Hayden Murphy

Time and Place: At home 6:30 p.m.

Date: October 14, 2015
GAP Teacher Comment Draft
Audience: My audience is people who do not normally listen to music without words. I want to
explain that music can be felt instead of just being heard. I also want to explain how culture
affects music overtime.
Preface
I chose this particular text for the GAP for many reasons. Firstly I wanted to be unique
compared to my other classmates who chose songs with words and a clear message. I wanted to
go deeper into the aspect of music being a text. I wanted to explain how music with no lyrics at
all could still be interpreted as a text. Secondly, I have always loved this composition. It is
probably my favorite classical piece.
The group conference impacted developing ideas for the GAP by observing how my
peers analyzed their texts and came up with lines of inquiry. I also saw how they described the
setting their text gave at points and made the changing of musical environments a huge part of
my analysis.
After peer review, I gave more details about the history of the time period so that it would
be easier to see how the culture at the time could affect the text in the way it does. I also added
some definitions to musical terms in parenthesis as they did not make since to someone who had
never used musical terms before.
It was very difficult to create a line of inquiry for a piece of music without words.
However, I knew enough about the piece and its history to develop the idea of Gershwins
choices of style throughout the song. I then tried to put myself in Gershwins shoes and see how
these styles represented the culture and genres of music in America to me. I used this thought to
develop support for my line of inquiry.
I think the strengths of the GAP are how I interpreted the feelings of the musical
environments and how those environments represented their corresponding genre. I feel that my
attention to the contrasts of the piece were strong overall.
I think its weaknesses are that I could still use more detail for instrumentation, as well as
change of energies throughout the song.

The American Rhapsody

The Arts and Music constantly change in response to cultural changes. The United States
of America is a perfect representation of this fact. In the 1920s, the United States of Americas
culture had changed tremendously. The American Dream had inspired new, original
inventions. In response to this, the American genre of music changed drastically with the
invention of the genres Jazz and Blues. George Gershwin, one of the most well-known modern
composers of his time, decided to compose a piece that would summarize the American genre of
music as a whole. His composition was given the name Rhapsody in Blue and was the most
widely acclaimed piece of its time. The song can be analyzed by its different movements
containing the genres of Jazz, Blues, Classical, and Traditional music. This leads me to question
why Gershwin felt that these genres all explained American culture and music at the time.
Jazz and Blues are the most influential genres in Rhapsody in Blue as they were the first
genres of music to ever be created in America. Due to this, the entire first movement or the
opener of Rhapsody in Blue has mainly Jazz and Blues styles. The piece opens with a clarinet
wailing a glissando (gradual bending of a pitch) until it final reaches the first note of the piece.
At this moment, a soft accompaniment enters, and can be heard below the main clarinet soloists
voice. Both the accompaniment and clarinet use the swing style when playing eighth notes.
The opener continues with a trumpet later taking over the solo in sort of a call and response
style to the clarinet. The trumpet uses a mute to allow its tone to be in that of a blues manner.
This transforms the feel of the environment from that of a concert to a crowded ball/bar feel with
a small group of instruments playing pianissimo background music. The piece continues with
the piano soloist leading to the entire group of wind and string instruments playing the main
theme of Rhapsody in Blue. Brass instruments provide loud accents that sound above the

instruments, while the strings give build to the percussion entries during rests. This transforms
the environment back into the feel of a full ensemble performance in a concert setting.
In the next movement of Rhapsody in Blue, piano soloist dominates the stage entirely.
Dynamics constantly change from soft, interesting filler parts of the solo to loud and forceful
playing of the main theme on piano only. Due to the nature of the instrument, although the song
is remaining in the same style of the opener, the pianos independence creates a piano recital
environment to the audience. The entire audience is focused on the pianist as they singlehandedly perform all parts of the song an entire ensemble had played before. Eventually the
piano leads back into the entire orchestra to crescendo (play with a gradual increase of volume) a
chord, which leads to the main theme again.
The third and fourth movements can be described together as both are extremely different
from the first half of the peace. The orchestra begins to play an entirely new theme with the
piano playing the melody. The theme is filled with strong moving lines in the string sections.
This movement makes the listener feel like they are in large, bustling cities such as New York.
Although some rhythms are swung, it is a lively, classical tune. This dance-like tune soon
becomes a traditional chorale in the fourth movement. The string instrumentation takes over
entirely and gives the audience goosebumps and it pushes and pulls the tension of the song. This
part of the song makes the audience feel warm and relaxed rather than the previous frantic feel.
The tempo is slowed down in this movement to that which the average chorale of the time would
be played. Eventually, the pianist takes over once again and leads the orchestra into a grand
finale as they play the loudest and dragged out version of the main theme in the entire piece. The
song ends with the entire orchestra playing a final accented, short chord.

The composition Rhapsody in Blue was truly a masterpiece in its time. It incorporated
not just the genres of the time, but the environment those genres brought with them. Whether it
was the feel of living in the big city heading to work, relaxing at a popular bar with some friends,
or paying to see a symphony orchestra. Gershwin used all of these details to give his listeners
the experience of modern America through music. George Gershwins goal of creating a piece to
summarize American music and culture was an absolute success.