What are some differences between Bach and Marsalis?

Answer 1

Bach is...

- A composer

- Lived long ago

- Classical Music

- German

Marsalis...

-Musician (Trumpet player)

-Jazz Music

-Lives now

-American

I'd suggest you listen to the different music of each. That's the biggest difference. There's a whole world between classical and jazz. Take the swung-note figure, or the culture even of the jazz world into account.

Answer 2

Alright, so the easiest way to answer is that Bach was Baroque and Mozart was Classical. However, I assume that isn't really the answer you're looking for.

Basically, there are a couple of key characteristics that you can listen for to try to identify or distinguish between one or the other.

Bach was known for counterpoint, or specifically the fugue. Virtually everything that he ever wrote (ever) uses counterpoint. Counterpoint is sort of like a "round", in that a single line of music will start and then a few seconds later the same line will start in a different voice. The main differences between a round and a fugue is that a round generally has only two voices while a fugue can have as many as four or even five. In addition, in a round the voices all start on the same pitch (note), while in a fugue the voices start on different pitches.

In contrast, Mozart generally stayed away from counterpoint. His music generally comes in the form of simple melody and harmonic accompaniment (a melody and background chords). This is in essentially the same format as the Bach example.

So there you go; a simple analysis on characteristic Bach music and characteristic Mozart music. If you're listening to a piece and it sounds like there are multiple voices playing counterpoint, you'll know that you're listening to Bach. If the piece instead contains a simple melody and some sort of repeating or simple melodic accompaniment, you'll know that you're probably hearing Mozart's work.