Member-only story
about Music: Element 2 — Duration (Part 1)
Introduction to “about Music”: the Art of Listening: Element 2: Duration
As preparation to this part about the second musical element, Duration , please listen to:
Stravinsky: Finale — Suite from the Firebird. (3:01)
You have just listened to the final section of the Firebird, a ballet interpretation by Stravinsky of the Firebird of Russian folklore. I’m sure you agree that the slow, and yet very strong rhythms and chords of this finale form a very dramatic ending.
In general, the word duration simply means how long something lasts. We could talk about how many minutes long the music is, or a section of the music. But in the context of music, we are talking at a micro level about the amount of time that each individual note lasts. Without this aspect, every song or composition would simply be a steady string of equal length notes without shape. The moment we start to add variety to the length of the notes, we start to create rhythm. The concept of rhythm, in turn, leads us to that fundamental that we loosely call “the beat”.
