Chapter 62-66 Vocabulary Flashcards
Postmodernism
A movement in the arts and literature that reacts against early modernist principles through the use of classical and traditional elements. See also modernism
Minimalism
Contemporary musical style featuring the repetition of short melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic patterns with little variation. See also post-minimalism, spiritual minimalism, and process music.
Tone Cluster
A highly dissonant combination of pitches sounded simultaneous.
Microtones
Musical interval smaller than a semitone (half step), prevalent in some non-Western music and some twentieth-century music.
Prepared Piano
Piano whose sound is altered by the insertion of various materials (metal, rubber, leather, and paper) between the strings; invented by John Cage.
Flutter-tonguing
Wind instrument technique in which the player’s tongue is fluttered as though “rolling an R” while he or she blows into the instrument.
Musical
A genre of twentieth-century musical theater, especially popular in the United States and Great Britain; features spoken dialogue and a dramatic plot interspersed with songs, ensemble numbers, and dancing.
Process Music
A compositional style in which a composer selects a simple musical idea and repeats it over and over, as it’s gradually changed or elaborated upon. See also minimalism.
Phase music
A technique in which members of an ensemble begin playing the same rhythmic pattern but very gradually accelerating, thus moving “out of phase”; associated particularly with composer Steve Reich.
Polyrhythm
The simultaneous use of several rhythmic patterns or meters, common in twentieth-century music and certain African music.
Minimalism
Contemporary musical style featuring the repetition of short melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic patterns with little variation. See also post-minimalism, spiritual minimalism, and process music.
Rock (Rock-and-roll)
A style of popular music with roots in rock-and-roll but differing in lyric content, recording technique, song length and form, and range of sounds. The term was first used in the 1960a to distinguish groups like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones from earlier artists.
Rhythm and Blues (R&B)
Popular African American music style of the 1940s through the 60s, featuring a solo singer accompanied by a small instrumental ensemble (piano, guitar, double bass, drums, tenor saxophone), driving rhythms, and blues and pop song forms.
Backbeat
In rock-and-roll and related genres, the second and fourth beats of the measure.
Rockability
An early style of rock-and-roll, from the 1950s, that combines elements of country-western music (“hillbilly”) with rhythm and blues; features twelve-bar blues progressions and a driving beat.
