Exam 1 Flashcards
Dynamics
- the volume of the piece
- how loud(forte) or soft(piano)
Two Types of Intervals
- Octave
2. Tritone
Functional Harmony
- how we understand how elements of music work and relate to each other
- began in the baroque period
Scale
- a series of specific notes in order
- basic unit to compose music (8 notes)
Basso Ostinato
- start with bass and support with the melody
- hip/hop, rap, funk
The 5 Artforms of Opera
- Music(composer, musicians)
- Drama/Theater (actors/actresses)
- Visual art (makeup, costumes, sets etc)
- Dance (dancers)
- Literature (writers)
Homophony
- has accompaniment, duet
- different pitches with the same rhythm and melody
ex: singer and a guitar
Where to begin when writing a piece of music
Melody-> chord-> Bass/Rhythm
Recitative
- advances the plot more than the music (more spoken word, less music)
- has a light background/accompaniment
Theme and Variation
- create an idea and change it without altering the fundamental idea
Melody
- an idea you can create using a scale
- a musical idea
Tritone
- interval that bisects the octave
- “devils interval”
- when we play simultaneously two notes that have three tones of distance between them, we are playing a tritone.
Virtuoso
- someone who is musically talented beyond the normal
Polyphony
- different melodies that interact with each other
- multiple
How to create a melody?
- Theme and variation
2. Repetition and Contrast
Interval
- the difference between any two pitches
Chromatic Scale
- all 12 notes in a series
Aria
- solo section of an opera
- very technical and has light accompaniment
- opportunity for talented singers to show off their skill sets
- virtuoso (extremely talented performer)
What are the two important music venues and how they spread music?
- The Church
- music was used for the veneration of religion
- In the same way that the church helped society academically through literature from the bible, it helped music
- In the past religion was the structure of all societies which caused people to have a spiritual reliance
- People attended church and would hear the music being played to celebrate the lord
- this inspired some people to pursue careers in music - Royal Courts
- learning to play or hearing music is expensive (concerts or teacher)
- used for both revenue and entertainment purposes
- It gave them a chance to learn from other people and exchange musical ideas amongst different cultures
- allowed music to be developed and flourish
Style
- how people play a specific genre
- interpret that genre and make their own rendition of it
- how different writers sing the same song, but it sounds different
Measure
- a unit of musical time
Monophony
- the only interval you will ever hear is an octave
- rhythm, melody and pitch are the same
Repetition and Contrast
- theme describes a recurring idea
- then you repeat it to make the audience comfortable and add contrast for a surprise
Frequency
- in a given unit of time how many vibrations, or wavelengths occur
- also called a pitch, note, or tone
- only 12 pitches
Key signature
- tells you what key to play in
- is at the beginning of a scale to alert the musician for modifiers
Chord
- any group of 3 or more notes
Time signature
- 4/4
- top number is how many beats per measure
- bottom number is what note gets the beat
Tonality
- the sense of being in a certain key
Octave
- two notes that are the same separated by how high or low it is (normally half or double its frequency)
- difference between intervals
Basso Continuo
- start with the melody and the bass will support it/give context
Rubato
- in your own time
- you can adjust how fast you play music based on how you feel
Genre
- different categories of art
- a system of classification
Triad
- play 1, 3 and 5 from a scale
- 3 notes played on top of each other
Importance of all the artworks in opera
- imp bc it allows more benefits to people financially, provides more jobs in a single show
- you can also interpret each art form differently within the presence of the others
