MUSIC Flashcards
Pitch
The highness or lowness of a sound.
Tempo
The speed of a sound
or piece of music.
Dynamics
The volume of a sound
or piece of music.
Duration
The length of a sound.
Texture
Texture describes how melodies, rhythms and harmonies are layered in a piece of music.
Timbre or Sonority
Timbre (or sonority) describes the particular sound quality of an instrument or voice.
Articulation
How individual notes or sounds are
played/techniques.
Silence
The opposite or absence
of sound, no sound. In
music these are RESTS.
Notation
How music is written down.
STAFF NOTATION
music written on a STAVE (5
lines and spaces)
GRAPHIC NOTATION/SCORE
music written
down using shapes and symbols to represent
sounds.
TIME SIGNATURE
A time signature tells you how many beats are in the bar
BAR LINE
divides the music into small
sections/chunks called bars.
DOUBLE BAR LINE
shows
the end of a section/piece.
Line Notes
Every Good Boy
Deserves Football
Space notes
F A C E in the space
Structure
Structure (or form) is the overall plan of a piece of music.
Rhythm
Rhythm is music’s pattern in time
ORCHESTRA
a group of instrumentalists, especially one combining string, woodwind, brass, and percussion sections and playing classical music.
CONDUCTOR
a person who directs the performance of an orchestra or choir.
FAMILIES/SECTIONS
Instruments of the orchestra can be divided into 4 families or sections: STRINGS,
WOODWIND, BRASS and PERCUSSION.
TUNING UP
Before the orchestra rehearses or plays, all instruments need to be IN TUNE with each other.
Strings Section/Family
The strings are the largest family of instruments in the orchestra and they come in four sizes: the violin, which is the smallest, viola, cello, and the biggest, the double bass
Woodwind Section/Family
Originally (and some still are) made
from wood (some now metal and
plastic). All are BLOWN.
FLUTES: Flute and Piccolo – air
blown over hole.
SINGLE REED (small piece of bamboo in the
mouthpiece): Clarinet, Bass Clarinet &
Saxophone (not traditionally in the orchestra,
but some modern composers have used it)
DOUBLE REED (two reeds in the mouthpiece):
Oboe, Cor Anglais, Bassoon, Double Bassoon.
Brass Section/Family
Four types of brass instruments in an orchestra, all made
from metal – usually brass and BLOWN by the player
‘buzzing their lips’ into a MOUTHPIECE (shown right).
The Trumpet, French Horn and Tuba all have three
VALVES which, along with altering the players mouth
positions, adjust the length of the tubing allowing for
different notes to be played. The Trombone has a SLIDE which
adjusts the length of the tubing. Brass instruments (along with
Percussion) have often been used to play FANFARES: a short, lively,
loud piece of music usually warlike or victorious in character used to
mark the arrival of someone important, give a signal e.g., in battles,
of the opening of something e.g., a sporting event or ceremony.
Fanfares often use
notes of the
HARMONIC SERIES – a
limited range of notes
played by BUGLES
(smaller trumpets with
no valves) and valveless
trumpets.
Percussion Section/Family
Always located at the very back of the orchestra (due to their
very loud sounds!). Large number of instruments which produce
their sound then hit, struck, scraped, or shaken.
TUNED PERCUSSION (able to play different pitches/notes)
Piano Xylophone Glockenspiel Timpani Celesta Tubular Bells
UNTUNED PERCUSSION (only able to produce ‘sounds’).
