music appreciation
key terms from the first 9 chapters of Norton's "The Enjoyment of Music"
Terms
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- Keyboard instruments
- piano and organ, do not fit neatly into the Western classification system.
- Rhythmic complexities
- Upbeats, offbeats, syncopation, polyrhythm
- Movements
- Large-scale compositions, such as symphonies and sonatas, are divided into sections, or movements.
- Homorhythmic Texture
- subcategory of homophony in which all the voices move in the same rhythm.
- Simple meters
- Duple, triple, quadruple
- Brass instruments
- trumpet, French horn, trombone, and tuba.
- countermelody
- Secondary, accompanying melody
- Four families of instruments
- strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion.
- Standard chamber ensembles
- include string quartets as well as woodwind quintets and brass quintets.
- Percussion instruments
- idiophones (xylophone, cymbals, triangle) and membranophones (timpani, bass drum); some instruments are pitched (chimes) while others are unpitched (tambourine).
- Meter
- Marked off in MEASURES, organizes the BEATS, often starts with a DOWNBEAT
- Imitation
- when a melodic idea is presented in one voice, then restated in another (canons, rounds)
- Triad chord
- Most common chord in Western music
- Tempo terms
- llegro (fast), moderato (moderate), adagio (quite slow), accelerando (speeding up the pace), and ritardando (slowing the pace).
- cadences
- Small resting period at the end of a phrase
- Orchestra
- features eighty to one hundred players.
- Woodwind instruments
- flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone.
- Scale
- Sequence of pitches, makes up a chord
- disjunct melody
- Moves in large, leaping intervals
- Strophic form
- common in songs, features repeated music for each stanza of text.
- Types of human voice
- soprano and alto for female voices, and tenor and bass for male voices.
- Polyphony
- many-voiced texture based on counterpoint—one line set against another.
- Responsorial music
- a repetitive style involving a soloist and a group.
- Major/minor scales
- Harmony is derived from them
- Instrument classification
- aerophones (such as flutes or horns), chordophones (such as violins or guitars), idiophones (such as bells or cymbals) and membranophones (drums).
- melody
- Line or tune in music
- Timbre
- tone color
- Consonance
- Occurs with the resolution of dissonance
- Dynamics
- describe the volume, or how loud or soft the music is played; Italian dynamic terms include forte (loud) and piano (soft).
- range
- A melody's span of pitches
- Homophony
- occurs when one melodic voice is prominent over the accompanying lines, or voices
- Nonmetric
- Obscured pulse
- Ternary form
- A-B-A
- Texture
- interweaving of the melodic lines with harmony in music.
- Sequence
- results when a motive is repeated at a different pitch
- Drone
- Single sustained tone
- Instrument
- generates vibrations and transmits them into the air.
- Stringed instruments
- violin, viola, cello, and double bass; plucked strings include harp and guitar.
- Monophony
- single-voiced music without accompaniment.
- Chord
- Simultaneous sounding of three or more pitches
- Harmony
- Describes simultaneous events in music
- Heterophony
- multiple voices elaborating the same melody at the same time.
- Theme
- a melodic idea used as a building block in a large-scale work and can be broken into small, component fragments known as motives.
- Chamber music
- nsemble music for small groups, with one player per part.
- Metronome
- device that indicates the tempo, or beats per minute, by sounding a pulse.
- Tonic
- Central tone around which a melody is built, this principle is called tonality
- Dissonance
- Unstable or discordant harmony
- Compound meters
- Subdivide each beat into three, rather than two, subbeats
- interval
- Span between two pitches in a melody
- Additive meters
- Used in some world musics
- Tempo
- rate of speed, or pace, of the music.
- conjunct melody
- Moves in small, connected intervals
- rhythm
- Moves music forward in time
- Conductor
- beats patterns with a baton to help the performers keep the same tempo.
- phrases
- Units that make up a melody
- Form
- organizing principle in music; its basic elements are repetition, contrast, and variation.
- contour
- How the melody moves up or down
- a cappella singing
- no accompaniment.
- Ostinato
- the repetition of a short musical melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic pattern.
- Binary form
- A-B