Music Terms Flashcards
What is avant-garde?
A French term for military vangaurd, it has been adapted as a description of cutting edge artistry that seem ahead of its time
What is aggregate?
The set containing the twelve different pitches used in Western music, analogous to all the pitches in of the chromatic scale
What is Barbershop
A style of singing, wildly popular between 1895 and 1930 which employs h-four voices to harmonize melodies with frequent tritones and seventh chords
Blue note
A pitch that is deliberately sung out of tune it is a device commonly used by jazz and blues musicians, especially on steps 3 and 7 of the scale
Broadway
he primary theater district of New York
Cakewalk
Plantation era entertainment that was mimicked in mistrel shows; originally it was a challenge dance in which slave couples competing for a cake tried to do the best parody of their owners high society manners
Call and response
A performace technique in which a soloist or small group presents a short motif and a larger group echoes or answeres with contrasting material
Canon
A body of works that have achieved long standing admiration or a technique in which a single melody is performed by multiple musicians
Character pieces
An instrumental genre that developed in the Romantic era; it is usually a short work that attempts to express the mood or imagery suggested by its particular title
Chorus
In jazz, this describes one complete statement of the main melody or strain
Circuit
An association of vaudeville theater owners; they hired entertainers who would then travel from theater to theater within the circuit
Combo
A small jazz or blues ensemble
Commedia dell’arte
An Italian entertainment of the 16th century featuring stock characters who would act in improvised comic skirts
Cue sheet
A list given to musicians by a audeville performer; it indicates the types of music needed at particular moments in the performer’s act
Custom score
music that is newly composed for a particular film
Drone
A sustained, unchanging note; the open pipes on a bagpipe are also called drones
Ethnomusicology
A field of study that focuses on music and its cultural aspects within local and global contexts
Fermata
An indication for musicians to sustain a note or a rest longer than its customary value briefly stopping the forward momentum of the piece
Field holler
A long, loud, improvised solo call that expresses emotion
Field recording
a machine made audio recording of music performed in its natural environment
Film score
A new genre of the 20th century it is the music written to accompany the showing of a film
Glissando
a rapid sweeping motion up or down a scale, resembling the strum like playing technique used by harpists
Humanism
A system of though or worldview which attaches primary importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters
Impresario
A term for the person who controls the finances for an opera or ballet company, and thus is the final authority
Interpolation
A number that is added to a show after opening night
Klangfarbenmelodie
Tone color melody, a 20th century compositional technique that puts the emphasis on a series of timbres rather than a singable melody
March
An instrumental genre, usually intended for bands that features repetitive music patterns and a steady beat
Melismatic
Describes a method of setting poetic text in which a single syllable is flexed over a series of different pitches
Miniature
A short composition often a synonym for character piece
Modal
one of the older scales used in the Medieval and Renaissance period
Ionian
Major scale
Aeolian
Minor scale
Multi-thematic form
A musical architecture used in most marches in pattern AABBCC
Mute
A device that quiets or muffles an instrument’s sound in some way
On the bridge
A performance indication for string players, telling them to bow directly over the bridge which produces a glssy, thin sound
Opera
A genre of stage entertainment developed in Italy at the start of the Baroque era, characters would sing their lines rather than speaking them
Original score
music that is newly composed for a perticular film
Ostinato
A short musical pattern that repeats many times
Passacaglia
A musical form consisting of a repeating bass line underneath a series of varied melodies
Pizzicato
The technique of plucking a string on an instrument that is normally bowed such as a violin, viola, cello, bass
Pointillism
An extremely sparse texture in music, where notes often are sounded or sung with no accompaniment, sometimes with rests before or afterward so that each pitch sounds isolated
Polychord
A complex chord whose pitches can be subdivided into two or more distinct, independent harmonies
Post-Romanticism
A style of 20th century composition that retains many of the features of Romanticism with its emphasis on expressiveness, sometimes in combination with newer devices or with techniques from the more distant past
Prima donna
Italian for First Lady, the starring female in an opera
Primo uomo
Italian for first man, this term indicates the starring male role in an opera
Rag
A popular genre, primarily for piano, that uses the style of ragtime, it blends syncopated rhythms with a multi-thematic form
Refrain
A synonym for the repetitive chorus in a verse-chorus form
Scenario
The plot or storyline of a ballet
Second Viennese School
The Vienna based composers Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern
First Viennese School
Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven
Shout
Term for African American group singing and dancing sometimes called ring shout the words often had a religious message
Solo break
A passage in a jazz piece in which the majority of performers stop laying in order to feature one soloist
Song cycle
A set of songs unified by some shared characteristic in the music and/or poetry
Song plugger
A person who promotes sheet music for a publishing company
Spiritual
A vocal genre developed by African Americas, usually has a simple, flexible melody and conveys a religious message
Sprechstimme
A 20th century vocal technique in which the singer half sings, half speaks each note
Star turn
A number that features the special talents of a performer
Stop time
A jazz playing technique in which an ensemble plays a single note together on the first beat of a bar, and then stops playing until the next measure
Storyville
A district in New Orleans at the beginning of the 20th century that is viewed as the axis of the earliest development of jazz
Strain
A synonym for melody
Stride piano
A keyboard style that blends the steady left hand pulsations of ragtime with a right hand that plays swing rhythms
Swing
A rhythmic device particularly prevalent in jazz; it creates a compound meter effect by lengthening the first 8th note in a pair and subtracting the time from the second note
Text Expression
The technique of choosing musical elements that suit the meaning of the poetry, such as employing an allegro tempo in a song in which the narrator is excited
Toccata
A musical genre, usually for keyboard, that is fast, virtuosic, and has an impromptu character
Tombeau
A musical lament
Tone cluster
a highly dissonant chord that contains several half or whole step intervals
Tone color
The characteristic sound produced by a voice or instrument; a synonym for timbre
Vamp
A short motif that is repeated as a filler until a performer is ready to proceed
Vernacular music
Traditional music belonging to a culture, ethnic group, or society, usually transmitted orally among nonprofessional performers
Verse-chorus form
A form used in vocal music that contrasts verses with a repetitive chorus or refrain in alternation
Wah wah mute
A jazz timbre achieved by waving the rubber plunger of a plumber’s helper over the bell of a trumpet or trombone; it produces a sound that can resemble a distorted human voice
Waltz
A ballroom dance in triple meter
West End
The main theater district of London
Whole tone scale
A scale that consists of only six pitches, each of which is a whole step away from the next
Word painting
A technique in vocal music in which the musical setting depicts the literal meaning of specific words, such as a melody that rises and falls while singing about a mountain
Work song
A vocal genre preformed by laborers, either as a group or in a call and response pattern, it usually has a steady pulse to help regulate the work flow
