Voiles By Claude Debussy Essay

The first song is ‘Voiles’ composed by Claude Debussy. It is a 20th century piece in the Impressionism genre. There is only a piano in this piece, which is unique to the whole tone or Diatonic scale harmony used by Debussy. There are three melodic ideas presented throughout the piece. The first idea has no markings towards beat, the second melodic idea is joined with the first. After the one minute mark, the third melodic idea sets in and it starts to build up then trails off. Next, the song moves back to the second melodic theme, a transition, and returns to the second theme, and ends on the first melodic idea (Campbell 266). Debussy uses a 2/4 Duple Meter for the rhythm and purposely disguises the down beat because he follows his inspiration and blurs the lines of what music should be. There is a homophonic and polyphonic texture to this piece. In section A have a homophonic texture while, section B has a polyphonic texture. The timbre of the piece is piano however, Debussy plays the piano in a way to stop the natural percussive sound of the piano. The dynamics of the song are piano or pianissimo though, the transition towards to end is forte. The piece as a whole is in an ABA form and the word-music relationship is inspired by the paintings at the time that had blurred lines and soft sounds. Debussy used these paintings as inspiration for the …show more content…
The B section fits the standard ABA section for the time it was written and has an impressionism style that was very popular at the time. It incorporates a new scale, whole tone, and expanded instrumental techniques, which were big steps for 20th century pieces. The song ‘Take Five,’ follows the expected jazz performance perfectly as it has a defined A section in the beginning that repeats after an improvised B section. This is the expected jazz structure. It also has expected instruments such as piano, drums and