Test 5

Question 1

What is minimalism?

Answer 1

One of leading musical styles of the late twentieth century, in which materials are reduced to a minimum and procedures simplified so that what is going on in the music is immediately apparent. Often characterized by a constant pulse and many repetitions of simple rhythmic, melodic, or harmonic patterns.

Question 2

What is polystylism?

Answer 2

Term coined by Alfred Schnittke for a combination of newer and older musical styles created through quotation or stylistic allusion.

Question 3

What is postmodernism?

Answer 3

Trend in the late twentieth century that blurs the boundaries between high and popular art, and in which styles of all epochs and cultures are equally available for creating music.

Question 4

What is sound mass?

Answer 4

Term coined by Edgard Varese for a body of sounds characterized by a popular timbre, register, rhythm, or melodic gesture, which may remain stable or may be transformed as it recurs.

Question 5

What is indeterminacy?

Answer 5

An approach to composition, pioneered by John Cage, in which the composer leaves certain aspects of the music unspecified.

Question 6

What is graphic notation?

Answer 6

Graphic notation is the representation of music through the use of visual symbols outside the realm of traditional music notation. Graphic notation evolved in the 1950s, and it is often used in combination with traditional music notation.

Question 7

What is Darmstadt?

Answer 7

It is a city in Germany, that had a school of music that inspired experiments by composers in many countries.

Question 8

What does aleatory mean?

Answer 8

relating to or denoting music or other forms of art involving elements of random choice (sometimes using statistical or computer techniques) during their composition, production, or performance.

Question 9

What does pointillism mean?

Answer 9

The space and sparseness of the music, how the music is colored.

Question 10

What is a Theremin?

Answer 10

an electronic musical instrument in which the tone is generated by two high-frequency oscillators and the pitch controlled by the movement of the performer’s hand toward and away from the circuit.

Question 11

What is meant by integral serialism?

Answer 11

Integral serialism or total serialism, the application of the principles of the twelve - tone method to musical parameters other than pitch, including duration, intensities, and timbres.

Question 12

What is meant by textural music?

Answer 12

1. A structure of interwoven fibers or other elements.

Question 13

What is meant by metric modulation?

Answer 13

metric modulation is a change in pulse rate (tempo) and/or pulse grouping (subdivision) which is derived from a note value or grouping heard before the change. Examples of metric modulation may include changes in time signature across an unchanging tempo, but the concept applies more specifically to shifts from one time signature/tempo (meter) to another, wherein a note value from the first is made equivalent to a note value in the second, like a pivot or bridge.

Question 14

Who composed Einstein on the Beach?

Answer 14

Philip Glass

Question 15

Who composed 4’33?

Answer 15

John Cage

Question 16

Who composed Poeme Electronique?

Answer 16

Edgard Varese and it uses sounds and noises not considered musical throughout the piece.

Question 17

What is Music of Changes?

Answer 17

It is a solo piano piece written by John Cage, his first fully indeterminant piece, using square like parts.

Question 18

What is “Schoenberg Is Dead”?

Answer 18

An article written by Pierre Boulez, stating that there are flagrant incompatibilities in Schoenberg’s music.

Question 19

What is mrant by extended techniques?

Answer 19

unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional methods of singing or of playing musical instruments employed to obtain unusual sounds or timbres.

Question 20

What is meant by musique concrete?

Answer 20

Term coined by composers working in Paris in the 1940s for music composed by assembling and manipulating recorded sounds, working “concretely” with sound itself rather than with music notation.

Question 21

What is meant by non-retrogradable rhythms?

Answer 21

Music that can be read or played the same forwards or backwards.

Question 22

What is electronic music?

Answer 22

Music based on sounds that are produced or modified through electronic means.

Question 23

What is meant by Mobile Form in music?

Answer 23

mobile form the term ‘mobile form’ is used for ‘aleatory music’ (Latin, alea meaning ‘dice’) a compositional technique, most closely associated with the American composer John Cage (1912-1992), where, through the use of dice, random-number generators, books such as the I Ching, etc. (called ‘chance operations’), the choice of pitch, rhythmic value and order of events is left to chance, the music so produced being called ‘aleatoric’ or ‘chance’ music

Question 24

What is “Who Cares if You Listen”?

Answer 24

An article written by Milton Babbitt- An infuriating article, suggesting that a composer should not care about the opinion of a populist audience.

Question 25

What is “Come Out”?

Answer 25

A piece written 1966 by Steve Reich performed at a benefit for a retrial of the Harlem Six, six black youths arrested for a murder which only one was responsible.

Question 26

Who are Buchla and Moog?

Answer 26

Early pioneers of synthesizers, that helped revolution the way music sounds.

Question 27

What is Phase shifting/phrasing?

Answer 27

Phase-shifting, AKA phasing, is an audio effect which takes advantage of the way sound waves interact with each other when they are out of phase. By splitting an audio signal into two signals and changing the relative phasing between them, a variety of interesting sweeping effects can be created.

Question 28

What is special about the RCA synthesizer?

Answer 28

It was the first programmable synthesizer and the flagship piece of equipment at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.

Question 29

What is In C?

Answer 29

A musical piece by Terry Riley - In C consists of 53 short, numbered musical phrases, lasting from half a beat to 32 beats; each phrase may be repeated an arbitrary number of times. Each musician has control over which phrase he or she plays: players are encouraged to play the phrases starting at different times, even if they are playing the same phrase. In this way, although the melodic content of each part is predetermined, In C has elements of aleatoric music to it.[4] The performance directions state that the musical ensemble should try to stay within two to three phrases of each other. The phrases must be played in order, although some may be skipped. As detailed in some editions of the score, it is customary for one musician (“traditionally… a

Question 30

What is the IRCAM?

Answer 30

Is a French institute for science about music and sound and avant garde electro-musical art music founded by Pierre Boulez.
Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique

Question 31

Who was Terry Riley?

Answer 31

An American composer and performing musician associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music, of which he was a pioneer. His work is deeply influenced by both jazz and Indian classical music.

Question 32

Who is Gyorgy Ligeti?

Answer 32

A Hungarian composer, whose music was made famous by 2001 a space odyssey using his piece atmospheres, also his pieces are used in several of Stanley Kubricks films.

Question 33

Who was Philip Glass?

Answer 33

American composer. He is considered one of the most influential music makers of the late 20th century. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and worked with sitarist Ravi Shankar in Paris. He also wrote opera.

Question 34

Who is Pierre Schaeffer?

Answer 34

A French composer who is most widely and currently recognized for his accomplishments in electronic and experimental music,[2] at the core of which stands his role as the chief developer of a unique and early form of avant-garde music known as musique concrète.[

Question 35

Who was Elliott Carter?

Answer 35

An American composer who was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, then returned to the United States. He wrote using a complex, nonserial style characterized by innovations and form.

Question 36

Who is Harry Partch?

Answer 36

He designed new instruments to be played in new and interesting ways, he also combined the exploration of new instrumental sounds with a new approach to pitch. An American composer, music theorist, and creator of musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century composers in the West to work systematically with microtonal scales.

Question 37

Who was Henry Cowell?

Answer 37

An American composer, who composed experimental music using tone clusters, chords of diatonic or chromatic seconds produced by pressing the keys with the fist or forearm. He went to prison for homosexuality and he wrote aleatory music.

Question 38

Who was Olivier Messiaen?

Answer 38

French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonically and melodically it often uses modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations. Messiaen also drew on his Roman Catholic faith for his pieces. He was a devours catholic and composed many pieces on religious subjects.

Question 39

Who is Karlheinz Stockhausen?

Answer 39

He is known for his groundbreaking work in electronic music, aleatory (controlled chance) in serial composition, and musical spatialization. He used borrowed materials in several works. He used moment form, creating a sense of timelessness. He was a pioneer of electronic music.

Question 40

Who is Pierre Boulez?

Answer 40

Pierre Boulez is a French composer, conductor, writer, and pianist. In his early career, Boulez played a key role in the development of integral serialism, controlled chance and electronic music. He developed new methods of deriving related rows, music could give a sense of randomness but be logical and systematic.

Question 41

Who is Krysztof Penderecki?

Answer 41

A polish composer and conductor, his music is based on texture and effects. His music focuses on a particular kind of sound and he used graphic notation. Players choose patterns and may move at different speed and the exact sounds each produces are indeterminate.