PRAXIS 5114 · COURSE
Praxis 5114 Music: Content and Instruction course
12 guided lessons across 4 sections. Read the first chapter free — no account needed.
FREE CHAPTER
Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Music
History questions on the 5114 give you a style trait and ask for the period or composer. Learn each period's fingerprints.
Key words
- Monophonic
- A texture with a single melody line and no accompaniment. — e.g. Gregorian chant.
- Word painting
- Music that imitates the meaning of the text. — e.g. A rising melody on 'heaven.'
- Basso continuo
- A Baroque bass line played with chords filled in by a keyboard or lute. — e.g. Harpsichord and cello under a melody.
- Terraced dynamics
- Sudden shifts between loud and soft with no gradual change. — e.g. A Baroque concerto alternating forte and piano.
- Fugue
- A piece in which a subject is introduced and imitated in several voices. — e.g. Bach's Little Fugue in G minor.
MEDIEVAL (ABOUT 500-1400)
Gregorian chant is monophonic (one melody line), sung in Latin, unaccompanied, using church modes with flexible rhythm. Hildegard of Bingen wrote chant. Organum added a second voice to chant (Leonin and Perotin at Notre Dame). Machaut wrote polyphonic masses and secular songs.
RENAISSANCE (ABOUT 1400-1600)
Smooth, imitative polyphony (voices enter one after another with the same idea), mostly a cappella sacred music. Josquin and Palestrina wrote masses and motets. The madrigal is a secular vocal piece that uses word painting (music that imitates the text, like a rising line on 'ascending').
BAROQUE (ABOUT 1600-1750)
Basso continuo (a bass line plus a chord instrument like harpsichord reading figured bass), terraced dynamics (sudden loud and soft, no gradual crescendo), ornamentation, and driving steady rhythm. Opera was born (Monteverdi).
BAROQUE FORMS AND COMPOSERS
Fugue (a subject imitated in several voices), concerto grosso (small group vs. full orchestra), oratorio (sacred story, unstaged, like Handel's Messiah), cantata, and suite of dances. Bach (fugues, Brandenburg Concertos), Handel (Messiah), and Vivaldi (The Four Seasons).
Remember this
- Medieval: monophonic chant, church modes, organum.
- Renaissance: imitative polyphony, a cappella, madrigals with word painting.
- Baroque: basso continuo, terraced dynamics, ornaments.
- Baroque forms: fugue, concerto grosso, oratorio, opera.
- Bach, Handel, Vivaldi are Baroque.
Baroque = Bass line + Big jumps in volume (Basso continuo, terraced dynamics).
Every lesson in the course
I. Music History and Theory
29%- Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque MusicFree
- Classical, Romantic, and 20th-Century Music
- Jazz, American Popular Music, and World Music
- Theory Essentials: Scales, Keys, Intervals, Chords, and Cadences
- Form, Texture, Timbre, Tempo, and Listening Analysis
II. Performance
21%- Conducting and Score Preparation
- Rehearsal Technique, Error Detection, Tuning, and Balance
- Vocal and Instrumental Technique and Acoustics
III. Instruction, Professional Issues, and Technology
25%- Music Education Approaches and the National Core Arts Standards
- Planning, Classroom Management, Assessment, and Differentiation
- Professional Issues, Copyright, and Technology
IV. Instructional Activities
25%- Instructional Activities: Constructed-Response Strategy