(From blog prompt 5)

For this exercise, I chose “A chantar m’er” by Countess of Dia. About a month and a half ago, I listened to the recording on repeat for about 30 minutes, as the recording is quite short. During the first 10 minutes or so, I found it quite difficult to recognize which part of the recording I was listening to, as the piece is texturally and dynamically uniform from when the solo voice enters to the end. However, upon further listening, I began to notice more complexities in the solo voice part. For example, I noticed that the high point in the vocal line (a C during the line “Qu’a-tres-si’m-sui”) is quite prominent, and I began to appreciate the legato singing style with lines such as “no vol-ri”. Near the end of the 30 minutes, I attempted to pay closer attention to the vielle to see if I would notice any sort of recurring theme. While doing this, I realized that the piece has no discernable time signature or recurring melodies, which is something that is quite unique to renaissance era music.

Today (December 9th), I repeated the same exercise with the piece “Voiles” for solo piano by Claude Debussy. The first aspect of this piece I noticed was the dreamy tone, complimented by a slow tempo and light, fluttery texture. The piece rises and falls in energy until a dynamic peak about halfway through, where a showering of glissandos begins and continues until the piece dies away, ending even quieter than it began. During my third time listening to this piece, I realized the tempo was very inconsistent, gradually speeding and slowing throughout the piece. The harmonies presented are also very dissonant, contributing even further to the mystical and fantastical sound of the piece. Around the fourth or fifth round of the track, I was beginning to dose off, not because the piece was uninteresting, but because it acted as some sort of eerie lullaby. Similar to the previous piece, “Voiles” is through-composed, meaning it has no repeated sections. This mimics the properties of a dream in the sense that it slowly changes throughout, there are no discernible sections, and it ends gradually with no closure. Repeated listenings of this piece blend together in a way, as it becomes difficult to tell where the piece ends and begins due to its graceful movement and similarities throughout.