Understanding music

Texture

 

The texture of a piece of music is its overall feel or sound quality and is determined by the combination of all other elements of music. Some music has an overall feeling of thinness or thickness. The sound of a solo recorder is different to that of a full orchestra. The texture of music can be heavy or light, even though it may be thick. This may depend, for example, on whether layers of sound have a higher or lower pitch. Texture can be rough or smooth. The overlay of tone colours in addition to the articulation of sounds affects texture. For example plucking the notes on a violin (pizzicato) creates a different texture to bowing the notes (arco). Texture also involves the way harmonies are structured (see the element of Pitch). Most music has changing textural effects throughout.

Examples

Australian fusion band, Visions of a Nomad, combine a range of textures in their music, drawing on an eclectic mix of instruments and styles. Listen to ‘Mirabooka’.

The Girl with the Flaxen Hair, by Claude Debussy, is largely melodic or counter-melodic with chords, but sustains a smooth and flowing feel throughout. Search for Duncan Gifford’s interpretation (The Essential Piano, ABC, 2009).

Hans Zimmer chose a range of unusual instruments to create a textural feel of both the past and intrigue in his ‘Theme from Sherlock Holmes: Discombobulate’, (Watertower Music, 2009)

Ideas for learning about texture

Lower primary

Antonio Vivaldi creates a vivid feeling of shivering in ‘Winter’ from his Four Seasons: Ask students to compare the texture from the first movement of ‘Winter’ with the second. What techniques have been used on strings to create the different textural effects in each section? How do the feelings evoked in each movement differ? Encourage students to draw visual images to represent different aspects of winter you envisage for each movement.

Students create their own musical expression of ‘cold’. They then create a contrasting piece evoking ‘heat’. They may wish to listen to Steve Reich’s ‘The Desert Music’ for inspiration, or David Bridie’s ‘Wires’.

Upper primary

Dawn Mantras, by Ross Edwards was written for the global dawn vigil held to celebrate the arrival of the new millennium. It is full of symbolism in its use of ancient and modern sounds representing our Indigenous inhabitants, European inhabitants and the relatively new influences of Asia in particular. The feature sounds are produced with air – our life source. Students research the use of language in the piece.

They talk about how the instruments are interwoven to create unique textures, including depth and height of pitch and the overlaying feel of combined instruments. They draw, write about or record their ideas about the symbolism used in the piece.

Students compare the texture in Edvard Grieg’s ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ interpreted by the Hallé Orchestra (The Classic Experience, 2009) with Apocalyptica’s texture when interpreting the same piece.

Secondary school students

Students describe the differences vocal tone colours make to the texture of ‘Oh Sister’, an homage to a sister by post hardcore Australian band, Storm the Sky.

Ask students to listen to the theme music from Newsroom by Thomas Newman. What is the intention of the texture in this theme? What impact does the composer wish it to have on the audience? Ask students to compare this music to other news themes and talk about what such themes have in common. They can explore or research how each of the elements of music is used and record the similarities and differences (type in ‘news themes’ on YouTube). They can use an e-portfolio to record their findings as a profile of ‘news themes’ based on their research, addressing each element of music.

Students then create their own news theme based on the profiles they have created and perform their work with an actual news program. They may use a digital audio workstation (DAW) to compose their work and synch it directly to a news program or perform an acoustic composition live with a news introduction program in the background. Listen to Australian composer Burkhard Dallwitz’s ‘Underground Storm’ from the film The Truman Show.

The texture of the music alters in different parts. Ask students to describe the changes between sections. As they look at the images, ask students to write about or discuss in groups what they think is happening. Share ideas with other groups in the class and look for common features in the responses. Play a completely different piece of music with the imagery, for example, The Atlantics’ ‘Bombora’ (100 Greatest Australian Singles of the ’60s, Warner, 2015) and ask students to comment on the difference it makes to what they feel the images are expressing.

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