Johannes Brahms

Essential Questions (all students answer these questions)
1. What is Romanticism? (It has many definitions, and is many things.)
Romanticism in music is a term that refers to a particular period, theory, compositional practice and canon in European music history from around 1815 to 1910. Romanticism stressed the importance of feelings, imagination and self-expression.

2. How does your subject fit into the world of Romanticism (their work, their life)
Johannes Brahm was a German composer and pianist. The period of Romanticism was mainly about classical music and Johannes Brahm fit in very well.

3. Are there elements or aspects of your subject that are not romantic in nature?
His music was mostly absolute music, which do no illustrate feelings at all.

1. Was Brahms considered to be a composer of programmatic or absolute music?
Brahms was considered to be a composer of absolute music rather than programmatic music.

2. Why are Brahms' four symphonies considered to be his "four perfect symphonies"
Brahms’ four symphonies are considered to be his four perfect symphonies because he spent an extremely long time on them. The first symphony took him 14 years to finish and it very perfect.

3. Brahms had open animosity with a certain composer. Who was it and why?
Brahms had a certain animosity towards Richard Wagner who was the principal figure of New German School where Brahms attended and was labeled as old fashioned. Brahms admired Wagner’s compositions but there were conflicts between the two schools, known as the War of the Romantics. In 1860, Brahms attempted to organize a public protest against some of Wagernians’ music.

Erik Satie

Eric Satie
1. How deeply rooted into society was this music or person at the time it was created (or when the person was alive and producing?)
Eric Satie was born on May 17, 1866, and died July 1st 1925. His first composition was in 1884. His music uses very simple with repeating notes but is still complicated at the same time. He was the precursor of minimalism and repetitive music inspiring many.

2. How important or relevant is this music now in 2009? Who listens to it?
Satie’s music is very popular and is normally used for sheet music now days. Satie’s music is usually

3. Is this music universal in appeal or is it very specific to a particular time, place, and culture, or audience?
Erik Satie’s music was mainly particular to the western part of the world. His work is used for piano sheets because it uses very simple notes and is repetitive.

4. Is it easy to hear that this music is directly related to music that came before it, or is it difficult to find a connection to the past?
It is easy to hear that this music is directly related to music that came before it, because it is classical music and was not entirely a new type of music.

5. Is this music related to or influenced by other art forms, or is it's content related to non-musical things (such as politics, society, race, class)
His music has influenced the art forms of minimalism and repetitive music that would soon become very popular. His songs were repetitive and simple, which were the beginning steps to minimalism.

a. What is his most famous work?
His most famous work would be the Gymnopedies which were three piano compositions, each piece is fairly short. These pieces are all written on 3/4 time and each share the same structure. These pieces were based on Latour poetry. The Gymnopedies were the first compositions where Eric Satie tried to cut from the 19th century “salon music” environment. The first Gymnopedie was published in 1888.

b. What is the story?
His work was based upon the work of the poet J.P. Contamine de Latour who wrote Les Antiques (The Ancient).The exact idea intended by Contamine de Latour still remains unknown and there are suggestions that the ideas are about: dance, antiquity, nudity and welfare.

c. Name some of his most famous songs.
Some of his most famous songs are the First Gymnopedie, Second Gymnopedie, and Third Gynopedie.

d. What is different or unique about his songs?
His songs are very simple, and use very little notes, a lot of repeating is done. He was the beginning

Out of the three Gymnopedies I think that the best one is the Third Gymnopedie.

why are stereotypes and cliques hurtful?

Stereotyping and cliques are hurtful because people can get left out and their feelings can get hurt. Cliques are small group of people who share the same interests and spend time together and don't allow others to easily join their group. Cliques can be hurtful because new people can get left out, and trying to join the clique.
Stereotyping is a widely held, fixed and oversimplified idea of a large group of people. Examples of stereotyping is saying that all Africans can run fast, and all Asians are good at maths. These types of stereotypes can hurt people, because if they don't meet up to the stereotype, people doubt them.

glass field trip

Today we went to visit the very exciting glass factory near our school.
Inside the factory, there was a lot of machinery and was extremely loud. It was really hot inside since they were melting glass at 1500 degrees Celsius. The machinery looked really dangerous but the workers worked very smoothly, hardly anyone has been hurt in the glass factory, since they all know how dangerous it can be.
The two kinds of people that work in the glass factory is the manager and the workers.
The manager chose to open this factory in Hsinchu because Hsinchu produces a lot of silicon and natural gas. The workers are all very professional and know how to do their job.
The steps that we saw them do, was first melting the glass, and using a long metal stick to twirl it around. Then they made their adjustments to the shape, this had to be very quick as the melted glass was constantly drooping down. They would then put it over a blue flame which i think was to harden the glass. The glass sculpture was then given to other works to add the finishing touches.
Overall, I found this trip was fun, and it was really interesting to watch the workers working with glass.

10th November

types of citizens
A native citizen is someone who was born in the country, therefore they are already a citizen of the country. A naturalized citizen is someone who moved to another country, and has to fill out documents to become a citizen of that country.
We are a citizen of our houses, families, communities, countries, and the world. We have certain duties to do when we are a citizen of an organization.

Some of our class rules that we discussed were:
1) No talking out of turn
2) Sit up and pay attention.
3) Have respect and a positive attitude
4) Cooperate with each other, and give help

i am a citizen of

i am a citizen of:
my family
-i need to obey my parents when they tell me to do something
h.i.s
-i need to work hard, and get good grades
country
-i need to be a good citizen, follow the values and the law
the world
-i need to do good and achieve in life.

Smokey Mountain

Smokey Mountain is a huge mountain of garbage. Poverty was found everywhere there, people literally lived in the garbage. The people that lived there, survived on the garbage, selling things they find, and using it to buy rice to support their ever-growing family.
When a huge landslide occurred, the government decided to stop garbage trucks from dumping their garbage there, everything went wrong. All the families were not able to keep themselves standing. Thousands of people died during the landslide, and their houses all were crushed under the garbage. But when the government closed it down, they were not able to find anymore valuables to sell, and because of that, they weren't able to buy food! Each family had many children, and it was very hard to support them.
The film: "God's Children", showed all the troubles that each family had to go with. They had dirty water, lack of food, dirty supplies, and so on. This really showed everyone that they should appreciate what everyone already has, and lot of people are a lot more poor than us!