Terms Flashcards

Question

commission

Answer 1

A sum of money paid to an artist in advance to facilitate the creation of a new work for a specific ensemble, performance, occasion, etc. (Stravinsky composed on commission after the success of his ballet scores)

Answer 2

string-playing technique. It involves plucking the strings of the instrument.

Answer 3

Something used in the music of 20th and 21st centuries. They were searching for new sounds. Extended techniques are about exploring new uses for traditional art-music instruments.

Answer 4

Paintings: - bright colors - clashing colors - colors that are wrong/disturbing - distortion of color and form - creates a sense of unease (Munch)

Answer 5

The intentional use of genres & styles from previous style periods, particularly the Baroque and Classical Eras, in works of the 20th century. It was a reaction against late romanticism and impressionism.

Answer 6

Style of art, music and theater, especially associated with Germany and Scandinavia between 1880 and 1925. Stresses intense, subjective emotion, isolation, madness or some extreme and/or deranged psychological state. Form of social protest, depicting the horrors of war, poverty, etc. A search for brutal honesty and alternative forms of beauty.

Answer 7

Austrian Jewish composer. Associated with Vienna. An innovator for atonal music. He abandoned tonality in 1908 to compose the first works of atonal music.

Answer 8

A term for harmonic language (not style, genre or form). It involves the intentional avoidance of any pitch center through the careful avoidance of chord patterns common in tonal music. All 12 pitches of the equal-tempered octave may be used at any time and in any combination. Completely intuitive, chromatic music.

Answer 9

Hungarian composer, pianist, professor. Immigrated to the US to get away from fascist ideologies. (he is anti-Nazi) Worked on commissions and created Concerto for Orchestra and Piano Concerto No. 3

Answer 10

- harmonically innovative - rythmically innovative - dissonance - symmetrical musical structures - musical palindromes - individual approach to neoclassicism - features ensembles, forms and textures from early 18th century (Baroque)

Answer 11

an academic discipline. The scientific study, collection, and classification of music from non-Western cultures. Context of nationalism and primitivism that emphasizes the preservation of folk traditions.

Answer 12

academic discipline

Answer 13

A tone cluster is a chord that uses every pitch between 2 notated pitches. On a piano, they would press every key at the same time. Associated with Henry Cowell.

Answer 14

Performer reaches inside the opened piano to manipulate the strings by plucking, scraping, scratching, etc. Henry Cowell, The Banshee.

Answer 15

Henry Cowell

Answer 16

Avant-garde composer. Student of Arnold Schoenberg. Important early composer of percussion ensemble. Advocate for aleatory music. Uses chance operations. Uses a stop watch in his performances. Cage challenges us to see ourselves in our everyday life as artists, and every aspect of life as equally blessed.

Answer 17

Musical ensemble consisting of only percussion instruments. Cage called percussion music "all-sound music of the future" Associated with Cage. Associated with post-1920.

Answer 18

Created by Cage, influenced by the string piano. A type of extended technique for piano accomplished by inserting objects between the piano's strings according to the specific instructions of the composer.

Answer 19

Aleatory is the intentional introduction of random elements during the composition and/or performance of a piece of music. The piece of music will contain something that is not predictable by the composer while creating or performing. Expresses disdain for fussy details. Anti-Romantic reactions.

Answer 20

Another word for aleatory

Answer 21

Another word for aleatory

Answer 22

compositional process. Flipping coins to make random choices while writing a piece. Used by Cage. Using randomness and structure for this technique.

Answer 23

It's an unconventional written manner of conveying musical ideas, through pictorial images, for example. Used to create a score that is so wide open to interpretation that different performances might be unrecognizable as the same piece.

Answer 24

American Singer and composer. Avant-Garde. Collaborated with Luciano Berio. Virtuosity in performing challenging avant-garde works, many specifically written for her.

Answer 25

Virtuosity in performing challenging avant-garde works by the major composers of the 20th century, many written specifically for her. Luciano Berio wrote Sequenza III for her. Involved in historically informed performance.

Answer 26

virtuosic genre for solo instrument. A single-movement work for solo instrument, characterized by an imaginative, formally innovative, and virtuosic and perhaps improvisatory character.

Answer 27

virtuosic genre for solo voice

Answer 28

Hungarian Jewish composer. He was sent with his family to labor camps. Worked with important pioneers of electronic music.

Answer 29

style term. Eschew conventional melody, harmony and rhythm in favor of sound masses with sliding and merging orchestral clusters, creating a succession of various timbres that might be static or dynamic or both.

Answer 30

Making the music of a movie. Film score is a genre

Answer 31

underscoring source music

Answer 32

non-diegetic. Music that comes from an unseen source and ‘outside’ the action of the movie. Underscoring is understood by the viewer to not be audible to the characters within the drama. Such music is ‘for the audience’ only, and is used to manipulate the listener by enhancing the action, drama or other visual and emotional aspects of the movi

Answer 33

diegetic Source music is movie music that comes from a source that is part of the action of the movie. Such music is understood by the audience to be taking place ‘within’ the dramatic action and to be audible to the characters in the scene. Source music can be very effective at setting a scene, for instance by using muffled chanting or an organ to set the scene within a church, or using a live band of exotic instruments to set the scene in a foreign land.

Answer 34

establishes mood of scene or characters sets time and place of action running counter to the action character establishment/development

Answer 35

musical motives or melodies that symbolize (characterize, ‘embody’, etc.) or are otherwise strongly associated with a particular character, scene, situation, idea, etc. This is basically the same musical/dramatic technique Wagner used in his music dramas

Answer 36

Leading figure in the so-called "New Wave" of Chinese composers. His encounter with John Cage was likely an influence that explains why there is always at least a little indeterminacy in his work. Film Score of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Musical Style: Polystylistic and Internationalist

Answer 37

traditional Chinese string instrument

Answer 38

Polystylism is the use of multiple styles or techniques in literature, art, film, or, especially, music. Tan Dan. Incorporating elements of Chinese folk music, atonal passages, indeterminate and minimalist elements, etc.

Answer 39

Style Term Musical quotation is the practice of directly quoting another work in a new composition.

Answer 40

Collage usually means the playful usage of contrasting musical material of different periods and styles of music history, as well as combining fragments of the works by different composers for creating a new piece.

Answer 41

Style term in plastic and musical arts characterized by the repetitive use of a small amount of material, depending on the medium of art, whether the material is a physical substance or sounds. Incessant repetition. Repetitious musical motives. Minimize the variety of timbres.

Answer 42

Minimalism is influenced by the contemplative musical and visual arts of India, China, Indonesia, and the hypnotic rhythms of some African musics.

Answer 43

Postminimalism keeps the accessibility and transparency of earlier classic minimalism but features generally more dynamic and active textures, faster development of musical processes, more complex and interesting neo-romantic harmony, and a wide variety of performing media.

Answer 44

Use of minimalism, but with emphasis on spirituality and sacred words. Associated with Arvo Pärt.

Answer 45

Born in Estonia. Experimented with neoclassicism, quotation music, and minimalist techniques. Some people would use spiritual minimalism to describe his works.

Answer 46

American composer. First woman to earn a Pulitzer Prize in music composition. Early works: Austere avant-garde idiom. Later works: Simpler melodic material and increasingly tonal harmonic language.