Music Vocab Terms Flashcards
These will always be worth going over.
Theme
Themes are phrases that make a complete melody.
Theme and Variations
- theme and variations is a common way of structuring a composition
- straightforward statement of theme, then new section repeats theme w/ changes
- variation involve changes in basic musical elements, but still same musical idea
- mapped as A A’ A” A’’’ A””
Introduction and Coda
- Introductions precede the first main theme of the piece
- Codas sound conclusive, wrapping up music
Melody (harmony, counterpoint, transpose)
- melodies are successive pitches perceived by ear to form coherent whole.
- 2 forms: harmony (better), counterpoint (different)
- transposition involves taking a piece of music and placing into a new key using some intervals
Accent
- involves more sudden sound than a staccato
- silent space before the next pitch is not required
Non-Functional Harmonies
- familiar chords from the common - practice tradition used w/o ever resolving them
- Claude Debussy & Igor Stravinsky who also used… {adopted unusual scales, polytonality}
Tension
- lends shape to a chord progression or melody
- primary way that this is created is through harmonic dissonance
created in other ways {secondary ways - increased dynamics, increased tempo, rhythmic activity} some combo needed to sustain
Trill
- a rapid oscillation between two adjacent notes
- is an example of ornamentation
Counterpoint
Sub-Texture
- simultaneous melodies are usually in different registers
- different melodies follow same beat > same harmonic progression!
- dense & complicated rubric to follow
Motive (Motif)
- smallest unit of form > smallest identifiable recurring musical idea
- has a distinctive melodic and rhythmic profile
- if it is repeated multiple times in immediate succession, it becomes an ostinato
Phrase
- a cohesive musical thought
- often come in related pairs
difference lies in how they end {1. antecedent 2. consequent}
Arnold Schoenberg
“emancipation of the dissonance”
1910: composer who concluded that music had become so chromatic, the only possible next step was to “free” dissonance from the need to resolve to the tonic (became known as “atonal music”)
- urged composers to abandon the conventions of common-practice harmony
Proteges: Anton Webern & Alban Berg used his methods extensively in the 1930s.
Ornamentation
- localized embellishments
- are often not written down
- e.g.) a singer swooping into a pitch or a trumpet playing a trill
Heterophony
Texture
- when two performers play versions of the same melody at the same time, but are not playing in precise unison
- fairly rare in western music
- employed often in earliest styles of jazz
Imitative Polyphony
Sub-Texture
- features only one melody, but is played by multiple people at staggered intervals
- ex.) “Are you Sleeping?”
Homophony
Type of Texture
- @ once: melody & harmonic accompaniment, which differ from each other
- nearly all popular songs today employ this texture
- notes of the accompanying instruments/voices fill out the chord pitches, and thus do not comprise an independent melody
Polyphony
Type of Texture
- 2 or more separate melodies unfold simultaneously
- created by composer to relate to each other on a note-by-note basis while retaining their independence
2 types: counter-point and imitative
Monophony
Type of Texture
- consists of a single, unaccompanied melodic line (same pitch)
- multiple instruments or voices may be presenting that melody, but they are all playing in unison (even if it’s the same pitch in different octaves!)
Tonic Pitch + Dominant Pitch
- The tonic pitch, or anchor and a point of repose and completion, is the resting tone in any scale. (ex. a C is the tonic pitch in a C scale, an A is the tonic pitch in an A scale, a G in a G scale, etc.)
- The dominant pitch is the fifth scale degree, and functions like a second gravitational center that sets melodies in motion by pulling them away from the tonic. (ex. In the key of C, G is the dominant pitch, and B is the leading tone.)
Timbre
- affected by the thickness and density of the instrument’s material and the amount of resonance
- otherwise known as tone color
- instrumentalists frequently asked to modify this by using a “mute”
- often used to change form in many twentieth-century compositions
Pitch on Staff
- treble clef (music symbol everyone knows)
- bass clef (frowny face)
- C-clef (the B looking one)
Overtones and Partials
Fundamental - lowest A (loudest and strongest)
Repetition
- repetition means repeating musical material w/ identical pitches/rhythms/harmonies
- sequences happen if a musical idea is repeated at a different pitch level
- Strophic form is a single, multi-phrased melody repeating 4 times
- strophic diagram is A A A A
Form
- describes how music is organized on a larger time scale
- the “architecture of music”
- often represented visually through scores and diagrams
Rhythmic Notes
Rhythmic notes indicate the length of a certain note
Whole Note- longest symbol (looks like an o)
Half Note- Half of a whole note (looks like a whole note with a stem)
Quarter Note- Half of a half note (looks like a filled in half note)
Eight Note/Sixteenth Note/etc- Adds flags to a quarter note. Each flag cuts the beat in half.
Rests
Rests indicate how long there SHOULD NOT be sound
Whole Rest (block under line)
Half Rest (block over line)
Quarter Rest (looks kind of like thunder)
Eight/Sixteenth/etc. Rest (stick with a grape-looking thing added)
Blues Inflections + Blues Scale
- elements of both major & minor scales
- scale degrees 3 + 7 get lowered, using pitch “between the keys”
- sometimes 5th degree
Arranging
- art of giving instructions as to what each individual performer should play
- different arrangements using the same instruments should sound very different
Meter
- beats are grouped into MEASURES, separated by BAR LINES
- first beat is DOWNBEAT, before downbeat is PICKUP/ANACRUSIS
- meter types include:
DUPLE- 2 beats, STRONG-weak-STRONG-weak
TRIPLE- 3 beats, STRONG-weak-weak
QUADRUPLE- 4 beats, STRONG-weak-OK-weak
IRREGULAR- cannot be divided to steady pulses (beats), common ones are 5 + 7 beat measures
Tempo
Tempo is the speed of the beat.
- examples:
“presto” (very fast, 200 bpm)
“allegro” (fast, 120 bpm)
“moderato” (moderate, 108 bpm)
“andante” (walking, 84 bpm)
“adagio” (slow, 72 bpm)
“lento”/”grave” (very slow, 40 bpm)
- tempo slows with “ritardando” (expressive is “rubato”)
- tempo speeds up with “accelerando”
- either above can happen suddenly (“subito”) or gradually (“poco a poco”)
Instrumentation
- the instrument or combination of instruments used
Pitch On Keyboard
- Moving “up” keyboard, left to right
- Moving “down” keyboard, right to left
- Black keys arranged in alternating groups of 2 and 3
- Half-Step (semitone): distance between any 2 adjacent keys
- Whole Step: distance between every other key
- Scale: sequence of pitches in ascending or descending order
- Natural Keys are the white keys (# sharp, b flat)
Dynamics
- loudness or softness of a sound
gradual increase: crescendo <
gradual decrease: decrescendo/diminuendo > - can change times during a single pitch if duration is long enough
- used for expressive purposes
Leading Tone
- The leading tone is the seventh scale degree inside of a scale.
- This is because the leading tone resolves upward to the C above.
Articulation
- concerns the mechanics of starting and ending a sound.
- various degrees of pressure, tounging (???), & bow pressure all contribute to this
Intervals
- An interval is the distance between any two pitches.
- The smallest distance is called half-step, which is like two adjacent keys on the piano.
- Intervals that spun in different lengths can have names attributed to it, like an interval from C to E is called a major third because of the three letter names between the lower and upper pitches. (handwriting is difficult to read)
Beat
- beat is the steady pulse that underlies most music
Twelve-Bar Blues
- 12-measure chord progression is repeated w/ variations in melodic material for several minutes
- key of C B(flat) F
Legato
- multiple pitches are played in a smooth, connected but not overlapping manner
Diatonic Scales
- A diatonic scale is when seven notes are picked out from the twelve, and are played in ascending order.
Note: These pitches will fall into one of four different patterns: major and three varieties at minor (???)
Musical Form
- musical form control larger spans of time
- forms denote balance, proportion, drama, climax
- forms include repetition, variation, contrast
Range/Register and Tessitura
- register is high/middle/low parts of instrument’s range
- tessitura calls for more pitches in a specific register
- vocal ranges include:
soprano (high, female)
alto (low, female)
tenor (high, male)
bass (low, male)
Modal Mixture
- one or two pitches of the basic triad are altered
- normally happens between a major key & its parallel minor key
(Look at physical flashcard for example)
“Serial” Techniques
term that reflects the serial ordering of the pitches in the row
caught on more widely only after WWII
“Twelve-Tone Method” (present: Techniques)
1925: Schoenberg develops this new system for determining pitch relationships
Instead of a scale, each piece has a primary “tone row” of 12 chromatic pitches
“tone row”= melodies, motives, bass lines, chords {derived from specific tone row
Staccato
- indicates a performer should shorten the duration of a note rather than letting it sound for its full value
- produces extra silents before the next note
- makes musical phrase sound crisper and choppier
- if a finger plucks a string to make this sound, it becomes a pizzicato
Contour (conjunct, disjunct)
- all melodies have contour, aka profile
- conjunct melodies move in a smooth + stepwise pattern
- disjunct melodies have leaps in intervals w/ melody
Enharmonic Pitches
- Enharmonic pitches are pitches that are identical in pitch, but are labelled differently
- Ex. Eb (e-flat), is an e that is lowered, while D# (d-sharp), is a D that is raised, but both refer to the same piano key/pitch
Equal Temperament + Chromatic Scale
- Equal Temperament is a system in tuning that became dominant in western tradition in 1750. Equal temperament utilizes mathematical ratios to divide an octave into twelve different notes/parts.
- When the twelve different pitches are played in ascending order, it is called the chromatic scale.
Modulate
- to change keys
- simplest method is to use accidentals to create the new key and then resolve to new tonic
