Funk Music Analysis

Style/Form/Concept | Characteristic features | Period | Jazz-funk | Fusion of jazz and funk-styles. Rhythm of funk music incorporated with jazz harmony and typical rock instruments. Improvisation used. | Twentieth century. | Serial/note row | Notes, pitches, rhythms, dynamics, etc., set into a specific order or fixed series. The twelve notes of the chromatic scale might be set into an order which created a series or note row. The series can be altered with techniques such as inversion, retrograde and retrograde inversion. Atonal music. | Twentieth century. | Musique concréte | Recorded music (edited recorded sounds) which is used in performance, as opposed to music which is written down for performance. Electronic music which is normally created in a studio or on a computer. | Twentieth century. | | | |
Groupings of two and three produce irregular accents and metres. | Twentieth century. | Microtone | Any interval noticeably smaller than a semitone, most often found in the music of Eastern European countries and also in Indian and Arabic music. It is sometimes used by contemporary classical composers. | Twentieth century. | Polytonality | The use of two or more keys played or sung at the same time, eg the melody might be in the key of C major whilst the accompaniment might be in E major. This device was used by many 20th-century composers, eg Bartok, Ives, Holst and Stravinsky. | Twentieth century. | Retrograde | To go backwards. A melody or a section of music can be written or performed from the end to the beginning. The texture of the music including the harmonies can be written or performed from the end to the beginning. Retrograde inversion means the music can be written or performed backwards and upside-down at the same time. These are called serial techniques. | Twentieth century. | | |