Glossary Terms Flashcards
Avant-garde
A French term for “military vanguard”; it has been adapted as a description of cutting edge artistry that seems ahead of its time
Aggregate
The set containing the twelve different pitches used in western music, analogous to all the pitches of the chromatic scale
Barbershop
A style of singing, wildly popular between 1895 and 1930, which employs four voices to harmonize melodies with frequent tritones and seventh chords
Blue note
A pitch that is deliberately sung “out of tune”; it is a device commonly used by jazz and blues musicians, especially on steps 3 and 7 of the scale
Broadway
The primary theatre district of New York
Cakewalk
A plantation-era entertainment that was mimicked in minstrel shows; originally it was a “challenge-dance” in which slave couples –competing for a cake–tried to do the best parody of their owners high-society manners
Call-and-response
A performance technique in which a soloist or small group presents a short motif and a larger group echoes or answers with contrasting material
Canon
1) a body of works that have achieved long-standing admiration and/or popularity; 2) a technique in which a single melody is performed by multiple musicians, but at staggered, overlapping intervals, thus producing imitative polyphony; a synonym is “round,” and an example is the customary performance technique of the childhood tune “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”
Character piece
An instrumental genre that developed in the Romantic era; it is usually a short work that attempts to express the mood or imagery suggested by its particular title (“Waltz,” “Nocturne,” etc.)
Chorus
In jazz, this describes one complete statement of the main melody or strain (or of the chords that support that melody).
Circuit
An association of vaudeville theater owners; they hired entertainers who would then travel from theater to theater within the circuit
Combo
A small jazz or blues ensemble
Commedia dell’arte
An Italian entrainment of the sixteenth century featuring stock characters (Harlequin, Columbine, etc.) who would act in improvised comic skits
Cue sheet
A list given to musicians by vaudeville performers; it indicates the types of music needed at particular moments in the performer’s act (the term is now applied to music that is planned for a movie).
Custom score (also, original score)
Music that is newly composed for a particular film (or television event)
Drone
A sustained, unchanging note; the open pipes on a bagpipe are called drones, so their sound is sometimes mimicked in art music by the use of long notes, usually in lower-pitched instruments
Ethnomusicology
A field of study that focuses on music and its cultural aspects within local and global contexts
Fermata
An indication for musicians to sustain a note (or a rest) longer than its customary value, briefly stopping the forward momentum of the piece
Field holler
A long, loud, improvised solo call that expresses emotion
Field recording
A machine-made audio (or video) recording of music performed in its natural environment (as opposed to a studio recording
Film score
A new genre of the twentieth century; it is the music written to accompany the showing of a film
Glissando
A rapid sweeping motion up or down a scale, resembling the strum-like” playing technique used by harpists
Humanism
A system of thought or worldview which attaches primary importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters
Impresario
A term for the person who controls the finances for an opera or ballet company, and thus is the final authority when hiring composers, performers, etc.; the term “producer” is an equivalent in the film industry.
Interpolation
A number that is added to a show after opening night
Klangfarbenmelodie (tone color melody)
A twentieth-century compositional technique that puts the emphasis on a series of timbres (tone colors) rather than a single melody
March
An instrumental genre, usually intended for bands, that features repetitive music patterns and a steady beat (since it originated as a way to keep military groups in step
Melismatic
Describes a method of setting poetic text in which a single syllable is flexed over a series of different pitches
Miniature
A short composition, often an synonym for character piece; usually focused on expressing a central image or mood as suggested by its title
Modal
Refers to one of the older scales used in the medieval and renaissance period; major (Ionian) and minor (Aeolian) are only two of the several modal scales that were formerly employed
Multi-thematic form
A musical architecture used in most marches; it consists of at least three melodies (also called “strains”), with each strain repeated before moving on to the next (e.g., AABBCC)
Mute
A device that quiets or muffles an instrument’s sound in some way
On the bridge
A performance indication for sing players, telling them to bow directly over the bridge, which produces a glassy, thin sound (German: am Steg; Italian: sul ponticello)
Opera
A genre of stage entertainment developed in Italy at the start of the Baroque era; the characters sing their lines rather than speaking them as they would in a play
Original score (also, custom score)
Music that is newly composed for a particular film (or television event)
Ostinato
A short musical pattern that repeats many times; it can be a melodic fragment, or even just a rhythmic motif
Passacaglia
A musical form consisting of a repeating bass line underneath a series of varied melodies
Pizzicato
The technique of plucking a string on an instrument that is normally bowed (violin, viola, bass, cello)
Pointillism
An extremely sparse texture in music, where notes often are sounded or sung with no accompaniment, sometimes rests before or afterward, so that each pitch sounds isolated
Polychord
A complex chord whose pitches can be subdivided into two or more distinct, independent harmonies
Post-Romanticism
A style of twentieth century composition that retains many of the features of romanticism, with its emphasis on expressiveness, sometimes in combination with newer devices or with techniques from the more distant past
Prima donna
Italian for “first lady,” this term refers to the starring female role in an opera
Prima uomo
Italian for “first man,” this term refers to the starring male role in an opera
Rag
A popular genre, primarily for piano, that uses the style of ragtime; it blends syncopated rhythms with multi-thematic form
Refrain
A synonym for the repetitive chorus in a verse-chorus form
Scenario
The “plot” or storyline of a ballet
Second Viennese School
The Vienna-based composers Arnold Schoenberg and his most prominent pupils, Alban Berg and Anton Weber; the “First Viennese School” had been the Classical/Romantic group consisting of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
Shout
A term for African-American group singing and dancing, sometimes called “ring shout”; the words often had religious message
Solo Break
A passage in a jazz piece in which the majority of performers stop playing in order to feature one soloist
Song cycle
A set of songs unified by some shared characteristic in music and/or poetry
Song-plugger
A person who promotes sheet music for a publishing company
Spiritual
A vocal genre developed by African Americans; it usually has as simple, flexible melody and conveys a religious message
Sprechstimme
A twentieth century vocal technique in which the singer half-sings, half-speaks each note
Star-turn
A number that features the special talents of a performer
Stop-time
A jazz playing technique in which an ensemble plays a single note together on the first beat of a bar, and then stops playing until the next measure; it is a special effect sometimes used to accompany a soloist.
Storyville
A district in New Orleans at the beginning of the twentieth century that is viewed as the axis of the earliest development of jazz
Strain
A synonym for melody
Stride piano
A keyboard style that blends the steady left-hand pulsations of ragtime with a right hand that plays swing rhythms; it is usually faster and played more forcefully than ragtime.
Swing
A rhythmic device particularly prevalent in jazz; it creates a compound-meter effect by lengthening the first eighth note in a pair and subtracting that time from the second note.
Text expression
The technique of choosing musical elements that suit the meaning of the poetry, such as employing an allegro tempo in a song in which the narrator is excited.
Toccata
A musical genre, usually for keyboard, that is fast virtuosic, and has an impromptu character
Tombeau
A musical “lament”
Tone cluster
A highly dissonant chord that contains several half- or whole-step intervals
Tone color
The characteristic of sound produced by a voice or instrument; a synonym for timbre
Turn
The act (entertainment) presented by each performer or group in a vaudeville (variety) show
Vamp
A short motif that is repeated as a “filler” until a performer is ready to proceed
Vernacular music
Traditional music belonging to a culture, ethnic group, or society, usually transmitted orally among nonprofessional performers
Verse-chorus form
A form used in vocal music that contrasts verses (usually labeled “a”) with a repetitive chorus or refrain (“B”) in alteration; e.g. a-B-a-B (etc.)
Wah-Wah mute
A jazz timbre achieved by waiving the rubber plunger of a plumbers helper over the bell of a trumpet or trombone; it produces a sound that can resemble a distorted human voice.
Waltz
A ballroom dance in triple meter
West End
The main theater district of London
Whole-tone scale
A scale that consists of only six pitches, each of which is a whole step (M2) away from the next; e.g. C-D-E-F#-G#-Bb-[C]
Word-painting
A technique in vocal music in which the musical setting depicts the literal meaning of specific words, such as a melody that rises and falls while singing about a mountain
Work song
A vocal genre performed by laborers, either as a group or in a call-and-response pattern; it usually has a steady pulse to help regulate the work flow
