Basic Flashcards
Pitch
Pitch is the lowness or highness of a sound. It is a major auditory attribute of musical tones that makes it possible to judge sounds as “higher” and “lower” in the sense associated with musical melodies. Pitch may be quantified as a frequency but it is a more subjective psychoacoustical attribute of sound.
Accidental
An accidental is a note of a pitch (or pitch class) that is not a member of the scale or mode indicated by the most recently applied key signature. In musical notation, the sharp (♯), flat (♭), and natural (♮) symbols, among others, mark such notes—and those symbols are also called accidentals.
Accidental (sign)
In the measure (bar) where it appears, an accidental sign raises or lowers the immediately following note (and any repetition of it in the bar) from its normal pitch, overriding the key signature. A note is usually raised or lowered by a semitone, and there are double sharps or flats, which raise or lower the indicated note by two semitones.
Accent
An accent is an emphasis, stress, or stronger attack placed on a particular note or set of notes, or chord.
Chord
A chord, in music, is any harmonic set of three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together. Arpeggios and broken chords may, for many practical and theoretical purposes, constitute chords.
Scale
A scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch. A scale ordered by increasing pitch is an ascending scale, and a scale ordered by decreasing pitch is a descending scale.
Consonance
A combination of sounds producing a feeling of stability, or of little desire for resolution.
Dissonance
A combination of sounds that produce harsh, discordant results, and increase the desire for resolution.
Metre
Metre measures music in regular pulse groupings, called bars. The grouping of beats into regular patterns.
Bar
Bars are lines drawn perpendicularly across the staff to divide it into measures. The term also means measure in common usage, but the bar is strictly the line itself, and not the measure it defines.
Time signature
Time signature is a notational convention used to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note value is equivalent to a beat.
Sharp
A symbol placed in front of a notehead which implies that the performer should raise the pitch of that note by a semitone.
Flat
An accidental symbol placed to the left of a note, indicating that its pitch should be lowered by a semitone (half step).
Natural
A symbol placed by a note signifying that the note should be played unaltered as opposed to the sharp or flat of the note.
Melody
A melody is a series of tones perceived as an entity.
