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111Module 4 MusicPart Two: Teaching ResourcesModule 4 MusicSection 2: Background information for Module 41. What is music?MusicMusic is a natural intuitive phenomenon operating in the three worlds of time, pitch, energy, and under the three distinct and interrelated organization structures of rhythm, harmony, and melody. Since the music phenomenon is natural and intuitive, humans can also virtually perform and hear music in their minds, without even learning or understanding it. Traditionally, one of the major difficulties in defining music has been to use the word to try to describe all activities and things related to music and/or sound. For example, scores only become music through performance(s), or when (recorded) performances are replayed. While music is a natural intuitive phenomenon, composing, improvising and performing it are art forms. Also, listening to it can be a source of entertainment, while learning and understanding it are disciplines. For analogy, walking is an activity that uses the natural and intuitive phenomenon of gravity, but walking is not gravity. Using the term gravity to represent all things related to gravity does not help define the term. The same is true for music. See Definitions of music and the What is music? section located below.2. What is a musician?A musician is a person who plays or composes music. Musicians can be classified by their role in production, including instrument and genre: A singer (also called a vocalist) uses his or her voice as an instrument (rarely considered a musician unless he/she composes music). An instrumentalist plays a musical instrument. Composers and songwriters make up music and write it down. A conductor coordinates a musical ensemble. Musicians may also dance or produce choreography. The concept of the musician and the status of the musician in society is culture-specific. Think, for instance, about your own concepts relating to the heavy metalist, the folk musician, the DJ, the sarangi player, the female drummer, and so on. See also: performer. Musicians may also be distinguished as amateur or professional. Professional musicians may work freelance, contract with a studio or label, or may be employed by an institution such as a church or business such as a bar. Songs may be produced by some animals, including birds. Although many would surely debate whether birds are musicians, their ability to produce variations on the characteristic song of their species is a subject deserving more research (though relating less to music and more to animal communication). The freestyle chatter of even common birds, although lacking the complexity of methods employed by human beings, must be regarded as having some relation to the origins of music. Human beings did not begin producing music by banging away on a keyboard, nor are they the only creatures which respond to (or produce) rhythm and melody.3. Chinese MusicMusic of China appears to date back to the dawn of Chinese civilization, and documents and artifacts provide evidence of a well-developed musical culture as early as the Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC - 256 BC). According to Mencius, a ruler had asked Mencius whether it was moral if he preferred pop songs to the classics. The answer was that the only thing matters being whether or not he loved his subjects. The Imperial Music Bureau, first established in the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC), was greatly expanded under the Emperor Han Wu Di (140-87 BC) and charged with supervising court music and military music and determining what folk music would be officially recognized. In subsequent dynasties, the development of Chinese music was strongly influenced by foreign music, especially that of Central Asia.4. What is emotion?“emotion” is a term commonly and loosely used to denote individual, subjective feelings which dictate moods. In psychology, emotion is considered a response to stimuli that involves characteristic physiological changessuch as increase in pulse rate, rise in body temperature, greater or less activity of certain glands, change in rate of breathingand tends in itself to motivate the individual toward further activity. Early psychological studies of emotion tried to determine whether a certain emotion arose before the action, simultaneously with it, or as a response to automatic physiological processes. In the 1960s, the Schachter-Singer theory pointed out that cognitive processes, not just physiological reactions, played a significant role in determining emotions. Robert Plutchik developed (1980) a theory showing eight primary human emotions: joy, acceptance, fear, submission, sadness, disgust, anger, and anticipation, and argued that all human emotions can be derived from these. Psychologists Sylvan Tomkins (1963) and Paul Ekman (1982) have contended that basic emotions can be quantified because all humans employ the same facial muscles when expressing a particular emotion. Studies done by Ekman suggest that muscular feedback from a facial expression characteristic of a certain emotion results in the experience of that emotion. Since emotions are abstract and subjective, however, they remain difficult to quantify: some theories point out that non-Western cultural groups experience emotions quite distinct from those generally seen as basic in the West.111
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