Today was a very interesting class and has made me look forward to the upcoming opera because I enjoyed listening to classical music and learning more about it. Just by listening to the different pieces carefully, and seeing the different patterns, I learned a little bit about sheet music today and how the different elements of music come into play in the composition of a piece.

When professor Kahan first handed out the sheet music for the different pieces of music, I was completely lost. All of the notes on the pages were a mystery to me, it was like someone gave me a novel written in Greek and told me to take a glance at it. Then when professor Kahan told us to look at the sheet while she played “Praeludium I” I came to understand the sheet a little better, which was very interesting. I saw that there was three different notes being played repeatedly, with one note being the dominant one. Then, when she played “Praeludium II,” I saw the same notes on the page and the same pattern, however the notes were put much closer together and there were more notes on the page. When professor Kahan began to play this piece, it became very clear that having these changes in the piece created an entirely different feeling to the music. Although both pieces had the same harmony and melody, they had different rhythms and textures, which completely affected the emotions given off by the pieces. The first piece had a very calming tune, while the second was described very well as a “Malevolent machine.”

On a very personal note, today’s seminar class was nice change for me. Instead of focusing on analyzing paintings like we have been, we analyzed music. I have always found classical music to be more interesting than art. I think this is because I have always had a strong interest in learning how to play an instrument.