...Recommendation: Target the record labels for promotion of HSS reports. Start with the initial enthusiasts like Ken Bunt of Hollywood Records and use their testimonials to win other record labels. Make use of the business connections of the advisory board at Polyphonic to get better reach to decision makers at record labels. Offer free trial reports to convince record labels and an initial lower cost for buyers along with discounts for high volumes ordered over a fiscal year. In the long run, promote Human Music Interface as a complement for Hit Song Science to maximize the revenue earning capability of a song (by ensuring better listener penetration) that is marked as a winner by HSS. Rationale: Target segment rationalization: The record labels constitute the segment with the biggest budget (deepest pocket and hence least price sensitive), highest influence in the music industry and positioned to obtain the greatest benefit out of HSS’s accuracy in music selection suggestions. There are initial enthusiasts in this segment who are already impressed with HSS’s capabilities. The market pie can be restricted to the USA (Exhibit 1) Value for the segment: The HSS program will enable record labels to select only those songs for promotion and advertising that has 80% chances of being successful compared to the 10% success rate offered by the tradition ways of selecting a song. Thus, the labels will considerably reduce the amount spent on marketing (Exhibit 2) and as a result will...
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...Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math So few songs actually become hits—Las Vegas gives you better odds than the music industry! You might as well just put a million dollars on red and spin the wheel . . . — Ric Wake, Independent Music Producer In late 2003, the management team of Barcelona-based Polyphonic HMI was preparing to launch an artificial intelligence tool that they believed had the potential to create tremendous value for the music industry. The technology, referred to as Hit Song Science (HSS), analyzed the mathematical characteristics of music (by isolating aspects such as melody, tempo, pitch, rhythm, and chord progression) and compared them with characteristics of past music hits, making it possible to determine a song’s hit potential. Mike McCready, the CEO of Polyphonic, explained: The music industry has always used two criteria to determine if a song will be a success. One is that it sounds like a hit. They have professionals at the music labels who are paid to determine if a song sounds like a hit. And two is that they have an idea how they can bring the artist and the song to the market. The problem is that the industry has about a 10% success rate: only one in 10 songs that get promoted ever charts. We add a third criterion—that it has to have optimal mathematical patterns—and significantly increase success rates. “This piece of technology is truly special,” he raved. “In one of our early tests, HSS generated unusually high...
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...1 PROBLEM STATEMENT After failing at their first attempt to enter the music industry, Polyphonic HMI (hereinafter referred to as the “Company”), is releasing Hit Song Science (HSS), software used to predict future hit songs with 80% accuracy. An integrated marketing strategy, needs to be developed to launch an innovative product, in an industry typically known for “gut instinct” and therefore likely to meet strong customer resistance. Thus there are two key challenges to address: what is the target market and desired positioning of HSS and what is the plan for marketing this product to achieve that positioning, given a tight “shoestring” budget. 2 SITUATION ANALYSIS Polyphonic HMI wants to launch, what they consider, a sophisticated, new, revolutionary software product in the music industry, with stringent budget and time constraints and therefore must swiftly define a target market and marketing plan. This begins by utilizing a framework for performing a situation analysis of the internal, the micro and macro environmental situation, composed of the typical five Cs: customers, Company, collaborators, competition, context. There are three potential target customer segments that have several unique aspects. Firstly, the record labels, that employ artist-and-repertoire (A&R) people, that amongst other activities, decides whether to market a new album and if needed select one or more songs from it to be released as singles. This is by far the smallest segment with just over...
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...The three Renaissance music pieces on Hunter's humanities website have many similarities in the way they sounded and were sung. All three musical works are examples of polyphonic structure. This means they had many sounds or voices that were sung simultaneously, traditionally in parts. They were the Ave Maria by composer Josquin des Prez, a poem “Fair Phyllis” by John Farmer, and The Sweet White Swan by Jacob Arcadelt. First, Josquin des Prez was considered a master of writing motets (Humanities). The motets are cappella pieces based on sacred Latin text, these are mostly associated with the Renaissance period sung without instruments (Sayre p.519). Josquin's Ave Maria is just one of his 100 cappella works; he has also written some 70 songs...
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...Botticelli and Bramante artists were touched by the image of antiquity and concerned about developing new techniques of sculpture, painting and architecture, as well as music, poetry and the new humanistic sensibility. All this was part of the renaissance in the arts in Italy. Renaissance music is characterized by a gentle sound that comes from the acceptance of the third as consonant harmony interval and the progressive increase in the number of voices, all equally important and governed by the rules of counterpoint, independence of voices, preparation and resolution of the dissonances, using parallel thirds and sixths, excluding parallel fifths and octaves, and others. The prototype is a musical renaissance that is a piece of vocals polyphonic texture, often imitative, written for three to six sing able character voices, each melodic line or voice could be interpreted either with real voices or instruments. The genres and forms of music in these times was the religious music during this period the religious music had a growing spread. The most important liturgical forms during the Renaissance were the Misa and the Motet. Misa of cantus firmus: the author takes a preexisting melody, either from the plainsong or some secular song, or even popular, and places it in one of the voices, usually called Tenor. Cantus firmus Misa is typical of the...
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...Go for Baroque Sheela Lewis ARTS 340 - Exploration of Western Classical Music March 3, 2014 Steven Kennedy Go for Baroque The Baroque musical period occurred throughout Europe from 1600 to 1750. The compositions during this period had certain characteristics. Some of these characteristics included unity of mood, continuity of rhythm and melody, and most compositions, in the middle to late Baroque period, included polyphonic textures (Kamien, 2011). Many musicians, such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Arcangelo Corelli, thrived during this period. They composed hundreds to thousands of compositions in various different musical forms and each piece holds the characteristics of the Baroque period uniquely. This paper will review the pieces of Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major, I and Trio Sonata in A Minor, Op. 3, no. 10, I. The most obvious difference between Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 and Corelli’s Trio Sonata is the musical form. Bach’s composition is a concerto grosso and ritornello form from the late Baroque period. This composition has anywhere from 12 to 24 musicians. There are three soloists, which includes a flute, violin, and harpsichord, and also has a string orchestra and a bass continuo. For Corelli’s composition, it is a trio sonata from the middle Baroque period. It consists of only four instruments, two violins, and a bass continuo, which includes an organ and a cello. Each full composition has several movements, the concerto has three movements...
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...chant repertoire in his kingdom. * Given the long tradition, including chant in new sacred music legitimized the new composition. 2. Why is Paris an important site for the notation of polyphonic music? * Paris was home to a preeminent university * University members were smart and innovative * Acoustical reverberation in gothic architecture necessitated the rhythmic organization of music. * Rhythmic notation was devised to help coordinate singers. 3. How did Notre organum say something new and old at the same time? * N.D organum used official sanctioned melodies as the basis for new compositions, thus paying respect to God, church, authority , and musical tradition.(OLD) * N.D organum added voices to preexisting chants. * N.D organum composers rhythmicized these added voices. Renaissance 4. How does the sound of Renaissance music differ medieval music? * Sacred Music: * Imitative polyphony is used * sacred music and secular music is sung in vernacular * Rhythms are more uniform 5. What is Mass ordinary and what makes it special? * MO is text that remains the same in every mass * It is the part of mass that does not change * Same chants, chorus, hymns, and reading, no matter date and occasion * Polyphonic masses were often written in response to special occasions 6. What were the social circumstances of the Mass’s composition? * The fall of Constantinople in 1453 invigorated...
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...styles to music in its time. I. Definition of Baroque Era A. Can mean different things 1. Bizarre 2. Flamboyant 3. Elaborately Ornamented. 4. Historians meaning a. Used to indicate the particular style in all different forms of art. B. Known as “the age of absolutism” 1. Royals abuse power 2. Throws Bach into jail for asking to leave the job C. Shaping of the world 1. Newton 2. Galileo II. Baroque era music and phases A. Famous composers of the time 1. Johann Sebastian Bach 2. George Frideric Handel 3. Monteverdi 4. Purcell 5. Corelli 6. Vivaldi B. Phases in the Baroque era 1. Early 2. Middle 3. Late III. Early Phase A. Homophonic over Polyphonic 1. Two different melodies rather than many IV. Middle Phase A. Spread from Italy to every country in Europe 1. Influenced churches B. Scales gave a new outlook to music in the world V. Late Phase A. Music composed still played today in band rooms all over the world B. Instrumental music more important than vocal music VI. Characteristics of Baroque A. Seven different categories 1. Unity of Mood a. One basic mood b. Emotional states represented 2. Rhythm a. Beat has a pattern 1. Can affect and portray Unity of Mood 2. Heard throughout 3. Drive and energy 4. Emphasized 3. Melody a. Assortment of rhythms and pitches b. Easily remembered and hummable in today’s...
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...the piece Symphony of Psalms, which he intended to be of great contrapuntal development. Three movements comprise the work, each one including some polyphonic writing. Undoubtedly the second movement is the most highly contrapuntal; it is set as a double fugue. Figure 2.8 shows an excerpt that pertains to the exposition of the second movement of Symphony of Psalms, measures 1-19. Although some scholars argue that the formal aspects of this movement are not strictly fugal, the exposition follows the traditional procedure of a fugue. The four subject entries are spaced evenly with the exception of the third one, which appears two measures later. The first answer appears on the dominant key accompanied by the countersubject in measures 6–10 followed by two measures of new material, developed motivically from the last two bars of the subject. In measure 13 the second answer appears on the original key with a variation of the countersubject on flute 1, and new contrapuntal material on the oboe. Finally the third answer is exposed in measure 18,...
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...“flying,” or “soaring” then the music would be fast upward scales. (Source: Jeremy Yudkin “Understanding Music”) The most famous composer that wrote such madrigals was Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Palestrina, according to most Renaissance scholars, was a master composer. He started out in 1554 performing Masses and sang in the Cappella Sistina. (Source: w3.rz-berlin.mpg) He was so famous that he was actually asked to rewrite the church’s main plainchant books, but had to follow the Council of Trent’s guidelines. His most famous Mass, Missa Papae Marcelli, was in fact in line with the Counter Reformation, which he always was. His conservative attitude towards making the Catholic polyphonic music helped composers down the line to create new music for the church. Even though the polyphonic texts invaded the church, most of the Ordinary of the Mass, which is the Kyrie eleison, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Andus Dei stayed mostly in plainchant for...
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...piece’s tonality is modal, specifically the E aeolian mode, because there is no F# in Em (as in the D chord) but there is in the aeolian mode. The most obvious indicator that the B section has begun is the change in key from E minor to C minor- and the piece switches between these keys frequently as the B section develops. The texture of the piece begins monophonically with a single guitar which starts as a one bar ostinato and then is full by bar six by using the note addition technique. Then layers are added and it becomes a four part guitar canon where the live guitar plays the resultant melody and it becomes polyphonic overall. In A-2 the bass guitar is introduced using the same note addition technique as the guitar and it is unusually panned to both speakers. After that in A-3 when strummed chords are introduced, there is a homophonic feel but it remains polyphonic (seven guitar loops, a live guitar and two bass parts overall). A new bass ostinato is introduced in B-2 and then the texture thins during the Coda as the piece comes to an end with an E5...
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...Donald Medina Dr. Stroud MMUSG 101 8 February 2014 Guillaume de Machaut During the medieval era life was tempestuous for the average person; the Black Death ravaged Europe, the Roman Catholic Church was in power, and climate change caused many crops to fail often leading to famine for many towns and countries. Even though times were tough, music and song provided a welcome distraction to the many problems people were dealing with at the time. Guillaume de Machaut was not only a clergyman during this time but a poet and composer as well. Guillaume de Machaut is regarded now as he was then as a brilliant composer who’s practice of composing verses and writing poetry translated into the mastery of his craft. Guillaume de Machaut was born in 1300, Machaut, France which is located by the city of Reims, well-known for its cathedral and served as a crowning site for French kings. It’s very likely that Guillaume de Machaut received his education and training at a cathedral school since the Roman Catholic Church was still in power at the time and had great influence across the land. At the age of twenty three or twenty four, he became a “secretary to the king of Bohemia who was also known as King John of Luxembourg.” (Classical net web) Guillaume de Machaut was extremely faithful to the King John while he was in service to him and received what’s known as a benefice “a church appointment that brought the recipient a steady income from church revenue” (Encyclopedia Britannica Web)....
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...which eventually resulted in the formation of an international musical language, of which the most famous composers included Palestrina and Lassus.[27] Josquin likely learned his craft in his home region in the North, in France, and then in Italy when he went to Milan and Rome. His early sacred works emulate the contrapuntal complexity and ornamented, melismatic lines of Ockeghem and his contemporaries, but at the same time he was learning his contrapuntal technique he was acquiring an Italianate idiom for his secular music: after all, he was surrounded by Italian popular music in Milan. By the end of his long creative career, which spanned approximately 50 productive years, he had developed a simplified style in which each voice of a polyphonic composition exhibited free and smooth motion, and close attention was paid to clear setting of text as well as clear alignment of text with musical motifs. While other composers were influential on the development of Josquin's style, especially in the late 15th century, he himself became the most influential composer in Europe, especially after the development of music printing, which was concurrent with the years of his maturity and peak output. This event made his influence even more decisive than it might otherwise have been. Many "modern" musical compositional practices were being born in the era around 1500. Josquin made extensive use of "motivic cells" in his compositions, short, easily recognizable melodic fragments which passed...
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...music but that always left the original clearly visible underneath. Embellishment is adding notes to a part to make it more interesting for the player and listener. After some research I have come to the conclusion that the easiest embellishments to improvise are the graces. These are trills and other short ornaments. Among them are 3 main types: Inverted mordant, trills, and cadential patterns. Who performs embellishments depends on the nature of the music. In homophonic music like dances where the melody is in the top part and the other instruments mostly just play chordal accompaniment, all the embellishment should be done by the top part and that player can really go to town with elaborate graces and divisions. On the other hand, in polyphonic music like fantasies where all the parts are equally important, all players may embellish their parts but with considerable restraint, perhaps just adding a cadential pattern and a few other graces. In renaissance embellishment, especially divisions, performers have to play a lot of notes in a little bit of time. On wind instruments like the recorder, it’s not too hard to get fingers moving, but tongues are generally a...
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...Musical Experience You must either attend a live concert, watch a video or television performance, listen to an entire CD or watch a musical movie. You must only use something from this quarter for this assignment (not a concert you saw in another quarter). You may choose any type of music for this paper. Requirements for this Assignment: fill in the boxes below. Describe the Concert Setting and media (Video, CD, DVD, Live Performance): Grease | Date of concert, place of concert, name of group, programs provided, program notes provided, spoken remarks, include the names of all the selections: Date of Concert: June 16, 1978Place of Concert: United StatesName of Group: Grease CastProgram provided: DVDAny Spoken remarks: Various Movie QuotesNames of ALL the Selections you listened to: "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing""Grease" – Frankie Valli"Alma Mater""Summer Nights" – Danny, Sandy, Pink Ladies and T-Birds"Rydell Fight Song" – Rydell Marching Band"Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" – Rizzo and Pink Ladies"Alma Mater Parody" – T-Birds"Hopelessly Devoted to You" – Sandy"Greased Lightnin'" – Danny and T-Birds"La Bamba" – Ritchie Valens"It's Raining on Prom Night" – Cindy Bullens"Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" – Jerry Lee Lewis"Beauty School Dropout" – Teen Angel and Female Angels"Rock n' Roll Party Queen" – Louis St. Louis"Rock n' Roll Is Here to Stay" – Johnny Casino and the Gamblers"Those Magic Changes" – Johnny Casino and the Gamblers; Danny sings along onscreen"Tears...
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