Musical features

Western art music

Impressionism

• Focus on creating a general mood/atmosphere

• Ambiguous tonality and less focus on clear, functional melodies and harmonies

• Emphasis on tone color

• Use of whole-tone scale, pentatonic scales, and “exotic” modes

Expressionism

• Explores extreme emotional states (“the depiction of fear lies at the centre of expressionist music” – Theodor Adorno)

• High levels of dissonance, chromaticism, angular melodies with wide leaps

• Exploration of atonality, use of twelve-tone technique

• Extreme contrasts of dynamics, texture, etc.

Jazz

Ragtime

• Solo piano

• Typically in 2/4 or 4/4, however ragtime waltzes exist

• Left hand plays pattern of bass notes on strong beats (1 and 3) and chords on weak beats (2 and 4)

• Right hand plays highly syncopated melodic line

New Orleans/Dixieland jazz

• Basic ensemble consists of trumpet, clarinet, and trombone. Rhythm section often included

• Melodic instruments play simultaneously in a contrapuntal manner

• Collective improvisation

Swing/big band