Concerts Across Time
Kendrick Shepard
MUSI200
American Military University
November 29, 2015
Introduction
The performer that I watched in a pop music concert is named PJ Morton. He is a keyboardist and vocalist, who performed with what looked like the helping of a full band. There were two baroque concerts that I watched. The first was entitled “Little Baroque Suite”, whereas the second one was entitled “Une Fete Baroque”. On the whole I did not enjoy these concerts very much. I certainly did not enjoy the first two I have listed in this document. I found Morton’s music and songwriting to be extremely bland, if not boring. This sentiment applied doubly so to “Little Baroque Suite”. The music was extremely staid and just seemed to plod (if not march) along. The concert I liked best was “Une Fete Baroque”, mostly because the various musicians and vocalists (and the conductor, especially) in this concert actually performed, complete with dancing and a number of props. The music was pedestrian, I thought, but the performance made it somewhat entertaining in terms of simply viewing a concert.
The music differs from the baroque era and now in a couple of ways. On the one hand, contemporary music is a lot less formal. This fact is denoted especially in the lyrics, which may contain vulgarity or simply celebrations of mundane things. A good example of this fact is the tradition of the blues which much contemporary music—including both rhythm and blues and rock and roll—continues to a certain degree. Baroque music is a lot more formal. There are certain selections (such as everything that was performed in “Little Baroque Suite”) that are just so boring and dull sounding. There was a certain vivacity, of course, but it is a lot more rigid than the music of contemporary times.
Additionally, a primary difference between baroque and contemporary music is the percussion involved. Percussion, including kicks and snares in...