Episodes
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An addendum to Season 3, addrssing music literacy and appreciation in our culture.
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Ever hear a classical piece of music on TV and wonder what it's called, and who wrote it? Commercials never tell you who wrote the famous pieces used on the soundtrack. That's what Dr. Music is for! In this episode, you'll hear examples of great music used on TV and gain an insight into not only who wrote them, but why they might have caught the attention of producers!
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Even if you are familiar with the music of Felix Mendelssohn, this episode contains interesting facts about some of his best works - much of which was composed before the age of 20!
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We do not have a formal theory of melody in the vast discipl;ine of music theory. But if we limit our examination to particular styles and particular cultural themes, you may be surprised how collections of notes can "tend" toward certain patterns!
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Can a piece of music be generated from a 2-note "sigh" motif that has been used over and over again for hundreds of years? Frederic Chopin would say "yes"--as we'll see looking at his famous Opus 64 Waltz in C# Minor!
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When Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Symphony No. 5, he, like all Soviet artists, was writing under the watchful eye of Joseph Stalin. Learn how a very talented composer can disguise a seemingly nationalistic, optimistic piece as a veiled denunciation of the regime!
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Discover how Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov was able to produce such a vivid impression of the sea in his classic symphonic suite, Scheherazade!
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Close Encounters of the Third Kind is one of Steven Spielberg's greatest movies - and features one of the greatest scores of John Williams. In this episode, we'll be looking at the last 20 minutes of the film to get a better appreciation of why Mr. Williams is the second most Oscar-nominated person in all film history!
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Samuel Barber's Adagio For Strings, from his String Quartet, is one of the most recognizable works of the 20th century. Despite its mournful tone, why has this haunting piece caught the attention of so many listeners, including film producers?
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Harold Arlen's "Over The Rainbow" is considered one of the best songs ever written for the movies. What is it about this song that makes it so memorable, and so magical? We'll see how the notes themselves reflect the lyrics in a way as colorful as a rainbow!
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Star Trek fans! What is it about Alexander Courage's famous main theme to the original series that makes it sound otherwordly -- "where no one has gone before?"
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What is it about Mozart's last composition, the Requiem, that places it more in the Romantic Period of Beethoven than his own Classical Period? We will discover that the line between each of these historical periods is not so cut and dry.
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Schubert's Symphony No. 8 may be the "Unfinished," but the first few pages of the score can teach us a lot about how his genius worked!
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What exactly is pandiatonicism in music? Let's travel to a few countries (including America) and find out!
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Why do musicians have access to only 12 notes in the chromatic scale? Why are there not more or less notes available? The answer lies in math - and don't worry. This is FUN math!
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In this first episode of Season 3, discover how music is related to the birth of the universe!
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A short addendum to Dr. Music Season 2, including a quote from W.E.B. Du Bois!
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Happy Labor Day! Almost everybody is familiar with the Ode To Joy theme from the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony - right? But how many people, other than musicologists, are familiar with exactly how that monumental movement is constructed? What makes masterpieces of music great is not the melody itself. The French children's song, Ah! vous dirai-je, maman, is a very memorable melody...but look what Mozart did with it! Likewise, Beethoven writes a very memorable theme, set to Schiller's famous poem, and forges one of the greatest symphonic movements in the entire Western European music tradition. Once you have listened to this episode, the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony will take on a whole new light (and a whole new "Freude," as Beethoven would say)!
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The French composer Jules Massanet (1842-1912) is known mainly for his operas, though general audiences are often familiar with either specific arias or suites from operas. Besides the very popular Meditation from his opera Thaïs , the ballet suite from Le Cid contains some popular Spanish folk pieces. Yet how does one make a simple folk-like melody sound interesting and fresh within a serious orchestral composition? It takes the hand of a very talented composer like Massanet to breathe new life into what could have been a bland, conventional presentation of a folk melody. We shall see how Massanet treats two pieces from his ballet suite, the Castillane and the Aragonaise. This episode will show how a singable folk melody can be packed with surprises!
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What does the French word Gymnopédie mean? It could mean an ancient Greek dance, but only Erik Satie, the composer of three piano pieces bearing that name, knows the real answer. Being a mysterious man, it is possible he wanted the meaning to remain mysterious. Yet if the title is mysterious, the music itself is a lesson in unadorned beauty. Gymnopédie No. 1, the most well-known of the three, is the subject of this episode. We will see how Satie rejects the complexity of large scale traditional forms in favor of basking in music's elemental nature -- the simplicity of melody. In addition, we will take a look at Debussy's take on the piece in his very unique orchestral arrangement.
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