Charles Ives was the first composer we discussed in this course. Ives lived in Danbury, Connecticut most of his life and many of his compositions are based on his life and experiences in Danbury. Since Ives’ father was musician, he was able to study a wide variety of instruments, but he had a different perspective when composing. Ives’ music is often described as poly-stylism, meaning each piece contains multiple style of music. This same effect is in nature. There are constantly combinations of sounds in our environment. Ives used the combination of sounds to create his pieces. In third movement of Three Places in New England, Ives is reflecting on a walk he and his wife took on the Housatonic River during their honeymoon. This is a great example of Ives’s trying to capture a moment in nature. This piece has two major elements, the atmospheric sound of water, mist, and nature, as well as the distant sound of hymns being sung at a church. …show more content…
His pieces create a sound world unlike anything heard before. They are so unique that he created his own notation when composing each piece. Crumb loves the sounds of nature and he imitates these sounds in his music. In the piece, Vox Balaenae, Crumb imitates the sounds of humpback whales. He does not try to transcribe the whale calls, rather he used them as a starting point for this piece. In this piece, an amplified flute, amplified cello, and an amplified piano imitate the sounds of a whale and the other sounds one may hear when whale watching. For example, the cellist uses special effects to create a seagull effect. George Crumb’s music elicited the sounds of nature, but he used theatrical elements to further convey this idea. In this piece, he asked the performers to use a deep blue light to evoke a nonhuman atmosphere, and wear masks that covered their eyes to represent the impersonal forces of nature. Crumb did a great job of using the sounds in nature to create a new