M

Question 1

Macro Structure

Answer 1

Overall structure of a whole piece of music; can be standard or non-standard.

Question 2

Mainstream Music

Answer 2

Music heard and enjoyed by most people in the artist’s time; can encompass rock music, pop music, alternative, hip-hop, rap and other styles popular today.

Question 3

Material

Answer 3

Substance used to make something, such as the strings of a guitar.

Question 4

Melisma

Answer 4

The singing of several notes to one syllable.

Question 5

Melodic Contour

Answer 5

The shpe of the melody.

Question 6

Melodic Ostinatio

Answer 6

A repeated melodic pattern

Question 7

Melodic Role

Answer 7

Fulfilled by an instrument or voice that holds the melody in a piece of music.

Question 8

Melody

Answer 8

A horizontal succession of pitches.

Question 9

Membranophones

Answer 9

Instruments that feature a stretched membrane, or skin; usually, although not always, drum like.

Question 10

Metre

Answer 10

The grouping of beats in a piece of music and the basis for mesuring musical time.

Question 11

Mezzo Forte

Answer 11

Moderately loud

Question 12

Mezzo Piano

Answer 12

Moderately soft

Question 13

Mezzo-soprano

Answer 13

Female vocal type in the middle range between alto and soprano

Question 14

Micro Structure

Answer 14

Internal structure of a piece of music, as in specific sections, or a a phrase or verse.

Question 15

Microtone

Answer 15

Literally a ‘small tone’, an interval smaller then a semitone

Question 16

Modes

Answer 16

Scales on which modal tonality, the earliest documented scale system, is based.

Question 17

Modulation

Answer 17

The change of the key in music.

Question 18

Monophonic

Answer 18

A texture characterised by a single melodic line

Question 19

Mordent

Answer 19

In an uppermordent, we hear a note then the one above it, then the first note; in a lower mordent, we hear a note, then the one below it, then the first note.

Question 20

Motif

Answer 20

A melodic, harmonic or rythmic fragment heard throughout a piece of music that helps to unify the piece.