Music Flashcards
Define: Acoustic Instrument
An instrument that doesn’t use electricity to generate sound
Define: Electric Instrument
An instrument that uses electricity to generate sound
Define: Fills
A short musical passage played during a break between the melody where nothing else is happening
Define: Ostinato/Riff
A repeated pattern
Define: Melodic contour
The shape of the melody
Define: Counter-melody
A melody that accompanies the main melody
Define: Syncopation
Accenting weak beats in a piece of music
Define: Backbeat
A form of syncopation - happen in beat 2 & 4, played by snare drum in basic rock beat
Define: Bass Clef
A clef used by instruments that play low notes
Define: Ledger Lines
Lines added for notes above and below the range of the stave
Define: Chord
Three or more notes of different pitch sounding at the same time
Define: Sequence
The repetition of a melody or a phrase at a higher or lower pitch
Define: Interval
The distance between two notes
Define: Score
The written form of a musical composition
Define: Lyrics
The words of a song
Define: Hook line
The key phrase of a rock song
Define: Common time
‘C’ same as 4/4
Define: Tie
A curved line between two notes of the same letter name. Second note not played but count is holded
Define: Structure
Outline of the main sections in a piece of music
Define: Leitmotif
A specific melody that represents and accompanies a character throughout a film
Define: Bridge
A short passage linking two sections together
Define: Anacrusis
When the music doesn’t start on the first beat of the music
Define: Glissando
Sliding up and down the notes
Define: Tonality
When the music is in either a major or a minor key
Define: Multimetric
A composition featuring more than one time signature
Define: Tutti
When the full orchestra playing together
Define: Program Music
A instrumental music (no singers) which paints a picture, tells a story or depicts an idea
Define: Nationalistic Composer
A composer that expresses his love and pride of his homeland in music
Define: Movement
A section in a classical piece of music
Define: Tempo
The speed of a piece of music
Define: Dynamics
The volume of the sound
Define: Expressive techniques
Detail in the music that make the music sound more intresting
Define: Stave
The lines and spaces used to notate music
Define: System
All instruments playing at the same time in the music
Define: Doubling
When two more instruments play the same line of music at the same time
Define: Binary form
A B A B form
Define: Tonic
First note of the scale
Define: Phrase
A musical sentence
Define: Sequence
A repetition of a melody or a phrase at a higher or lower pitch
Define: Accidental
A sharp, flat or natural sign that appears in the score rather than in the key signature
Define: Slur
To play smoothly and well connected
Define: Ternary Form
A B A form
