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LITR 4326
Early American Literature Research Posts 2016 (research post assignment) Research Post 1 |
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Nathan Mesloh
3-6-16
If it Isn’t Baroque Don’t Fix it
For this first
research post I decided to expand my horizons some and research the Baroque
period, which I am not very familiar with or interested in. Because of how
influential the period is, though, I decided it would be in my best interest to
take this opportunity, and see just how some of what I may love today is around
because of the Baroque style. To be specific, this assignment is going to look
at the musical aspect of Baroque art. To try and find a starting point of what
exactly it is, I took a look at the course site term page for Baroque Music, as
I noticed this had its own separate page from the term Baroque itself. According
to the page, Baroque music is the start of what we now call “classical music,”
which gives a decent idea of where to go from here. So now all that needs to be
discovered is just how the Baroque music influenced the music of today.
My first step
was a very unexpected one, but a fantastic surprise. As a very brief background,
I have a friend who is in the process of making a movie and he has a composer
who is going to be writing the score to the movie for him. This composer is
Nathan McCree, who composed the score for the first three Tomb Raider video
games. I decided to try and use this connection to reach out to McCree and see
if he would do an interview with me over Facebook, and he was.
My first
question to McCree was very simply put if he was ever inspired by any Baroque
artists, which he said he was by Bach, Vivaldi, and others for a track titled
Venice in Tomb Raider 2. When asked if he was able to give specifics on how any
one artist influenced him, he was unable to do so, and said “I listened to a
load of music from both composers so the Baroque style (textures and harmonies)
were fresh in my head, and then after about a day's research listening, I
started writing the piece.” To follow that I asked if any one song was more
influential than the other he replied that none were, because all he was trying
to do was to get “an overall picture of style and harmonic structure.” To finish
everything off, I asked him why he chose Baroque works to help him write this
piece, and he responded by saying “many of the Baroque composers lived or
studied in Venice, and as Lara Croft was going to Venice I wanted to capture the
flavor of that city in the music. Venetian Baroque music seemed to me to be the
obvious choice.”
One major influence I
can think of is what I now realize is obvious, The Beatles were fairly
influenced by Bach. Now whether or not The Beatles can be considered “modern” by
being a band from the 1960s, they were perhaps the most influential band of all
time, still inspiring bands today. In fact The Beatles were so influenced that a
man by the name of Joshua Rifkin released an album titled The Baroque Beatles
Book, in which he takes some of The Beatles songs, and sings them over songs
from the Baroque era to show just how well it fits (nonesuch.com).
After finding this I remembered that during one of our classes during the web
presentation for Baroque music, the website
baroque.org
was brought up, and it even has a brief paragraph about Baroque music in the
modern world. One point mentioned there was that Bach and Vivaldi frequently
appear in solos of heavy metal guitarists.
From what
I can tell Baroque music has brought so many things I enjoy into my life that I
cannot begin to count how many there are. Baroque music influenced the modern
era through bands who inspired countless other bands, video games, and movies.
While I may not enjoy just sitting down and listening to music from the Baroque
era, I have learned to appreciate what the composers brought to the world.
Without them this would be a very different and even stranger place. I think if
I were to continue this research I would likely try to contact and interview
more composers to find out their influence of this music.
Sources:
http://www.nonesuch.com/albums/the-baroque-beatles-book
http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/xhist/BaroqueMusic.htm
http://www.baroque.org/baroque/whatis#modern
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