Renaissance music

1. Renaissance music Caroline Ringo Anna Myers

2. How music impacted entertainment • Music was an important form of entertainment • Music was used to accommodate poems and such • They used music with plays • Music started to reflect moods and emotions • The early 1500’s saw the high point of the unique English liturgical style • Elizabethan music was so popular that every nobleman employed his own musicians

3. Different kinds of musicians and Music • Court Musicians/ music • Required a more refined sound • Nobles were expected to entertain their contemporaries and show their prowess in dancing • The range of music played at court varied from traditional to simple English ballads • House Musicians • Anyone in noble class was expected to be able to perform on an instrument and read music on sight • At least one house servant was to be able to play a musical instrument • Street music • Travelling minstrels and troubadours had passed with the bubonic plague • Strangers and travelers were looked upon with fear and suspicion • Street music was played at weekly markets and occasional fairs. • The instruments played to provide Elizabethan street music were light and easily carried • The songs sang were traditional favorites which was a far cry from the sophisticated and refined music of the court • Town music • Called Waits (equivalent to a town band) • Supplied with high-pitched popes or hautboy • Church Music • Was beautiful • Composers composed music for both church and court • Madrigal and the are were distinct styles used for voice • Included canzonets, ballets madrigals and sacred songs • Theater Music • The importance of music was reflected in plays of William Shakespeare • Each genre of play required a different emotion to be reflected in the music • As you like it contains six songs

4. Queen Elizabeth and music • Queen Elizabeth employed at least 70 musicians and singers • Music was being taught in schools and in universities • Queen Elizabeth was a patron of all arts • Encouraged composers and musicians • Taught how to play musical instruments as part of her education • Queen Elizabeth enjoyed dancing and practiced every morning • was a skilled musician of the lute and the virginal

5. How music evolved • It devolved into sophisticated and varied forms • The idea of accompanying plays with music was inspired • The introduction of musical instruments such as the early violin called the viola • The early oboe called the nautbal • And keyboard instruments such as the spinet, harpsichord and the virginals.

6. Elizabethan dance • Dancing was an extremely popular pastime during the Elizabethan era • Dancing Masters were suitably employed • Elizabethan dances differed between the Upper and Lower Classes • Upper Classes enjoyed new types of music at court. They had a taste for new music and new dances