Renaissance Verses Baroque Period

It is known throughout time that music has changedLastly, some of the popular genres of renaissance
and evolved. Two particular periods to be discussedwere masses, motets, and madrigal. Masses were a
are the Renaissance period which is said to havesacred genre consisting of five movements sung
existed from 1450 to 1600 and the Baroque periodthroughout worship in catholic churches. Motets were
existing from 1600 to 1750. These periods havesacred and/or secular, polyphonic word painting with
some similarities and many differences, such as,emotional singing. Claudio Monteverdi was a famous
texture, medium, and genres.Italian madrigal composer and also one of the first
The common texture, (which is a relation betweenopera composers. Some of the popular genres of the
the melodic and harmonic aspects of music) is aBaroque period were the Opera, Suite and Oratorio.
characteristic of a period. First, the Renaissance andThe Opera was started by a group called the
Baroque both used polyphony, featuring many voices"Camerata" a society of friends who were musicians
and combines two or more independent melodiesand scholars. They put the words of stories into
heard simultaneously. The Baroque period used thismelodies and began the new texture Monody. The
texture preceding a new musical texture it introducedSuite was a multi-movement work; each movement
called Monody, which was simply a vocal melodywas based on a dance with steady rhythms and
accompanied by an instrument playing chords knownoften simpler homophonic texture. Oratorio, a genre
as the supporting continuo. The melody itself waswhich Handel single-handedly brings about as a
designed to suit and enhance the natural speechreplacement for opera had extended work for choir.
rhythms and accents with cues from the vocals.It also had, solo voices, orchestra, performance
Monody was a significant development of thewithout acting, costume or sets and was written for
Baroque period.both catholic and protestant audiences.
Secondly, Both periods used some of the sameIn conclusion, as you can see, the Renaissance and
instruments or (medium) such as, the keyboards,Baroque period had some things in common and had
organ and harpsichord, and certain instruments suchmany differences as music evolved such as texture,
as the clavichord was used more in renaissance musicinstruments and genres. Music periods will most likely
and the violin more is baroque music. But each periodalways change and evolve with time, some faster
had its feature instrument; the renaissance periodthan others. But as history has proven, it is inevitable
used a guitar like instrument called the Lute and evenbut that's the nature of evolution.
had genres specifically catering to this instrument likeTo learn how to play ANY style of music on one of
Ricecaris and Fantasias. Some great composers ofthe most popular instruments of today, the GUITAR
the Baroque period like J.S Bach used the harpsichordClick Here Now!
as a featured instrument in some of his work.