TW on Music Theory Print

Twee pop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

Merriam-Webster defines “twee” as something “excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty, or sentimental”. The word derives from the speech of babies.

Characteristics#

According to NPR, twee pop “was fervently informed by punk: snappy riffs, fast-track tempos, propulsive drums”. Artists such as Heavenly, Talulah Gosh, and Marine Girls were primarily women who wrote about love, relationships, and personal empowerment. While the music sounded lighthearted and naive, the subject matter was often gritty and dark. A retrospective fascination with the genre in the US saw Americans eagerly defining themselves as twee. According to The A.V. Club’s Paula Mejia: The author Marc Spitz suggests that the roots of twee stem from post-war 1950s music. While the culture categorized itself under the moniker of “indie” (short for independent), many major twee powerhouses gained mainstream critical acclaim for their contributions to the twee movement.

Twelve-bar blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The blues originated from a combination of work songs, spirituals, and early southern country music. The music was passed down through oral tradition. It was first written down by W. C. Handy, an African American composer and band leader. Its popularity led to the creation of “race records” and the popularity of blues singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. The style of music heard on race records was later called “rhythm and blues” (R & B). As the music became more popular, more people wanted to perform it. General patterns that existed in the blues were formalized, one of these being the 12-bar blues.

Twelve-tone technique

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History of use#

The twelve-tone technique is most often attributed to Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg. He recalls using it in 1921 and describing it to pupils two years later. Simultaneously, Josef Matthias Hauer was formulating a similar theory in his writings. In the second edition of his book Vom Wesen Des Musikalischen (On the Essence of Music, 1923), Hauer wrote that the law of the atonal melody requires all twelve tones to be played repeatedly. The method was used during the next twenty years almost exclusively by the composers of the Second Viennese School—Alban Berg, Anton Webern, and Schoenberg himself. However, another important composer in this period, Elisabeth Lutyens, wrote over 50 pieces using the serial method. The twelve tone technique was preceded by “freely” atonal pieces of 1908–1923 which, though “free”, often have as an “integrative element … a minute intervallic cell” which in addition to expansion may be transformed as with a tone row, and in which individual notes may “function as pivotal elements, to permit overlapping statements of a basic cell or the linking of two or more basic cells”. The twelve-tone technique was also preceded by “nondodecaphonic serial composition” used independently in the works of Alexander Scriabin, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Carl Ruggles, and others. Oliver Neighbour argues that Bartók was “the first composer to use a group of twelve notes consciously for a structural purpose”, in 1908 with the third of his fourteen bagatelles. “Essentially, Schoenberg and Hauer systematized and defined for their own dodecaphonic purposes a pervasive technical feature of ‘modern’ musical practice, the ostinato”. The “strict ordering” of the Second Viennese school, on the other hand, “was inevitably tempered by practical considerations: they worked on the basis of an interaction between ordered and unordered pitch collections.” Rudolph Reti, an early proponent, says: “To replace one structural force (tonality) by another (increased thematic oneness) is indeed the fundamental idea behind the twelve-tone technique”, arguing it arose out of Schoenberg’s frustrations with free atonality, providing a “positive premise” for atonality. American composer Scott Bradley, best known for his musical scores for works like Tom & Jerry and Droopy Dog, utilized the 12-tone technique in his work. Bradley described his use thus: An example of Bradley’s use of the technique to convey building tension occurs in the Tom & Jerry short “Puttin’ on the Dog”, from 1944. In a scene where the mouse, wearing a dog mask, runs across a yard of dogs “in disguise”, a chromatic scale represents both the mouse’s movements, and the approach of a suspicious dog, mirrored octaves lower. Apart from his work in cartoon scores, Bradley also composed tone poems that were performed in concert in California. Rock guitarist Ron Jarzombek used a twelve-tone system for composing Blotted Science’s extended play The Animation of Entomology. He put the notes into a clock and rearranged them to be used that are side by side or consecutive. He called his method “Twelve-Tone in Fragmented Rows.”

Twin Cities hip-hop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Hip hop culture in the Twin Cities can be traced as far back as 1981. Similar to the development of hip hop in the South Bronx, Twin Cities rap started as parties with a DJ and an emcee. A DJ named Travitron is considered the “godfather” of hip hop in the Twin Cities, Graffiti and B-boy crews existed in the city. However, the first verifiable rap record to be released in Minnesota was “The Twin City Rapp,” a vinyl single on TwinTown Records released in 1985. It was produced and performed by David “T.C.” Ellis and C.T., and released by the Twin City Rappers.

Twist (dance)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Steps#

The twist is performed by standing with the feet approximately shoulder width apart. The torso may be squared to the knees and hips, or turned at an angle so one foot is farther forward than the other. The arms are held out from the body, bent at the elbow. The hips, torso, and legs rotate on the balls of the feet as a single unit, with the arms staying more or less stationary. The feet grind back and forth on the floor, and the dance can be varied in speed, intensity, and vertical height as necessary. Occasionally one leg is lifted off the floor for styling, but generally the dance posture is low and with the feet in contact with the floor with very little vertical motion. The moves include the mashed potato, swimming, drowning, twisting, arm swing and single leg twist. Another description of the moves popularized by Chubby Checker: 1. STANCE: Prizefighter position, one leg extended forward, and arms extended forward from the elbow. 2. MOVEMENT: Hips swivel from side to side as if rubbing oneself with a towel. Knees are bent slightly. As hips move left, arms move to the right, and vice versa. 3. FOOT MOVEMENT: Twist feet as if putting out a cigarette. Entire body moving forward and back and from side to side. According to Time magazine, “the dancers barely ever touch each other or move their feet. Everything else, however, moves. The upper body sways forward and backward and the hips and shoulders twirl erotically, while the arms thrust in, out, up and down with the pistonlike motions of baffled bird keepers fighting off a flock of attack blue jays.”

Two-tone (music genre)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The two-tone sound originated among young musicians in Coventry in the West Midlands of England, who grew up listening to 1960s Jamaican music. They combined influences from ska, reggae and rocksteady with elements of punk rock and new wave. Bands considered part of the genre include the Specials, the Selecter, Madness, the Beat, Bad Manners, the Bodysnatchers and Akrylykz. The Specials’ keyboard player Jerry Dammers coined the term “two-tone”. Dammers, with the assistance of Horace Panter and graphic designer John “Teflon” Sims, developed the iconic Walt Jabsco logo (a man in a black suit, white shirt, black tie, pork pie hat, white socks and black loafers) to represent the two-tone genre. The logo, based on an early album-cover photo of Peter Tosh, included an added black-and-white check pattern. Most of the bands considered to be part of the two-tone genre were signed to 2 Tone Records (operative 1979–1985) at some point. Other record labels associated with the two-tone sound were Stiff Records and Go Feet Records. The music was especially popular among skinheads, rudies and mod revivalists.

Twoubadou

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Twoubadou was developed in the early 20th century. It combined music derived from the guajiro traditions of Cuba, (which is related to the jibaro musical tradition of Puerto Rico) with a Haitian musical style called méringue. Twoubadou was brought back by Haitian migrant laborers who went to work as cutters on sugar plantations in Cuba who traveled back and forth to harvest the seasonal crop at the turn of the century. The instruments in the ensemble are portable, since most twoubadou had to carry all of their possessions back and forth between Haiti and the sugarcane fields abroad. It is characterized by the use of the following acoustic instruments such as an acoustic guitar or two, an accordion, and percussion instruments. It also features a pair of maracas or a graj (scraper), a tanbou (barrel drum), and a large lamellophone, with three to five keys called manibula, maniba, or malimba, (depending on the geographic region) that provides the sound of a bass guitar. True to the original Spanish troubadours, the music and its lyrics usually conjured up images of true love and lasting relationships. Haitian migrants have also shaped the musical styles in the areas where they worked. Tumba francesa is the Cuban term for Haitian-derived recreational drumming and dancing; the style is still practiced among expatriate Haitian cane cutters.