TREBLE DOMINATED STYLE

Hoday!

Shall I dare to compare something from our great musical past to something as trivial as today's pop music?

Let's go back to the 2nd Generaton Renaissance. Ca. 1433-1494 during the time of Dufay and Dunstable, the 2nd Gen-Ren changed the face of earlier music to reflect a Treble Dominated Style.

What is Treble Dominated Style? Well it's an emphasis of the top voice over the other voices that act in support. To make it simple, it's the same as the solo voice over the harmony of other voices or perhaps instrumental solists playing over the rest of the band.

There you have it - Jazz, Pop, Rock, and Country Music all contain elements of The Treble Dominated Style!

Perhaps the style did not directly influence today's music but when you look at pieces like Vergene Bella, a 15th century motet, look at how the melody rhythmically follows the text, even though the syllables of the other voices are a little complicated you can still see a solo voice over accompaniment voices. Also notice the last syllable, or the penultimate syllable, you'll see long melismas that drives to a cadence. This was the first time in history that humans began matching the melodic line with the length of text to the point of a cadence or what is also known as a climax.

Does this say that music of today originated out of music of yesturday? It certainly says that Guillaume Dufay was a prominent figure in our music history!


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