Examples of polyphonic music how to#

So, who are the top secular musicians? Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Sometimes you see changes from decade to decade.īut, all this secular music comes from somewhere. Sweetheart Like You by Bob DylanĪs you’ll see, secular music varies wildly from age to age. But her cool jazzy reworking of Fever became her signature piece. The swing music she had sung was no longer the kind of mainstream secular music that appealed. It made her relevant to contemporary audiences again. Lee’s rendition of Fever didn’t just reinvent the wheel. Lee dialed back the Sturm und Drang of Peterson and recontextualized the song as a piece, not about immature adolescent love but the feelings of a cool, worldly adult. Lee’s take on the song took its cue from Ray Peterson, but not as a replica or even a quote. Lee swapped the piano for finger snapping and new lyrics that gave listeners a crash course in the great loves of history. But in Peggy Lee’s hands, it became a cool jazz classic with a steady, snapping rhythm. While lots of classical music is secular, not all secular music is classical.īy the mid-twentieth century, the styles popular in secular music had shifted dramatically, and jazz conventions had a lot to do with that.įever began life as an R&B song.

Examples of polyphonic music how to#

There’s no censorship here – Figaro loves a bawdy joke – just healthy regard from Rossini for how to make the aria easier to sing. Unhelpfully, at least from Figaro’s perspective, the piece accelerates as it goes so that by the time it races towards its grand conclusion, he can only sing nonsense syllables. Rossini wrote it to showcase his lead, and while it’s supposed to be comic, the singer has to work overtime to spit out all those words and be understood by the audience. It’s demanding, it’s show-stopping, and the harmonies are sumptuous.įamously, at least one performer had to sing this aria while riding a bicycle, but even without acrobatic stunts, it’s an impressive song. It’s an excellent example of 19th-century secular music, especially the operatic. In it, Figaro rattles off this tour-de-force patter-song. Rossini wrote his share of sacred music, but he also composed many operas with secular themes. Summer Is Icummen In by the Hilliard Ensemble Here are some examples of secular music through the ages. Secular music, like its musicians, ranges wildly across time and genre. So, to understand what defines secular music beyond its irreligiosity, let’s look at some examples. It has styles and trends that go in and out of favor depending on the period.Īll of these fit our secular music definition, but they also have significantly different characteristics. Pinning down one specific secular music definition that helps give it specific characteristics is complicated by the fact that music is a lot like fashion. What made it secular was that there was no possible way you could perform this music in church. Confused? Sometimes medieval composers wrote secular music that had a religious subject. Secular Music Characteristicsīecause secular music is such an all-encompassing category, it’s hard to talk about its characteristics the same way we can talk about the musical signatures of jazz or the Romantic Era.įor instance, Medieval secular music isn’t always secular. The definition of secular music is anything irreligious. Sacred music is religious, but what is secular music? When talking about music, most musicologists make a distinction between secular and sacred music. Now is the Month of Maying by The King’s Singers.

Summer Is Icummen In by the Hilliard Ensemble.