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India's Music > I. Introduction to Music Theory and the Music of India > Flashcards

I. Introduction to Music Theory and the Music of India Flashcards

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1
Q

The highness or lowness of a sound.

A

Pitch

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2
Q

Two ethnomuscicologists who grouped instruments into four categories.

A

Curt Sachs and Erich von Hornbostel

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3
Q

Violins, harps, and guitars. Have one or more strings, which are plucked, bowed, or struck.

A

Chordophones

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4
Q

Wind instruments, such as the many varieties of horns and flutes produce sound by directly vibrating a column of air.

A

Aerophones

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5
Q

Have a skin or other membrane stretched across some kind of frame. The membrane vibrates when struck.

A

Membranophones

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6
Q

The body of the instrument itself vibrates when struck. Examples are bells, woodblocks, and xylophones.

A

Idiophones

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7
Q

Instruments are usually bowed or plucked.

A

Strings

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8
Q

Instruments, aerophones made of metal, are sounded by the performer’s buzzing lips, which make the column of air vibrate.

A

Brass

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9
Q

Instruments are also aerophones in which the column of air is moved by breath alone, as in the case of flutes or by one or two vibrating reeds usually made form wood.

A

Woodwind

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10
Q

Instruments include membranophones as well as idiophones, plus some chordophones that are struck rather than bowed or plucked.

A

Percussion

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11
Q

Some cases, these instruments constitute a 5th category.

A

Keyboard

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12
Q

These instruments may have a neck attached to a resonating body and may or may not have frets, metal bars or strings arrayed across the instrument’s neck at pitch intervals.

A

String instruments

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13
Q

The distance between any two adjacent keys on the keyboard. Semitone.

A

Half step

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14
Q

The distance between every other key (regardless of color, black or white).

A

Whole step

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15
Q

A sequence of pitches in ascending or descending order.

A

Scale

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16
Q

White keys on a keyboard are called?

A

Natural keys

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17
Q

Pitch intervals smaller than half-steps. Not available on most Western keyboard instruments.

A

Microtones (Shruti)

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18
Q

“Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti”

A

Solfege

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19
Q

A series of successive pitches perceived by the ear to form a coherent whole. One pitch at a time.

A

Melody

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20
Q

Two pitches occur together, then you have a ____________. Occurs when chords are used systematically in a musical piece.

A

Harmony

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21
Q

The scale in which you sing Do-Re-Mi.

A

Natural Scale

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22
Q

The way music is organized in time.

A

Rhythm

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23
Q

The steady pulse that underlies most music.

A

Beat

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24
Q

The _______ of a piece might remain steady for the duration of the piece, or it may slow down or increase a the piece progresses.

A

Tempo

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25
Q

When the notes of a musical piece express the base underlying tempo of its beats, this may be called ________________.

A

Single speed

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26
Q

When two sounds occur in the space of one beat, this may be called ____________.

A

Double speed

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27
Q

The first beat of a grouping is often the strongest, so it is customarily called the ___________ or strong beat.

A

Downbeat

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28
Q

Rhythm is _____________ when accented or emphasized notes fall on weak beats, or in between beats.

A

Syncopated

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29
Q

A tone sounding continually as a background to a performance.

A

Drone

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30
Q

India’s traditional music, and that of many other world cultures is considered ________ rather than a harmonic system.

A

Melodic

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31
Q

Has a specific musical meaning. It describes the number of things that are going on at once in a piece of music.

A

Texture

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32
Q

A song my consist of a single, unaccompanied melodic line. In Western theory this is called ______________. When multiple instruments or voices may be playing a single melodic line and if they are all performing the same pitch at the same time. They are also playing the line in unison.

A

Monophony

33
Q

If two or more performers are producing slightly different version of the same melody at the same time, but are not playing in precise unison, the texture is called ______________.

A

Heterophony

34
Q

The quality, character, or “color” of a musical sound. The ________ of a pitch is affected by the individual’s voice or technique, and by the instrument’s material, shape, and density.

A

Timbre

35
Q

Refers to the instrument or combination of instruments used, and it is among the most noticeable and distinctive features of a given piece of music. Describing the ________________ is fundamental to writing about a musical performance.

A

Instrumentation

36
Q

The loudness and softness of a sound are useful to performers for expressive purposes.

A

Dynamics

37
Q

A gradual increasing of volume and speed, and a matching use of higher and higher pitches, is a very common technique, which can be called _________________. This draws the listener in and raises the excitement level of a piece of music.

A

Intensification

38
Q

Refers to localized embellishments on a melody. In Indian music, it is often difficult to separate this from the main melody. Still, this is considered to be at the heart of a melody’s expressiveness.

A

Ornamentation

39
Q

Melody in which a number of pitches are sounded over a single syllable or instrumental.

A

Melisma (melismatic)

40
Q

A category of music, usually named and recognized by a specific set of conventions.

A

Genre

41
Q

A term that is used quite broadly in music and may overlap with genre. It usually refers to the particular set of techniques or conventions used by an individual or a group.

A

Style

42
Q

This shapes a melody.

A

Tension and release

43
Q

A cohesive musical thought. In “Happy Birthday,” the music for the first four words (“Happy birthday to you”) can be thought as a short ________.

A

Phrase

44
Q

A set of phrases that make a complete melody, which plays a prominent role in a longer piece of music.

A

Theme

45
Q

The idea of _____________ in Indian music is somewhat different form that in Western music. Indian _____________ are not written out in scores, rather they are learned aurally from a teacher and memorized.

A

Composition

46
Q

May be pre-composed, memorized ahead of time.

A

Variations

47
Q

Created anew at each performance.

A

Improvised

48
Q

This is often used in Indian classical music and for singing the verses of songs in many regional, devotional, and popular genres.

A

Two-section scheme

49
Q

A piece of music that is composed from beginning to end may be called ______________.

A

Through-composed

50
Q

A form in which verses are sung alternating with a repetitive chorus or refrain.

A

Verse-chorus

51
Q

The dominant language family of South India; includes Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam.

A

Dravidian

52
Q

The largest language family in India.

A

Indo-Aryan

53
Q

Is spoken by a larger percentage of Indians than any other single language, and the government has designated it (and English) for official government use.

A

Hindi

54
Q

Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Marathi, Punjabi, Nepali, Oriya, and Urdu.

A

Other languages of the Indo-Aryan family spoken across North India.

55
Q

An Indo-Aryan language of scholarship, literature, and liturgy.

A

Sanskrit

56
Q

Is an umbrella term for many streams of practice. it is the worship of deities who appear in many forms, as describe in local histories, or in widely shared epics such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana.

A

Hinduism

57
Q

Some people trace the origins of formal music in India to the chants of priests performing rituals prescribed in ______, the earliest texts of Hinduism.

A

Vedas

58
Q

Hindu devotion, expressed in poetry, song, and ritual as love, longing, and suffering in separation form the divine.

A

Bhakti (Personal love and longing for the divine)

59
Q

A religion founded in Punjab in the 15th century.

A

Sikhism

60
Q

The classical music system of North India.

A

Hindustani

61
Q

The classical music system of South India.

A

Carnatic

62
Q

Akashvani “Voice from the sky,” centered in New Delhi.

A

All India Radio

63
Q

Doordarshan or “View from afar,” has broadcast since the 1970s.

A

National television service

64
Q

The first Indian sound film.

A

Alam Ara

65
Q

The Hindi-language film industry, largely based in Mumbai.

A

Bollywood

66
Q

The Tamil-language film industry, named after a neighborhood in Chennai.

A

Kollywood

67
Q

Sound organized in time.

A

Music

68
Q

Indian instrument that has a long neck with metal frets. It has a resonator made of a gourd and covered with wood. Its metal strings are plucked with a metal plectrum. It also has metal strings, called sympathetic strings.

A

Sitar

69
Q

12 different pitches in ascending order are called the ___________ scale?

A

Chromatic

70
Q

The “home” or “fundamental” pitch on which a scale is based is called the __________.

A

Tonic

71
Q

Is made up of three or more pitches, which are intentionally sounded simultaneously.

A

Chord

72
Q

Describes how music is organized on a larger time scale, how units, such as sections, subsections, and lines, are combined to make larger structures. This is the architecture of music.

A

Form

73
Q

Uses the principle of variation. Individual performers create spontaneous variations, extensions, or free explorations, of a melody.

A

Improvisation

74
Q

Came to India with Arab traders by sea, and overland through the Khyber Pass from Iran, Turkey, and Central Asia.

A

Islam

75
Q

Used to help attain a state of spiritual ecstasy.

A

Sama

76
Q

Islamic mysticism, thrives across the Muslim world and is practiced in many branches, called “silsila.”

A

Sufism

77
Q

Formal music, or art music, is based on a system of melodies called _______, and a system of rhythmic cycles called ________.

A

Raga and Tala

78
Q

Created by doubling the vibrations of a pitch.

A

Octave

79
Q

Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni

A

India’s solfege

India's Music (14 decks)

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