Lesson video

Hello.

Welcome to today's lesson entitled The Voice in Western Classical Music.

My name is Mr. Norris.

Today we're gonna be exploring the various ways that the voice is being used throughout the Baroque, Classical, Romantic periods, hopefully giving you some inspiration as to how you can use it in your own composition and performing as well.

We're looking for today's lesson is I can explain the various ways that voices have been used throughout the periods of Western classical music.

Our keywords.

The first is choir or chorus.

This is a group of singers often including soprano, alto, tenor, and bass voices, and this is often abbreviated to SATB for soprano, alto, tenor, bass.

Lied.

This is a solo song most common in the romantic period, usually with piano accompaniment.

And the plural of that is a lieder, that's a German word.

Recitative.

This is a vocal style that sounds semi spoken and is often used for dialogue in opera.

Word-painting.

This is where a vocal melody reflects the meaning of the words.

For example, a descending melody on the word falls.

And finally, melisma.

This is where multiple notes are sung during one syllable of a word and would describe that as melismatic singing.

The first part of today's lesson is focused on music for solo voice.

Many key aspects of Western music such as notation, harmony, and musical conventions were developed through vocal music in the medieval and the Renaissance periods.

Those are the two periods that came before the Baroque period and lots of the groundwork for the way that composers worked after that was laid in these periods through vocal music.

These developments paved the way for the Baroque period.

Since then, the voice has been used in many different ways and it's been a central part of the western classical tradition.

So we're gonna explore some of the ways that it's being used today.

Now to start off, voices are categorized based on their pitch.

While there are many different types of voice, the four main categories are soprano, alto, tenor, and base, and those are descending from high pitch with the soprano being the highest to base, which is the lowest pitch.

Let's have a closer look at all of these now.

Soprano and alto are the two key female voices, and the soprano has a higher pitch range than the alto.

Listen to these two clips.

Can you work out which is soprano, and which is alto? Pause my video and have a listen.

Well done there if you identified that the first one was an alto, that has that slightly lower vocal range, and the second was a soprano, the slightly higher pitched voice, and there's a large overlapping range between these voices.

So many songs are suitable for both soprano, alto voices.

The difference is at the top and the bottom of their ranges.

The alto can generally sing lower notes that the soprano can't sing and the soprano can sing some high notes that the alto can't sing.

The two key male voice types are tenor and base, and tenor has a higher pitch range than the base, which has a very low pitch.

Listen to these two clips.

See if you can identify which is tenor and which is base.

Pause my video and do that now.

And well done if you identify the first as the tenor.

That's the higher pitched male voice, and the second is base.

That's the lower pitched male voice.

And the tenor has a lower range overall than the alto, which is the lower female voice, but the ranges also overlap, so there's a lot of notes that both the tenor and the alto can both sing.

Let's check your understanding.

What is the highest common male voice type? Have a quick think.

And in fact answer here is tenor.

That's the higher male voice, the bass being the lower one.

Music for solo voice has been written throughout the baroque, classical and romantic periods, and one of the most important forms of the romantic period is the lied.

The plural for this is the lieder, which means songs in German.

Lieder were written for solo voice with piano accompaniment and they were particularly popular with German and Austrian composers.

I'd like to listen to this example of lied.

Can you identify the voice type that's singing here? Pause my video and see if you can.

And while than there, if you identified that that was a tenor voice singing there, the higher male voice with the piano component and the lieder were often written as a series of songs called a song cycle.

This is like having different chapters in a book where the story developed through all of the different songs.

So there might be 10 or 15 songs in a song cycle, and they tell a story that goes throughout them all.

The singer would act as the narrator telling the story and bringing it to life through all the different songs.

Now, Franz Schubert, who we can see in that image there is a very famous composer of lied.

He was a German composer who was composing it at the end of the classical period and the start of the romantic period.

In his song cycle called Winterreise, which means Winter Journey, the character encounters different people in situations while wandering in winter.

Each song in the cycle, each chapter in the story as it were, tells a different story about a different encounter.

In the sixth song in Winterreise called "Flood", the character cries with pain and sorrow.

I'd like to have a listen to it and see if you can pick out some ways that the music captures this mood of pain, of sorrow, of loss.

Pause my video and have a listen.

And you might have picked up on some of these points.

It uses a minor key, a slow tempo and expressive vocals to portray these sad emotions.

And this is a really typical example of a lied, where the singer acts as this an array are trying to portray and embody the different emotions of the story.

And in so doing, bring that story to life through music.

Lieder often used two vocal techniques that are common to many genres of vocal music.

And we're gonna look at these two techniques now.

The first is melisma.

This is where multiple notes are sung during one syllable of a word.

Listen to this example from a lied by the German composer Brahms. Can you pick out some of the melisma where there's more than one note sung to a syllable of a word in this example? Pause my video and have a listen.

Well done.

If you managed to pick it out there.

I'd like to listen to this shorter clip and see if you can hear it on the descending notes in this clip.

That's what we're focusing in on for the melisma.

Pause my video and have a listen.

The second key technique that's used in lieder as well as many of the vocal styles is called word-painting.

This is where the melody imitates the literal meaning of a word.

An example might be where the melody ascending pitch on the word rises, so the notes are mimicking what the word actually means, they're rising as the word sung is rises.

Can you think of any other simple examples of how you could do word-painting, so how the notes could match the literal meaning of a word? Pause my video and just have a quick think.

So the most obvious examples might be where the pitch goes up on a word that means up or ascend or climb or rise or the pitch drops down on words that mean dropping down.

So things like drop, descend, and there are many more complex examples of how composers use word painting, imitate the meaning of specific words both in the romantic classical Baroque periods, but also in modern composition as well.

I'd like to listen to this example of word painting on the phrase fliegen davon, which means fly away in German.

How does the melody match the meaning? So how does the shape or pattern of the notes imitate that meaning of fly away? Pause my video and see if you can work it out.

And here the key point is that the notes dramatically ascend like something flying away when the singer is singing, the words fly away.

So it's imitating the meaning of the words.

That's a great example of word painting and a really typical example of how it's used in lieder.

Let's check your understanding.

Which two of these are examples of word painting? Using longer notes on the word slow.

Using a major key in a song set in summer.

Using a descending melody on the word down or using an ascending melody on the word drop.

Impose my video while you choose the two that are examples of word-painting.

Now the correct answers here are using longer notes on the word slow because you're slowing down the notes and imitating the meaning of the word slow and using a descending melody on the word down because the notes are going down as the word is down.

Option B is not word painting because although it's creating a mood that matches the mood of the song, it's not imitating specific words.

And option D is not word painting because the word is drop, which means going down, but the notes are ascending, so it's doing the opposite of what the word means.

So that's not an example of word painting.

Well then if you managed to identify those two, and I'm sure you'll be able to think of many other examples of how if you're composing for voice, you could use some word painting by imitating the meaning of words with a shape or the pattern of the notes.

What is melisma? Is it using multiple words in one bar, using multiple notes in one word, using multiple notes in one syllable or using multiple syllables in one word? I'll give you a few seconds to choose the correct answer.

And the correct answer here is melisma is using multiple notes in one syllable.

Well done if you chose that one.

For question one in task eight, I'd like to listen to each extract identifying the voice type and whether it features melisma.

Choose from soprano, alto, tenor, and bass for the voice types.

Once you've done that, I'd like to listen to the second clip for question two.

The phrase Berges Hoh, Which means mountain heights in German is an example of word painting.

How does the melody match its meaning? So think carefully about what those words mean, and then think about how the melody, whether it's the pitch or the rhythm matches the meaning of those words.

So you can pause my video now and give this task you best shot.

Let's go through these questions then.

For extract A, the voice type was base and there was melisma.

Extract, B was soprano and there was melisma.

And then for extract C, that's a tenor voice and there's no melisma in that example.

Well done if you managed to identify those voice types and you start to get your ear in for identifying melisma.

For the second question, the melody matches the meanings of the word mountain heights because it ascends to a high pitched note, so it's climbing up as the vocals are using the words mountain heights, therefore literally matching the meaning of the words.

Well done if you managed to identify something along those lines.

The second part of our lesson is focused on opera.

Opera is another important vocal style of music in the western classical tradition.

It originated in Italy and it developed from the 16th century onwards.

So before the start of the Baroque period.

The opera houses of European cities became hubs for wealthy members of society.

You can see a painting of an opera house there, and this is where the richest, wealthiest, and most powerful people in society would mingle with each other and socialize.

Performers told stories on stage in opera through singing, dancing, and acting.

So it combined different disciplines.

It's not just singing, and they were accompanied by an offstage orchestra who would typically sit just in front of the stage down below in what's called the pit.

Now, there are a few shared key features of opera across the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras.

So there's some similarities between opera through all these periods.

The first is that they do not use spoken dialogue.

So unlike in a musical where there'll be songs and then there'll be sections with no music where they're just talking and acting, in opera they only use song.

So there's no speaking.

The music is continuous.

So the music usually plays constantly throughout, creating a constant musical accompaniment.

And the singers use a very distinct operatic style of voice that we'll explore more in a moment that sounds quite different to other styles of singing.

They usually tell dramatic stories often in a few separate acts and operas might be a few hours long.

So we've broken up into these separate acts with intervals in between them.

The operatic style of singing has two key features.

The first is extremely loud projection of the voice.

Opera singers trained for many, many years to train their voice to project really loudly, and if you're in a room with an opera singer singing now, it'll be absolutely deafening up close.

It's quite impressive the projection that fully trained opera singers can do.

They also use lots of vibrato, which is where you vibrate and shake the notes.

You might have come across that technique on instruments as well as on voices.

And this style developed because singers had to be heard without microphones in large venues.

If you think of that picture of an opera house that we just saw, that is a huge space to sing in, and unless you can project your voice very loudly, the audience members at the back are just not gonna be able to hear you.

So that was why that developed like that.

And the vibrato was used because it adds lots of expression to the singing.

So it allows the singers and the performers to express emotions more deeply through their voice.

Now, as I've said in opera, there is no spoken, there is no characters just talking to each other.

Instead, everything is communicated through song.

The two key types of song that are found in opera are arias and recitative.

Let's take a look at both of those.

Arias are songs for solo voice accompanied by orchestras.

So the soloist be singing the melody in the song and the orchestra will be accompanying.

They usually come at a pause in the action where the character is expressing their thoughts and feelings, maybe reflecting on what has just happened in the action, in the story.

In this area, from Mozart's opera, which is called "The Magic Flute".

The character is in despair after her beloved has left her.

How does the music create that feeling of despair and sadness? Pause my video and have a listen And well done then if you picked up on any of these points that uses soft timbres and dynamics, a slow tempo, a minor tonality, and that creates a sense of mourning, of sadness, of loss.

The melody has lots of descending phrases as well, which sound mournful.

If a vocal melody descends in pitch, it can often sound sad or more negative than an ascending melody, which might sound more hopeful and positive.

So there's lots of features there in which Mozart is using these musical elements to create this perfect mood to tell this story through song.

Recitative is the second type of song.

So we've got arias and we've got recitative.

And this is used to advance the plot and create dialogue between characters.

So rather than an aria where the character might be reflecting on the story, sharing their emotions, expressing their feelings, in recitative, this is where we advance the plot, where characters talk to each other when decisions are made and where action happens.

And it uses a very distinct vocal style that's quite different from the aria vocal style we just listened to.

How would you describe this style of singing in this example of some recitative? Pause my video and have a listen.

So that's clearly a very distinct style of singing, and we could describe it as a cross between singing and speaking because the rhythms that are used in the song match the natural rhythms of the words.

So it sounds a little bit more naturally spoken in terms of the rhythm.

The musical compliment is limited and it follows the tempo of the singer.

So the conductor of the orchestra will be watching the singer and following them, trying to match their tempo and their changes in timbre.

That means that the singer can use quite a natural spoken pattern of rhythm rather than trying to match their rhythm to the orchestra.

And finally, the melodies are simple and they often repeat the same notes, so they're not impressive melodic lines like you might in an aria.

Instead, they're quite simple using a few pitches and often repeating those pitches almost like if you were speaking.

And together all these features create this really distinctive vocal style of recitative that sounds halfway between singing and speaking.

Let's check your understanding.

What type of song is used in opera to express emotions? I'll give you a few seconds.

And the correct answer is aria or arias.

These are used to express emotions where characters reflect on the action, share their thoughts and feelings.

What type of song is used in opera to advance the plot using a speech like vocal style? I'll give you a few seconds to think of this one.

And the correct answer here is recitative.

That's that vocal style where it's sort of half speech, half singing.

Well done if you remembered that one.

Operas also feature duets, trios and other vocal combinations in which characters sing together.

So it's not all about solo.

Many operas also have a chorus, which is a group of singers, like a choir who sing on stage, commenting on the action and creating more musical excitement.

I'd like to listen to this extract from a baroque opera.

In this, the character, Belinda tries to persuade the queen.

The chorus join in supporting her arguments.

So see if you can hear that chorus joining in with Belinda trying to convince the queen and joining in with the action of the opera.

Pause my video, have a listen.

As opera developed, it matched the musical changes of each period.

So in the romantic period, operas became bigger and much more dramatic spectacles, just like orchestral music in the romantic period became bigger, much more dramatic as well.

Richard Wagner's "Ring Cycle", which is one of the most famous operas of the romantic period, includes 15 hours of continuous music and drama, a spectacular set in costumes, a huge orchestra, choir and cast of actors.

So just the scale of it is enormous.

It's just huge undertaking to perform this set of operas.

It also demonstrates many of the typical features of opera.

For example, it features many expressive arias.

Pause my video, have a quick listen to this example, see if you can hear some of those typical features of arias.

It also features sections of recitative, which help develop the plot.

Pause my video and listen to this clip and see if you can hear that distinctive vocal style of recitative.

And it also includes intense, emotive, orchestral music that creates drama and creates the overall mood and emotional journey of the story.

Pause my video and have a listen to this.

So this is a great example of how composers combine these different aspects, arias, recitatives and the orchestral instrumental music to support the overall story and journey of the opera.

Let's check your understanding.

What's the name of the group of singers in an opera? Is it choir, ensemble, chorus, or combo? I'll give you a few seconds.

And the correct answer here is it's a chorus.

That's the name of that group of singers who like a choir really, who often stand on stage and contribute to the action.

Joining in with the music.

For task B, I'd like to listen to each extract of opera and answer the questions.

For extract A, how is the vocal style typical of opera? Why do opera singers use this style? What type of song is this and what voice type is singing it? And then for extract B, what type of song is this? And what is this song type used for in opera? So it's test your understanding of opera.

Pause my video and give this your best shot.

Now let's review this task.

For extract A, the vocal style is typical because it projects loudly and it uses lots of vibrato.

And why do opera singers use this style? Well, they use it because they want to be expressive in their singing, to portray the emotions, but also so that they can be heard in large rooms, projecting their voices to the back of these large performing spaces.

What type of song is this? This was an aria and what voice type is singing? That was a tenor.

So it's a higher male voice.

Well done if you've got some of those correct.

For extract B, this was an example of recitative, and this is used in opera to advance the plot and create dialogue between characters.

So this is where the pot is advanced through characters interacting with each other, talking, making decisions, and where the action occurs.

Well done in that task if you've managed to apply some of that new knowledge of opera and you start to get your head around the different types of song and how opera all works.

If you get a chance to watch some opera or even just a short clip of some opera, do take that opportunity, 'cause that'll put this in context, how all these different song types and different parts of opera work together to tell the stories.

The final part of today's lesson is looking at music for vocal ensemble.

Throughout the Western classical tradition, composers have written music for choirs.

These usually feature a mixture of voice types, most often soprano, alto, tenor, and base voices.

And these are known as SATB choirs taken from the first letter of each of those voices, soprano, S, alto, A, Tenor, T, and Bass, B, SATB.

In the Baroque period, there were many genres of music written for choir.

We're gonna look at two of the key genres now.

We first is anthems and the second is oratorios.

Let's start with anthems. These were written in English and used in Protestant churches.

They're a type of sacred music, which means that they were used in churches as part of church services.

So if you hear that phrase, sacred music, that means that music is designed to be used within church services.

There are many other genres of sacred music used in other types of church around Europe and around the world, but these specifically were written in English and used in Protestant churches.

Listen to this example.

What type of voices are used and how do they interact with each other? Pause my video and have a listen Well done if have you identified that that uses soprano, alto, tenor, and bass voices.

So it's an SATB choir and the voices have a mix of solo sections, some polyphonic sections with multiple melodies at the same time.

And there's some short homophonic sections where the singers sing together as well.

Now a key feature of anthems is the use of complex polyphonic texts.

That's the defining feature of anthems, where voices sing multiple different melodies at the same time.

It creates a thick web of different melodies and rhythms. Often these melodies imitate each other, so the different melodies will be based on each other imitating the melodic shapes.

Anthems also sometimes include instrumental accompaniment, but often they're acapella, so their only voice is singing on their own.

So typically you'd expect it to be a choir singing on their own acapella, but you will sometimes get instrumental accompaniment as well.

Let's check your understanding.

Which two are features of anthems? Italian language, polyphonic texture, English language, or homophonic texture.

I'll give you a few seconds.

And the two correct answers here are polyphonic texture and English language.

Remember, anthems are written in English and used in Protestant churches, and they're used mostly a polyphonic texture with lots of different layers of melodies into weaving with each other.

The second genre we're gonna look at from the Baroque period was the oratorio.

Now this has some similarities to opera.

It tells a story and often oratorios tell stories from the Bible.

It uses arias and recitative, just like opera.

There's two different types of song.

It's accompanied by an orchestra and it's not used for religious services.

So although oratorios will tell stories from the Bible and they'll tell religious stories, they were not designed to be used within church services.

Oratorios do not use acting, dancing and costumes like you would expect in opera.

The story is told purely through the music and the singing with performers standing on stage and singing the songs.

so it's not performed in the same way as an opera where you'd expect there to be a big set, lots of acting, dancing, et cetera.

Instead, it's just the music with the orchestra accompanying and the singers on stage, standing and performing the songs that tell the story.

"Messiah" is maybe one of the most famous oratorios.

It's written by the composer Handel and it tells the story of Jesus' life with a large chorus and soloists telling the story through a series of different songs.

In this famous chorus song, the performers celebrate his resurrection.

Have a quick listen to it, see if you can hear the chorus with the different voice types within it, and see if you can also have a think about how it creates a suitable mood that reflects the joyous celebration of Jesus' resurrection.

Pause my video and have a listen.

In the classical and romantic periods, many of the popular genres from the Baroque period became less common.

So things like anthems and oratorios became much less popular.

And instead, composers often use choirs to add meaning, story and drama to orchestral music.

I'd like to listen to this famous classical example by Beethoven.

This is from the classical period.

The choir join in end to add power and drama at the climax of the piece of music.

So pause my video and listen to this real iconic use of the choir in classical music.

Let's check your understanding, which is not a feature of an oratorio? Is it use of acting, storytelling, use of an orchestra or recitative and arias? I'll give you a few seconds.

And the correct answer here is the use of acting is not a feature in oratorio.

Oratorios do have storytelling.

They tell stories usually from the Bible.

They do use an orchestra to accompany the singers, and they do use both recitative and arias.

So well done if you chose option A.

For task C, listen to each extract and answer the question.

For extract A, how is the texture typical of an anthem and where would you expect this anthem to be performed? For extract B, what unusual orchestral instrument plays the first chord? Name the two types of ensemble that are performing here.

And then what four voice types would you expect to be included here? So you pause my video, and give this task your best shot.

Let's review this task.

So for extract A, the texture is typical of an anthem because it features a mix of textures, but particularly complex, polyphonic textures where the voices imitate each other.

Where would you expect it to be performed? What I would say in a Protestant church, remember that's a key thing about anthems, is they're written in English and performed in Protestant churches.

There are different equivalent styles of music that are written to be used in other types of church.

For extract B, the unusual orchestral instrument that plays the first chord is an organ.

Well, I dunno if you identified that.

The two types ensemble that are performing here are choir and an orchestra.

And four voice types you would expect to be included, well, we'd expect soprano, alto, tenor, bass to be in that choir as an SATB choir.

Well done if you've got some of those points correct there.

Now let's review today's lesson.

Composers have used voices in many different ways.

Solo songs such as lieder were particularly common from the romantic period onwards.

They often use techniques such as word-painting and melisma.

Opera used solo singers, a chorus, and orchestra to tell epic stories using arias and recitative.

And in the Baroque period, oratorios and anthems are two key genres of vocal music.

So that's the end of today's lesson.

Hopefully now you feel better equipped to understand how the use of the voice has evolved through the baroque, classical and romantic periods.

And hopefully you've got some inspiration for how you might use the voice in your own composition and performing as well.

Thanks for taking part in today's lesson and I'll see you in another one.