William Still's Music

Aaron Copland broke musical compositions into different categories. Modern compositions changed from the romantic era and classical era. Modern music took on a more artistic presence. There were different styles of music, i.e. impressionism, symbolism, expressionism, experimentation, and consonance & dissonance. During this period music can be confusing. Music can change time, tempo, dynamics, and mood very fast. This music can also be easy on the ears to quite difficult to listen to. “It is natural enough for the uninitiated to imagine that all problematic music may be safely damned under a single heading. But actually, even in the old days of "ultra-modern" music, a great many different kinds of music were grouped indiscriminately together,

Some of the other composers during this period are overpowering in the dynamics, rhythm, and tempo. Debussy’s music is more subtle. The piece of music I chose for the quite approachable is “Afro-American Symphony, IV” by William Still. Still’s work was quite approachable because his music related to so many people because of the subjects he chose. His music had this easy to listen to presence. It was smooth without being complicated by drastic changes. “Still’s music incorporates styles derived from blues and jazz, and his songs, operas, ballets, and symphonic works return again and again to African American subjects and stories.” (Kerman and Tomlinson) Still was able to create a distinct sound and style by taking a mixture of different music. “He 's already amazingly assured in handling orchestral sounds and adept at mingling the idioms of the blues with the unwieldy forces of a full orchestra.” (Morin) The fairly difficult piece of music I chose is “Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta” by Bela Bartok. This piece of music is fairly difficult because of everything that you hear. It can be overpowering because of all the instruments sounding as you are being pulled in a lot of directions during