This program illustrates how color is created and varied using different key centers.

This program illustrates how color is created and varied using different key centers.

Major and Minor Modes

Go to the Library webpage. https://www.caldwell.edu/library

Click “Videos & Music” in Advanced Search Box.

Click “Films on Demand” – Search for “The Score: Classical Music Appreciation Through Listening Series”

Choose:Milhaud: Boeuf sur le Toit (The Ox on the Roof)

 Watch this short video at least 2 times.

Description:  This program illustrates how color is created and varied using different key centers. Notice the reference to the white and black keys on the piano keyboard.  A number of melodies played by different instruments are all set in the key of C major.

When the piece is played in its entirety listen for chromatic passages, that is, scale figures moving by half-steps.

The main theme is in C major, the oboe introduces a second melody in C minor.  Besides the mode (Major versus minor), what else changes?

Can you point out the main theme each time it returns?

Can you tell what meter the piece is in – duple or triple?

  1. Music: Keys
  • Key of C major – all white keys on the piano

 

  1. Music: Major and Minor Keys
  • Key of C minor – uses white and black keys on the piano
  • Other major keys – sound similar to each other
  1. Milhaud’s Boeuf sur le Toit
  • Tunes introduced in different keys
    • Tutti – C major
    • Oboe – C minor
    • Violins – also in C minor (other instruments are playing now as well)
    • Tutti – First melody in E-flat major
    • Oboe and Violins – move to E-flat minor

 

Answer preview this program illustrates how color is created and varied using different key centers.

This program illustrates how color is created and varied using different key centers.

APA
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