A comparative analysis, with respect to the word-painting,of the track `Thus Saith the Lord´ from Handel’s ”Messiah” and the three tracks: `Thy hand Belinda; Darkness shades me´, `When I am laid in earth´ and  `With drooping wings ye cupids come´ from Purcell’s ”Dido and Aeneas”.

During the Baroque era there was a group of composers and academics known as ”the Florentine Camerata”. They had been formed since they thought that the voice was more important then the instrumental part of the music. This lead to the creation of recitatives. There are two types of recitatives: ”Recitativo secco” (sparse accompaniment, to the voice, by keyboard and bass) and also ”Recitativo accompagnato” (requiring a tighter rhythmic control).
The Opera was born 1607 when Claudio Moneverdi composed ”L’Orfeo”. This piece contained recitatives, solo vocal numbers, choruses instrumental dances and interludes. In time the ”Aria” also became an important part of the opera.

Handel was born in Germany in 1685. His father opposed music but allowed his son to take courses from a composer named Zachov. When the father passed away, Handel became a full time musician. Moved to Hamburg in 1703 and started playing second violin in the orchestra. Produced his first Opera, Amira, in 1705. Moved to Italy and learns a lot from big composers there, the following year. Moved to England 1710 and got an annual pension of £200 from Queen Anne (increased to £600 by his former ruler in Hanover). Became the director of a buisness venture producing Italian operas called ”Royal academy of music”. After eight years the academy had to close because of the  lack of support. He realized that Opera was declining in interest and started unwillingly produce dramatic Oratorios. He wrote 4 anthems for the coronation of George II (1727) which have been sung at every british coronation since then. Had a stroke 1737 but recovered and produced ”The Messiah” 1742. Died in London 1759.

In Handel’s piece ”Thus saith the lord” (part of the Messiah) he makes use of word-painting to emphasize the importance of certain words. The piece is a recitativo secco.  When singing ’shake’ the singer is emphasizing it using the devices of making it melismatic and descending. The second time he sings ”I will shake” he repeates it and makes ’shake’ melismatic (again). On the word ”come” he uses ”piú forte” (louder). He does this again on the word covenant but he makes it melismatic as well.

Henry Purcell was born in Westminster, England 1659.  Son to a courtmusician, bacame a chorister in the chapel royal at the age of ten. Started tuning the organ in Westminster abbey. Became the composer for the court violins in 1677. Became the abbey organist 3years later. Later organist at the chapel Royal (1682). Was James II’s harpsichord player and taught the aristocracy music. His only true opera was ”Dido and Aeneas”, written 1689. Died in London 1695 and was buried under the organ in Westinster Abbey. Famous for his skill in writing all the music kinds known at the time. Combined elements of French and Italian baroque and traditional English musical forms.

In Purcell’s piece ”Thy hand Belinda; Darkness shades me” (from ’Dido and Aeneas’) he makes some use of word painting. This piece is a recitative accompagnato with a basso continuo. When the singer sings ”darkness” he makes it melismatic”. When singing ”death” I believe it is a minor chord the second time, emphasizing the importance of the word this second time.
In Purcell’s piece ”When I am laid in earth” (from ’Dido and Aeneas’). This piece is an Aria. The singer repeats ”am laid”. He uses a tremólo for the words ”forget” and ”fate”. He sings ”ah” melismatic. The tremólo device is used again on the words ”wrongs” and ”create”.
In Purcell’s piece ”With drooping wings ye cupids come” (from ’Dido and Aeneas’),  a chorus, the singers goes up and then down again (pitch) on the word ”cupids”. The word ”never” is repeated several times, homo-phonically, with a break after. The words ”watch” and ”here” also had a break after them. While singing the word ”soft” they sings it soft and also repeat it several times. On ”droop” the singers use descending notes.

The use of melismatic devices is used by Purcell and Handel to emphasize certain words. Other things they have in common when word-painting is the descending notes (in the third piece by Purcell, ”droop”) and to repeat certain words/sentences. A technique used only by Handel is singing louder on the word which is meant to be emphasized. Purcell uses 3 devices that Handel does not make use of: tremólos, changing chord second time of word and having a break after the words which are to be emphasized.

[pic: CC-BY Steve Snodgrass ]

In this digital age we work more and more by ourselves from a distance. We still meet up every now and then, but a lot of our projects and work are done from home. Normally when there’s a group-project we do some of the work by ourselves at home and then meet up (or via e-mail) and compare what we have done in order to merge the texts into one document. This way of working makes us lose a lot of time on catching up and comparing documents to see what to merge.

In this digital age we need to make use of the technology available to make our work more effective. Working from a distance does not have to be ”solo” work anymore. Tools exist that allow us to collaborate in real-time with each other. I’ll here present 3 of the best collaboration tools: Etherpad, Skype and Dropbox.

Etherpad
This tool works as a collaborative real-time notepad. It allows several persons to work on the same word document at the same time and thereby eliminates the need to waste time on merging versions. It also makes the work more effective since you can directly get the input of others instead of having to wait for a meeting. Etherpad also allows chatting and keeps track of the changes you make which means you can go back to a previous version of the document if needed. The bad part about Etherpad is that it creates a tricky address to remember for your pad, BUT this can be solved by using an url shortener and making a custom name for the link. Etherpad recently decided they were going to close down the service but they made the code available which means you can find it at piratepad.net and a few other places now.

Skype
Sometimes it is hard to put your work into writing and sometimes you need a more direct feedback then the written word. This is when Skype comes to use. Skype is basically ip-telephony where you can call each other for free. It also allows transmission of your web-cam which means you can use body-language as well, if needed.

Dropbox
This tool helps you store all your files and documents in a secure way which is easily shareable. Dropbox works just as a normal folder on your desktop BUT it also uploads everything you put into the folder onto your account on the web. Thereby it eliminates the need for you to remember to make back-ups (which we NEVER remember). The other positive side is that you can install Dropbox on a second computer as well and then it synchronizes all the items in the Dropbox between the two computers! You can suddenly reach all the files needed on all your computers (as well as other, more temporary, computers through your account on the web). Dropbox also allows you to share folders between each other which means that ALL files made for the project group can be synchronized between each other.

These three tools are great for increasing productivity and efficiency in a group. Each one of these will help you a lot but the real synergy effect comes when you integrate the tools. An example of this could be:

Calling someone on Skype about the word document they just uploaded in the shared Dropbox folder and suggesting you two can  work a bit on the formulation on the introduction. I copy the text into a pad on Etherpad and start editing it in real-time together whilst talking over Skype, motivating the changes made to the document and discussing which one is best.

Do you have any other good collaboration tools that you use?

Edit: Collecting some more tools here