Listening Activity: Baroque and Classical Muisc

This listening activity is a follow-up to the lecture presented on 8 August, 2015. At the end of the overall unit I would like students to be able to listen to a piece of music that they have never heard before and be able to make an educated guess about when that piece of music was written:

Unfortunately the distinction between the different musical eras is often blurry. In fact musicologists do not even agree upon the labels nor the dates. This is why I would like our students to develop a more nuanced understanding of the topic than the laundry list of features that many of us had to memorize in music school.

The lecture on August 8 focused on comparing Baroque and Classical era music. Below I have embedded several of the musical comparisons that we used in class. On the left are the Baroque examples and on the right are the Classical examples. Each horizontal row features two pieces of music that have many similarities despite being written in different eras. On the right side I have listed some comments about the similarities.

The assignment

Students should please scan through each of the examples and begin to make their own observations in their own words. Students can refer to the note catcher from 25 July for potentially helpful vocabulary words however this list is not exhaustive. Additionally I would prefer it if students did not just "google" the answers. I am weary of generalizations and I want students to use their own words to understand this topic. The big picture is I want all of the students at our next lecture on 22 August to be able to discuss what makes Baroque music Baroque and what makes Classical Classical. 

"Music is the same and music is different"