At the Edge and Coffee Nerves - Essay Example

? “At the Edge” and “Coffee Nerves Two Essays About Music Focus on one piece from each concert using rhythm, harmony, melody, and timbre. “At the Edge” Critique (500 words) At the Edge will be critiqued according to its: rhythm; harmony; melody; and timbre. The rhythm of At the Edge was very uneven and unusual. The beginning seemed very uneven and choppy. There was really no rhyme or reason to the rhythm. It began slowly, then crescendoed a bit, and, all in all, the rhythm was so uneven that I couldn’t predict what was going to happen next. I can appreciate the experimental nature of the music, but I couldn’t help but think to myself… “What was the composer thinking when he/she wrote this?!?” I thought maybe the composer was on drugs. It was just not a compelling piece at all—even though I understood the fact that the composer was trying to do something new and different, almost like for the shock value of it. The harmony of At the Edge was minimally fair at best. I wouldn’t almost even go so far as to say that At the Edge was even minimally fair, but rather, very poor. The harmony was bad because there was no harmony. The dueling instruments—the piano or organ (whichever it was), the flute, and the tuba—they just did not harmonize at all. I don’t think that was the point to harmonize anyway, because the way the piece was composed, I believe it was composed to frighten the audience. Man, was I scared. I thought the Phantom of the Opera was going to come out of the shadows with a cloak and dagger. Let’s just say, needless to say, that the harmony really left a lot to be desired. The melody was horrible. The tuba and the flute were dueling for the spot of worst instrumental music ever. The flute, I believe, was playing a melody counter to the tuba’s harmony. Don’t ask me why the composer did this, because I have absolutely no idea. Not even halfway through the performance, I put earplugs in intermittently because my ears literally hurt so bad because the sound was that irascible. I took them out occasionally to hear the progression, but there was not much progression in terms of getting better with this piece. It was ominous at the beginning and it only got worse. Frankly I found this type of experimental piece horribly jarring, very scary, and entirely way off-base in terms of being a pleasant experience. It was exactly what you would go to a concert not to hear. I simply could not listen to the piece in its entirety because it was that bad. The timbre was tinny. The piece started out most ominously at the beginning, and I had expected that it might get lighter in tone as the music went on, but no such luck. Here, the piece At the Edge has been critiqued according to its rhythm, harmony, melody, and timbre. Unfortunately, much as I regret to say it, I did not enjoy this performance at all, although I can appreciate what the composer was trying to achieve musically. “Coffee Nerves” Critique (500 words) Coffee Nerves will be critiqued according to its: rhythm; harmony; melody; and timbre. It was a wonderful piece that exemplified everything that’s right with a good piece of music that’s composed in a pleasant manner. The rhythm of Coffee Nerves was very upbeat and intriguing. It started off right from the get-go with a defined rhythm and kept me on the edge of my seat until the very end. The harmony in Coffee Nerves was very pleasant. My only critique of the entire piece is that it seemed quite repetitive in its composition. This repetition of sorts happened a variety of times—although thankfully there were a few little interludes here and there, not to mention a couple of “surprise elements” to the music, thus making it not entirely predictable as a piece. The harmony was very lovely, in fact, even if a bit repetitious at points, but it was one that bore repeating due to its very beautiful sounds. The piano was played very fast, and the main flautist had to play (I believe) even faster in order to get the notes out on time. The melody nicely of the second flute nicely complimented the first flute, rarely acting as an antagonistic duo along with the piano, although the first flute had a little bit of an experimental bent with some of the melody—but nowhere near as much experimentation as had been the case with the flute in At the Edge. Perhaps it makes me somewhat of a traditionalist that I am not fond of highly experimental pieces, but in essence, I guess the bottom line is that I do not enjoy pieces that have a lot of haunting or jarring melodies that don’t agree with the harmony. The richness of the timbre of both flutes, as well as the piano, nicely drew out the minutiae of the details in the piece of Coffee Nerves. The timbre also demonstrated how much time the musicians had put into perfecting the pitch and tone of the piece—which was clearly evident—whereas with At the Edge, it had sounded like it was the first time ever they were performing the piece together. All things told, Coffee Nerves was, in my opinion, far better than At the Edge by leaps and bounds. I would rather have coffee nerves anytime rather than being at the edge (of psychosis, that is!) in hearing a musical piece. So, to be perfectly frank, I was disappointed by At the Edge, and very pleased with the piece Coffee Nerves. It was not only a more enjoyable piece to listen to, but I got the feeling that there was significantly much more hard work that went into coordinating the Coffee Nerves piece, what with the intricacy of the notes—which reminded me a tad of the piece The Bumblebee. Coffee Nerves was critiqued according to its: rhythm; harmony; melody; and timbre. Overall, this was a very pleasant piece to listen to and I enjoyed it very much. Read More