Another feature that was common in Baroque music was ornamentation. Ornamentation is the use of non-necessary musical flourishes, such as trills and grace notes, to the basic melody or harmony. These extra notes, which are not needed in order to carry the basic line of the music, “decorate” the music the way ornaments decorate a Christmas tree. During the Baroque period, many composers used extensive ornamentation in their pieces. For example, trills are rapid changes from the indicated note in the melody to the note that is a tone or semitone above. Grace notes are notes that are not counted in the total time value. They are often written in smaller type.
Baroque music also tends to focus on one emotion in a single piece (or perhaps one movement within a larger multi-piece movement). For example, a Baroque piece might seek to capture the emotion of happiness or of sadness, but not both. The emotion that the piece is trying to capture or describe is the music’s effect. It was not until the Classical period that composers frequently contrasted two or more emotions within the same piece.
One important development during the Baroque period was the modern orchestra. Orchestras are larger instrumental ensembles or groups that contain brass, string, percussion, and woodwind instruments. When we think of classical music today, we often think of the music played by orchestras. Although orchestras developed before the Baroque period, it was not until this time that composers actually began to write music specifically for the orchestra. Many of the instruments that made up orchestras during this period are instruments that we would recognize as being played today. For example, the stringed instruments that are common today in orchestras, such as violins and the cello, were created during the Baroque period. Pianos were also developed from earlier keyboard instruments.
Forms of Baroque Music
As with the previous periods of music, Baroque music featured a number of different forms or types of music. Music scholars call the plan that a composer has in mind when composing a piece of music a form. Form helps to give structure to a composition, and composers often combined one or more forms of music as they created new types of music.