Summary: Early musical notation was much like a road map that lacked names or places. The use of neumes gave the basic shape of the tune and a primitive notion of rhythm, but could not tell the performer what note to start on. This program shows how all of that changed around the year 1030, when the choirmaster Guido of Arezzo came up with the simple device of a thin red line: a dot directly on it would...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Pythagoras believed that music originates in nature and that natural harmonies express very distinct mathematical relationships between their notes. From Pythagoras' first scales and the advent of harmony to the standardization of all instruments to equal temperament, this program traces the evolution of the system of tuning that revolutionized Western music. Few musical cultures have escaped...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: For centuries people dreamed of being able to record and play back sound. In 1877 Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and the whole course of music was forever changed. From the jukeboxes of the 1880s to contemporary composers blending live and recorded music, this program examines the effects, both positive and negative, that resulted from the birth of the phonograph and the subsequent...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Opera is unique among musical forms in that it developed over a relatively short period of time, unlike the concerto or symphony. From the birth of opera in Florence with the Camerata to the genius of Monteverdi and beyond, this program looks at how opera grew into both a form of entertainment and a vehicle for delivering incisive social, political, and cultural messages. The operettas of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: No other instrument has been as important to the history of Western music as the piano. Since its invention in Florence three hundred years ago, the piano has become many things to many people-a bridge between the worlds of classical and popular music and the ultimate composer's companion. This program traces the ancestry of the instrument and the history of those composers who championed its...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006