Twentieth Century Compositional Techniques and the Composers Flashcards
Aleatory (aleatoric or Chance)
Music in which any number of the compositional elements (including notes) can be predetermined by the composer or left to chance or improv by the performer
Atonal
Music that contains neither a sense of tonal center nor a sense that one pitch is more important than any other pitch
Bitonality
Music that suggests the simultaneous presence of two tonal centers (i.e. keys)
John Cage
The leading exponent of “Chance” music
Cell
A short melodic or harmonic unit (usually 3 to 5 notes) that serves as the basis of a composition
Formalized music
Conceptualizing music as a world of sound-masses, galaxies, and clouds governed by characteristics such as density, degree of order, and rate of change determined by probability theory
Indeterminate Procedures (Indeterminancy)
A reaction against serialism in which freedom in composition is cultivated through the use of chance and random selection
Interval Vector
The number of possible intervals in a cell
Leitmotif
Leading motive. A musically memorable gesture, sometimes with extra-musical significance
Microtones
Intervals less than a half-step in size
Non-functional harmony
the avoidance of harmonic and melodic movement and tendency tone resolution associated with major and minor tonality.
Pandiatonicism
The use of pitch material from a specific scale or mode in a manner that avoids functional harmonic and melodic relationships, usually in a contrapuntal style
Parallelism (planning)
Two or more voices moving in parallel motion, generating intervals or harmonies of the same general quality
Parameters
All musical elements (i.e. pitch, rhythm, tempo, dynamics, articulation, etc.) Post-Western composers applied 12-tone principles to parameters giving them exual importance in totally serialized music
Polychords
two or more harmonic structures sounded together but percieved as different chords
