A
musician is a person who plays a musical instrument or is musically talented.
Anyone who composes, conducts, or performs music may be referred to as a musician.
A musician who plays a musical instrument is also known as an
instrumentalist.
Musicians can specialize in any musical style, and some musicians play in a variety of different styles depending on cultures and background. Examples of a musician's possible skills include performing, conducting, singing, rapping, producing, composing, arranging, and the orchestration of music.
Medieval musicians
In the
Middle Ages, instrumental musicians performed with soft
Musical ensemble inside and
Loudness instruments outdoors. Many European musicians of this time catered to the Roman Catholic Church, and they provided arrangements structured around
Gregorian chant structure and Masses from church texts.
Notable musicians
Renaissance musicians
Renaissance musicians produced music that could be played during masses in churches and important chapels. Vocal pieces were in
Latin—the language of church texts of the time—and typically were
Polyphonic or "made up of several simultaneous
Melody." By the end of the 16th century, however,
patronage split among many areas: the
Catholic Church,
Protestant churches, royal courts, wealthy amateurs, and music printing—all provided income sources for composers.
Notable musicians
-
Giovanni Palestrina
-
Giovanni Gabrieli
-
Thomas Tallis
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Claudio Monteverdi
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Leonardo da Vinci
Baroque musicians
The
Baroque period (about 1600 to 1750) introduced heavy use of
counterpoint and
basso continuo characteristics. Vocal and instrumental "color" became more important compared with the
Renaissance style of music, and emphasized much of the volume, texture and pace of each piece.
Notable musicians
Classical musicians
Classical music was created by musicians who lived during a time of a rising middle class. Many middle-class inhabitants of France at the time lived under long-time absolute monarchies. Because of this, much of the music was performed in environments that were more constrained compared with the flourishing times of the
Renaissance and
.
Notable musicians
Romantic musicians
The foundation of Romantic period music coincides with what is often called the
age of revolutions, an age of upheavals in political, economic,
Society, and military traditions. This age included the initial transformations of the Industrial Revolution. A revolutionary energy was also at the core of
Romanticism, which quite consciously set out to transform not only the theory and practice of poetry and art, but the common perception of the world. Some major Romantic Period precepts survive, and still affect modern culture.
Notable musicians
20th to 21st centuries
The world transitioned from 19th-century
Romanticism to 20th century
Modernism, bringing major musical changes. In 20th-century music, composers and musicians rejected the emotion-dominated
Romantic period, and strove to represent the world the way they perceived it. Musicians wrote to be "...objective, while objects existed on their own terms. While past eras concentrated on
spirituality, this new period placed emphasis on physicality and things that were concrete."
The advent of audio recording and mass media in the 20th century caused a boom of all kinds of music—pop, electronic music, dance, rock, folk music, country music and all forms of classical music.[Blanning, Tim "The Triumph of Music; The Rise of Composers, Musicians and Their Art" Harvard University Press 2008, ]
See also
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