Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions. Composers today use a wider variety of sounds than ever before, including many that were once considered undesirable noises. Composer Edgard Varese (1883-1965) called thus the "liberation of sound...the right to make music with any and all sounds." Electronic music, for example - made with the aid of computers, synthesizers, and electronic instruments -...
Đọc tiếp
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
Composers today use a wider variety of sounds than ever before, including many that were once considered undesirable noises. Composer Edgard Varese (1883-1965) called thus the "liberation of sound...the right to make music with any and all sounds." Electronic music, for example - made with the aid of computers, synthesizers, and electronic instruments - may include sounds that in the past would not have been considered musical.
Environmental sounds, such as thunder, and electronically generated hisses and blips can be recorded, manipulated, and then incorporated into a musical composition. But composers also draw novel sounds from voices and non-electronic instruments. Singers may be asked to scream, laugh, groan, sneeze, or to sing phonetic sounds rather than words. Wind and string players may lap or scrape their instruments A brass or woodwind player may hum while playing, to produce two pitches at once; a pianist may reach inside the piano to pluck a string and then run a metal blade along it. In the music of the Western world, the greatest expansion and experimentation have involved percussion instruments, which outnumber strings and winds in many recent compositions. Traditional percussion instruments are struck with new types of beaters; and instruments that used to be couriered unconventional in Western music - tom-toms, bongos, slapsticks, maracas - are widely used.
In the search for novel sounds, increased use has been made in Western music of Microtones. Non- Western music typically divides and intervals between two pitches more finely than Western music does, thereby producing a greater number of distinct tones or micro tones, within the same interval. Composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki create sound that borders on electronic noise through tone clusters - closely spaced tones played together and heard as a mass, block, or band of sound. The directional aspect of sound has taken on new importance as well Loudspeakers or groups of instruments may be placed at opposite ends of the stage, in the balcony, or at the back and sides of the auditorium. Because standard music notation makes no provision for many of these innovations, recent music scores may contain graph like diagrams, new note shapes and symbols, and novel ways of arranging notation on the page.
According to the passage, Krzysztof Penderecki is known for which of the following practices?
A. Using tones that are clumped together
B. Combining traditional and nontraditional instruments
C. Seating musicians in unusual areas of an auditorium
D. Playing Western music for non-Westem audiences
Gongs of the Muong
Gongs are musical instruments made of brass and bronze. A set includes 12 gongs of three types with different names, sizes and tones. Chot gongs are 20-30 cm in diameter and produce a high tone. Bong gongs, which are 40-50 cm in diameter, produce middle tone. The largest are dam gongs, which are 60-90, or sometimes even 100 cm in diameter and produce a bass tone.
Gongs and sac bua songs are played by women during New Year festivals, weddings or funerals, though sometimes men and women play together. Each musician plays one gong, holding its trap and using a wooden mallet with a cloth covered tip to beat at the center of the gong.
Gongs are both valuable possessions and musical instruments of the Muong. In the past, noble Muong families used several sets of gongs at one time to celebrate important events.
A. Decide if the following statements are TRUE or FALSE.
1. A set of gongs includes 10 gongs. F
2. The largest gongs are called “bong”. F
3. Gongs are played during New Year festivals, wedding or funerals. T
4. Sometimes, both men and women play gongs together. T
B. Answer the following questions.
1. What are gongs made of?
…………Gongs are made of brass and bronze.………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
2. Which tone do chot gongs produce?
………They produce a high tone……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
3. Who used several sets of gongs at one time to celebrate important events in the past?
…………Muong families………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….