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Sound,
Music and Expressionism
Sound and music are parts of our everyday sensory experience. Just as we have
eyes for the detection of light and color, we're also equipped with ears for the
detection of sound. We seldom take the time to ponder the characteristics and
behaviors of sound and the mechanisms by which sounds are produced, propagated,
and detected. The basis for an understanding of sound, music and hearing is the
physics of waves. Sound is a wave which is created by vibrating objects (musical
instruments) and propagated through a medium from one location to another. When
a trumpet plays it sends sound waves that can change the mood in a room full of
people.
While
sound or music produces an unseen wave that affects people in the room. It also
can empower us to move or dance. Music causes a reacting within us to move, sing,
laugh, cry or to create. This can be experience by simply listening. So how does
jazz and abstract art fall in to place? Jazz musically is an improvisational art
form. The musicians have the flexibility to converse using songs, solos and the
feel of the overall mood or ambiance of the groove being played. Therefore, they're
creating new original music in every instant it's played.
Expressionism
in terms of art and using jazz, is the method of creating art that represents
a mood and tone that speaks about subjects, ideas, and emotions. Jazz was born
out of blues music. Times were very tough in the prime age of blues. It's different
to play or listen to the blues. But having the blues was a whole other thing.
Blues music was there to make you feel better about being down and out. It's a
free form way of playing and of expression. It also opened the door to ragtime
and then came JAZZ.
Jazz
like all kinds music has it's different types of expression, it all depends on
the artist's emotion or message. Abstract painting is a method of arranging paint
in a matter that is almost like conducting music. You feel the mood or groove
of your overall theme, subject, idea and the core emotional drive. It in return
allows you to create from within. The tone or mood of a valentino painting can
range on many levels. Look at how much paint is used, study the textured landscapes
of paint. Focus on where the paint blends. Most of all listen to music and see
the emotional relationship. Jazz has had it's very abstract stage. Because it
has some much flexibility, it opened the door for all other new musical art forms.
Which in return allowed musicians to explore the many depths of jazz in a new
abstract or expressionistic art form.
Please
enjoy these works of art and feel free to keep an eye on this section.
It's
only just begun
~
Steven Valentino
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Jazz
At its inception at the beginning of the 20th century, jazz was an American idiom
developed from ragtime, blues and popular music of its day, propelled by strongly
syncopated rhythms, polyphonic ensemble playing, and, to varying degrees, improvisational
solo and section work. Its debt to blues included intentional distortions of pitch,
especially in the flatting or slurring of notes, and smearing of instrumental
timbres; in its earliest schools, jazz was emphatically dance-oriented. Its subsequent
genesis has spawned increasingly varied and disparate sub-genres and styles, spreading
regionally from Southern centers to generate distinct schools and dialects in
St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago, New York and beyond. Key styles include, but
are not limited to, traditional (or Dixieland) jazz, swing, bebop, cool jazz,
free jazz and fusion; recent years have seen renaissances for older styles and
new fusions alike, from the "New Traditionalists" of the '80s to the acid jazz
and hip-bop of the '90s, stirring frequent debate even as they reinvent and extend
the jazz influence across new generations.
Bop/Bebop
Genre of modern jazz that evolved in the mid-1940s. Involved extensive improvisation
and severely revamped chord structures, unusually accented rhythmic phrasing,
and frenzied solos. Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were among the first and
best-known bop players. Improvisation Playing or singing in a way that departs
from the written structure of a song by changing the melody, harmony, rhythm,
etc.; or simply creating music spontaneously without any original foundation.
Blues A popular music form that originated with African Americans, usually based
on a simple 12-bar musical pattern. Blues songs often have a melancholy tone and
deal with the hardship and sadness of life and love.
Swing
As a musical technique, the use of syncopation in a way that's virtually too random
or subtle to be notated or even described. Swing involves a departure from the
written score by maintaining the underlying beat, but playing the melody between
and around the beat in a freer fashion than is written. More commonly, swing refers
to what we now call "big band" jazz of the 1930sÑmusic performed by groups which
generally featured several of each instrument, improvising in some cases, and
playing to a steady beat that was good for dancing.
Fusion
A term for musical cross-pollination; usually refers to a period in the 1970s
when jazz artists incorporated rock elements in their work (and rock artists used
elements of jazz in theirs.) John McLaughlin is considered a pioneer of jazz/rock
fusion.
Syncopation
In music, the deliberate placement of accented rhythmic or melodic notes away
from the regular beat in a measure. Jazz has almost always involved syncopation,
but most Western popular music contains at least some syncopated passages.
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