Tone Color

While end-of-the-year schedules have had an effect on our Music Club, we continue to truck right along. We've enjoyed some discussion of melody and harmony but, considering our school year is hastily coming to its final weeks, we've jumped around quite a bit. We are currently enjoying a focus on the topic of Tone Color.

Some of our Music Club members in consistent attendance are singers themselves, so I like to look at artists that directly use their voices as an instrument.

Let us look at an amazing musician who literally embodies music. Take note of his use of dynamics and tone colors. Learn to appreciate the timbre that he brings forth vocally and calls out of the orchestra.
Also, he is hilarious.
Enjoy! 
(The first half of the performance in particular deals specifically with the topic of viewing your voice as an instrument. The last half allows the different sections of the orchestra to shine in the classic musical ensemble from West Side Story.)



This ability to embody music gives an individual the unique capacity to see music in a fascinating and all encompassing way. When you understand music fundamentally, you see it beyond the sheet music and the theories. Of course, without understanding scales and key signatures, note types and time signatures, you will be sorely lacking in your ability to communicate and translate music. But I cannot over-exaggerate the importance of seeing music beyond its most basic forms of explanation and notation. In addition to appreciating the science and notation of music, we have to see the unique history of music.

At this stage, in examining the element of Tone Color, we will unravel another side to the power of music as it applies to the context of its place in history.
We will look at different instruments, along with their orchestral groupings. While doing so, we'll examine the message communicated by the instrument in regards to the intent of the composer and time period. This outline will give us a context for the musical expression at hand while simultaneously allowing us to grasp the unique tone color of each instrument.

In context of our elemental overview of music:
Rhythm is the how of music.
Melody is the what of music.
Harmony is the why of music. (Relationships/ Community)
and 
TONE COLOR is the WHO of music. (Individuality/ Storytelling)

Here are some of the videos we have already begun to examine:
Tone Color Playlist    





To prepare for upcoming sessions, you are welcome to preview an overview of the influence of the Psalms in the history of Western music:  In The Key Of: "Setting the Psalms"