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Music Terms Flashcards

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0
Q

What is avant-garde?

A

A French term for military vangaurd, it has been adapted as a description of cutting edge artistry that seem ahead of its time

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1
Q

What is aggregate?

A

The set containing the twelve different pitches used in Western music, analogous to all the pitches in of the chromatic scale

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2
Q

What is Barbershop

A

A style of singing, wildly popular between 1895 and 1930 which employs h-four voices to harmonize melodies with frequent tritones and seventh chords

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3
Q

Blue note

A

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

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4
Q

Broadway

A

he primary theater district of New York

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5
Q

Cakewalk

A

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

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6
Q

Call and response

A

A performace technique in which a soloist or small group presents a short motif and a larger group echoes or answeres with contrasting material

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7
Q

Canon

A

A body of works that have achieved long standing admiration or a technique in which a single melody is performed by multiple musicians

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8
Q

Character pieces

A

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

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9
Q

Chorus

A

In jazz, this describes one complete statement of the main melody or strain

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10
Q

Circuit

A

An association of vaudeville theater owners; they hired entertainers who would then travel from theater to theater within the circuit

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11
Q

Combo

A

A small jazz or blues ensemble

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12
Q

Commedia dell’arte

A

An Italian entertainment of the 16th century featuring stock characters who would act in improvised comic skirts

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13
Q

Cue sheet

A

A list given to musicians by a audeville performer; it indicates the types of music needed at particular moments in the performer’s act

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14
Q

Custom score

A

music that is newly composed for a particular film

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15
Q

Drone

A

A sustained, unchanging note; the open pipes on a bagpipe are also called drones

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16
Q

Ethnomusicology

A

A field of study that focuses on music and its cultural aspects within local and global contexts

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17
Q

Fermata

A

An indication for musicians to sustain a note or a rest longer than its customary value briefly stopping the forward momentum of the piece

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18
Q

Field holler

A

A long, loud, improvised solo call that expresses emotion

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19
Q

Field recording

A

a machine made audio recording of music performed in its natural environment

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20
Q

Film score

A

A new genre of the 20th century it is the music written to accompany the showing of a film

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21
Q

Glissando

A

a rapid sweeping motion up or down a scale, resembling the strum like playing technique used by harpists

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22
Q

Humanism

A

A system of though or worldview which attaches primary importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters

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23
Q

Impresario

A

A term for the person who controls the finances for an opera or ballet company, and thus is the final authority

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24
Q

Interpolation

A

A number that is added to a show after opening night

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25
Q

Klangfarbenmelodie

A

Tone color melody, a 20th century compositional technique that puts the emphasis on a series of timbres rather than a singable melody

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26
Q

March

A

An instrumental genre, usually intended for bands that features repetitive music patterns and a steady beat

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27
Q

Melismatic

A

Describes a method of setting poetic text in which a single syllable is flexed over a series of different pitches

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28
Q

Miniature

A

A short composition often a synonym for character piece

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29
Q

Modal

A

one of the older scales used in the Medieval and Renaissance period

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30
Q

Ionian

A

Major scale

31
Q

Aeolian

A

Minor scale

32
Q

Multi-thematic form

A

A musical architecture used in most marches in pattern AABBCC

33
Q

Mute

A

A device that quiets or muffles an instrument’s sound in some way

34
Q

On the bridge

A

A performance indication for string players, telling them to bow directly over the bridge which produces a glssy, thin sound

35
Q

Opera

A

A genre of stage entertainment developed in Italy at the start of the Baroque era, characters would sing their lines rather than speaking them

36
Q

Original score

A

music that is newly composed for a perticular film

37
Q

Ostinato

A

A short musical pattern that repeats many times

38
Q

Passacaglia

A

A musical form consisting of a repeating bass line underneath a series of varied melodies

39
Q

Pizzicato

A

The technique of plucking a string on an instrument that is normally bowed such as a violin, viola, cello, bass

40
Q

Pointillism

A

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

41
Q

Polychord

A

A complex chord whose pitches can be subdivided into two or more distinct, independent harmonies

42
Q

Post-Romanticism

A

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

43
Q

Prima donna

A

Italian for First Lady, the starring female in an opera

44
Q

Primo uomo

A

Italian for first man, this term indicates the starring male role in an opera

45
Q

Rag

A

A popular genre, primarily for piano, that uses the style of ragtime, it blends syncopated rhythms with a multi-thematic form

46
Q

Refrain

A

A synonym for the repetitive chorus in a verse-chorus form

47
Q

Scenario

A

The plot or storyline of a ballet

48
Q

Second Viennese School

A

The Vienna based composers Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern

49
Q

First Viennese School

A

Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven

50
Q

Shout

A

Term for African American group singing and dancing sometimes called ring shout the words often had a religious message

51
Q

Solo break

A

A passage in a jazz piece in which the majority of performers stop laying in order to feature one soloist

52
Q

Song cycle

A

A set of songs unified by some shared characteristic in the music and/or poetry

53
Q

Song plugger

A

A person who promotes sheet music for a publishing company

54
Q

Spiritual

A

A vocal genre developed by African Americas, usually has a simple, flexible melody and conveys a religious message

55
Q

Sprechstimme

A

A 20th century vocal technique in which the singer half sings, half speaks each note

56
Q

Star turn

A

A number that features the special talents of a performer

57
Q

Stop time

A

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

58
Q

Storyville

A

A district in New Orleans at the beginning of the 20th century that is viewed as the axis of the earliest development of jazz

59
Q

Strain

A

A synonym for melody

60
Q

Stride piano

A

A keyboard style that blends the steady left hand pulsations of ragtime with a right hand that plays swing rhythms

61
Q

Swing

A

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

62
Q

Text Expression

A

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

63
Q

Toccata

A

A musical genre, usually for keyboard, that is fast, virtuosic, and has an impromptu character

64
Q

Tombeau

A

A musical lament

65
Q

Tone cluster

A

a highly dissonant chord that contains several half or whole step intervals

66
Q

Tone color

A

The characteristic sound produced by a voice or instrument; a synonym for timbre

67
Q

Vamp

A

A short motif that is repeated as a filler until a performer is ready to proceed

68
Q

Vernacular music

A

Traditional music belonging to a culture, ethnic group, or society, usually transmitted orally among nonprofessional performers

69
Q

Verse-chorus form

A

A form used in vocal music that contrasts verses with a repetitive chorus or refrain in alternation

70
Q

Wah wah mute

A

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

71
Q

Waltz

A

A ballroom dance in triple meter

72
Q

West End

A

The main theater district of London

73
Q

Whole tone scale

A

A scale that consists of only six pitches, each of which is a whole step away from the next

74
Q

Word painting

A

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

75
Q

Work song

A

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

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