth bar we can see these round half-circle lines. These are indicating to us that these certain notes are to be resinated, in other words, to echo. Also in the tenth bar we see the treble re-appear! Every thing is okay again! In the bass we get these heavy, low notes being played quite loudly. The long line under the notes tells us that Debussy wants them to be played and echoed into each other. In bar eleven the treble is resting and the bass is carrying the melody. we see a large de crescendo which makes the piece barely audible. The dots under the notes are accents, telling us to play them loudly and rigidly.
The treble comes in to the bass in the fifteenth bar. This is so the low notes are easier to read and play. The bass returns for a brief bar, playing just four notes and then the treble takes back over.
Okay, well that's it for now, I hope some of you learned something. I will post another post shortly, analysing another one of Debussy's pieces, Valse Romantique.
Rightio! Welcome all young musicians, who are also taking music, and who have been assigned the 'Music Blog' assignment. I don't really enjoy the Wordpress site, so I've decided to use this domain as a place to start my music blog.
The composer I have chosen to study is Claude Debussy. Debussy was a French composer, he enjoyed impressionism.
You may have heard impressionism in art class once or twice, and this is sort of the same type of thing, at least that's what I identify it as.
Impressionism in music is when you imagine something like sails, for example, and imagine what it would sound like. then you go off and write your little composition that sounds like sails.
The way I've interpreted it is something like Van Gough's work. The way things are in his paintings aren't how they actually how they are in real life.
So the impressionistic music that Debussy composes isn't the literal sounds that the sails make, but what they would sound like if they had a melody. The music is the way Debussy imagines it.
This was new and different in his time, because the music available in this time period was all stable and very to the point. Think of Beethoven and Mozart, they are the grrovy dudes who came up with those melodies that get stuck in your head all the time for no reason, (or is that just me?). Their music is very defined and stays at the same tempo and dynamic markings for most of the composition. Here's a quick example, bet you guys all know this song ! This is 'Eine kleine Nachtmusik' in G major, K.525.
Debussy does the opposite, he brings in many dynamic markings, crescendo and decrescendo.
With impressionism in Debussy's work, in many of his compositions the dynamic marks bring the music loud and soft again, giving the music 'blurred' edges and not really defining the notes. He was a key composer who changed the way future musicians composed, I suppose you can say he helped pioneer the Impressionist evolution of music.
Here's another quick video, this is Voiles, (meaning Sails in English), by Claude Debussy. Notice the looseness of the melody.
Well, that's all for now muso's. I shall blog more in the next coming days, so stay tuned if you want to see some score analysis!
Goodnight all. :)
