Modern

Question 1

harmonic stasis

Answer 1

20th century. Music that avoids moving forward toward resolution. Messiaen creates a feeling of meditation in Liturgie de cristal.

Question 2

metric modulation

Answer 2

20th century. Transitioning from one tempo and meter to another through a stage that exhibits characteristics of both resulting in a precise proportional change. Carter - Cello Sonata - first use

Question 3

prepared piano

Answer 3

Various objects are inserted between the strings of a piano resulting in complex percussive sounds when the piano is played from the keyboard. Cage - Sonatas and Interludes - specific directions for preparing piano ahead of time.

Question 4

chance music

Answer 4

Leaving some musical decisions typically made by the composer up to chance. Cage - Music of Changes - charts created to determine some musical features.

Question 5

indeterminacy

Answer 5

Leaving some musical decisions unspecified. Feldman - Projection I - graphic notation for general guidelines rather than specific notes.

Question 6

musique concrete

Answer 6

Term developed in Paris in the 1940s to describe music that is created by assembling and manipulating recorded sounds - using sounds themselves rather than notation. Schaeffer - Symphonie pour un homme seul - first major work.

Question 7

micropolyphony

Answer 7

Canons with many lines moving at different rates. Ligeti - Atmospheres - create the effect of a mass of sound slowly moving through space.

Question 8

New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit)

Answer 8

Trend in the 1920s that opposed the complexity of expressionism and sought for music that was widely accessible and connected to events and concerns of its time. Weil - Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) - parodied American popular music.

Question 9

Gebrauchsmusik

Answer 9

“music for use” - Hindemith sought to create music for young musicians that was of high quality, modern, challenging and rewarding to perform.

Question 10

ultramodernist

Answer 10

20th century - composing trend in AMerica between the World Wars focused on developing new musical resources. Vare`se - considered all sound to be raw material in pieces like Ionisation.

Question 11

sound mass

Answer 11

A term coined by Vare`se for sounds categorized by timbre, register, rhythm, or melodic gesture which may remain stable or be transformed on recurrances. Hyperprism - demonstrates how sound masses can change as they interact.

Question 12

tone cluster

Answer 12

A chord of diatonic or chromatic seconds produced by pressing the keys with the fist or forearm. Cowell pioneered the use of this technique in The Tides of Manaunaun.

Question 13

atonality

Answer 13

Music that avoids establishing a tonal center. Schoenberg described his atonal music as “the emancipation of dissonance” and used traditional methods such as variation to provide structure to his music.

Question 14

pitch-class set

Answer 14

A collection of notes organized around one of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale which maintains its identity when transposed, inverted or reordered. Typically sets were three or more notes that were treated like a chord.

Question 15

chromatic saturation

Answer 15

The appearance of all twelve pitch-classes within a segment of music. Has been used in tonal and atonal music to create a sense of completion once all twelve tones have been presented.

Question 16

Sprechstimme

Answer 16

“speaking voice” A vocal style developed by Schoenberg where the performer approximates the written pitches in the gliding tones of speech while following the notated rhythms exactly. Pierrot lunaire - inexact pitches create an eerie atmosphere.

Question 17

twelve-tone method

Answer 17

A form of atonality based on creating a systematic order of the twelve tones of the chromatic scale that maybe manipulated according to specific rules. Schoenberg - Piano Suite.

Question 18

tetrachords

Answer 18

modern - A set of four pitches, often the first, middle, or last four pitches in a twelve-tone row.

Question 19

Klangfarben-melodie

Answer 19

“tone-color melodie” - A succession of tone colors that is perceived as similar to the changing pitches of a melody. Webern - Symphony, Op.21

Question 20

primitivism

Answer 20

Musical style that represents the primitive or elemental through rhythmic pulsation, static repetition, unprepared and unresolved dissonance. Stravisnky - The Rite of Spring - depicts an ancient fertility ritual.

Question 21

neotonal

Answer 21

The term used for music since the early 1900s that establishes a single pitch as the tonal center but does not follow the rules of tonality. Bartok - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta

Question 22

experimental music

Answer 22

An approach to composition in the 20th century that preserved some rules and broke other rules to find new musical sounds, techniques, and resources. Ives

Question 23

polytonal

Answer 23

The simultaneous use of two or more keys in different layers of the music (ie. melody and harmony). Ives

Question 24

cumulative form

Answer 24

A method used by Ives in which the development preceds the full statement of the principal theme. Ives - Symphony No 3

Question 25

musical collage

Answer 25

A work or passage that borrows themes without following standard procedures (a medley follows certain rules - a collage does not). Ives - Symphony No 4 - recalling memories

Question 26

“modes of limited transposition”

Answer 26

Messiaen - collections of notes that do not change when transposed by certain intervals

Question 27

moment form

Answer 27

Stockhausen - formal units of contrasting character follow each other without any connecting elements creating a sense of timelessness.