This post offers a broad view of humanity's musical customs. It explores the evidence for prehistoric music making, and it explains how music got passed down through the ages. The world's musical traditions are also explored, as are the earliest efforts to notate music.
In this blog post Jump explores the hostility many musicians feel towards reading music. He describes how music students shirk the responsibility of reading, and he dispels the myth that learning how to read is antithetical to the spirit of music. Jump’s main point here is that becoming a literate musician is wise.
This blog post analyzes the motet, which was a style of polyphonic vocal music that evolved during the European Middle Ages. The motet featured simultaneous, overlapping vocal lines of varying text. They were compositionally dense and musically sophisticated. Progenitors of the motet like Philippe de Vitry, Franco of Cologne, and Guillaume de Mauchaut, are covered. Picture credit: Desmond, Karen. "Ars Musicae." Ars Musicae.and
Chasing the Chords 