A Difference Of Worlds: Classical Or Pop/Rock
Rhonda Wilson, Blake McGee, Byron Ledbetter
MUSI 1306 Group Paper
Beth May
October 21, 2007
A Difference of Worlds: Classical or Pop/Rock
You can’t talk about music without discussing either the melody, rhythm or maybe even the texture. You may not be familiar with these technical terms, but when you say ‘I like that beat’ or ‘I can’t get that tune out of my head’, you’re talking about rhythm and melody respectively. We’re going to discuss each of these components as they exist in different musical genres including their differences and similarities. The first selection we chose was “Shimmy the Peacock” by Ihre Kinder, a German rock and roll band in the late 1960’s that was known for their political songs as well as their progressive German rock music (ProgArchives.com). Our second selection is Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op 13. This piece was composed in 1798 and is comprised of three movements as we chosen the second movement, “Pathetique,” which was performed by Michael Houstoun, to discuss. Now that the music has been introduced, lets first look at the melody.
The melody of “Shimmy the Peacock” primarily focuses on the guitar and is accompanied by the drums and keys. Just by listening to the song-with its heavy strings and percussion- the melody, staying true to the genre of rock and roll is based on the blues scale. This song does have disjunct melody which by definition, have notes with frequent leaps or skips between them. As you sing or hum along to the song, you can hear that the notes begin to rise, following the form of an arch, as opposed to remaining constant. Although the range of notes isn’t as outrageous as an operatic piece, they do fluctuate enough to make you work a little harder in order to sing or hum the song. Focusing on the vocals of the melody, “Shimmy” is both syllabic and melismatic. You can easily identify this as syllabic during the initial twenty seconds of the song. Each single note...
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