Music Appreciation 110

Choir

A choir, traditionally a smaller group, is often connected with a church or with the performance of sacred music.

Chorus

A chorus is a fairly large body of singers who perform together; their music is usually sung in several voice parts.

Timbre

A fourth property of sound beside pitch, duration, and volume---timbre, or tone color---accounts for the striking difference in the sound quality of musical instruments, mechanisms that generate vibrations and launch them into the air. It's what makes a trumpet sound altogether different from a guitar or a clarinet. Timbre is influenced by a number of factors, such as the size,shape, and proportions of the instrument, the material from which it is made, and the manner in which the vibration is produced. For example, may be bowed, plucked, or struck.

Genre

A genre is is a more general term that suggests something of the overall character of the work as well as its function (categories of music).

Rhythmic Mode

A rhythmic mode, is a fixed pattern of long and short notes that is repeated or varied, over a sustained bottom voice taken from the chant of the same name.

Aerophones

Aerophones produce sound by using air. Instruments in this category include flutes, whistles, and horns---in short. any wind instrument. One of the most common aerophones around the world is the bagpipe, with somewhat raucous (making or constituting a disturbingly harsh and loud noise) tone and built-in drones for harmony.

Oragnum

Among the first named composers of the Western tradition, Leonin (who lived in the second half of the 1100s) and Petrotin (who worked around 1200) developed a style known as oragnum, in which plainchant---single-line melodies of the early Christian church---was "decorated" with one or more simultaneous musical lines. In the Middle Ages, Paris's Cathedral of Notre Dame was a center of organum, the earliest type of polyphonic: two-,three-, or four-voice parts sung in fixed rhythmic patterns (rhythmic modes).

Instrument

An instrument generates vibrations and transmits them into the air.

Band

Band is a generic name applied to a variety of ensembles, most of which rely on winds and percussion. The band is a much-loved American institution. One American bandmaster, John Phillip Sousa, achieved worldwide fame with his wind, or concert, band and the repertory (the performance of various plays, operas, or ballets by a company at regular short intervals) of marches he wrote for it.

Chamber Ensembles

Chamber music is ensemble music for a group of two to about a dozen players, with only one player to part---as distinct from orchestral music, in which a single instrumental party maybe performed as many as eighteen players or more. The essential trait of chamber music is its intimacy. Standard chamber ensembles include string quartets, piano, trios, and brass quintets.

Chant Melodies

Chant melodies fall int three main classes, according to the way they are set to the text: syllabic, with one note sung to each syllable of text; neumatic, generally with small groups of up to five or six note sung to syllables; and melismatic, with many notes to set to single syllable.

Choral Groups

Choral groups often feature a cappella singing, with no accompaniment.

Chordophones

Chordophones produce sound from vibrating string stretched between two points. The string maybe in motion by bowing, as on a violin; by plucking, as on a guitar or an Indian sitar (Bhimpalasi); or by striking, as for the Chinese hammered dulcimer, or yangqin.

Word-Painting

Composers use word-painting to emphasize the text, perhaps with a drawn-out word over many notes. This technique is called word-painting, and you will hear it frequently in vocal music. Gospel, as well as some pop singers---such as Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, and Beyonce Knowles--- use melismas as part of their signature style.

Baton

Conductors beat time in standard metric patterns to help the performers keep the same tempo; many conductors use a thin stick known as a baton, which is easy to see.

Humanism

During the sixteenth-century many people gained confidence in their ability to solve their own problems and to order their world rationally, relying exclusively on tradition or religion. This awakening, called humanism, was inspired by the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome, its writers and artworks.

Register

Each voice type and instrument has a limited melodic range (the distance from the lowest to the highest note) and dynamic range. We describe a specific area in the range of an instrument or voice, such as a low, middle, or high, as its register.

Ars Nova

European contacts with Eastern cultures, along with developments in feudal social structure, inspired new concepts of life, art, and beauty. These changes were reflected in the musical style known as Ars nova (new art), which appeared in the early 1300s in France, and soon thereafter in Italy.

Symphony

For example, song is a genre, as is symphony----usually designating a four-movement orchestral work. As we will see later, each movement of a symphony has a specific internal form, or structure. "Symphony" also implies the medium, or the specific group that performs the piece---in this case, an orchestra.

Sanctus

Fourth is the Sanctus ("Holy,holy,holy"), a song of praise, which concludes with "Hosanna in the highest."

Modes

From Gregorian chant through music of the Renaissance, Western music used a variety of scale patterns, or modes. These preceded major and minor scales (scales are also types of modes), which are characterized by a strong pull toward a tonic notes; the earlier modes lacked this sense of attraction.

Guillaum de Machaut

Guillaum de Machaut was a poet-composer of the French Ars nova (new art) who wrote sacred music and polyphonic chansons (secular songs) set to fixed text forms (rondeau, ballade, virelai).

Idiophones

Idiophones produce sound from the substance itself. They may be struck, as are steel drums from Trinidad (Dougla Dance); scraped or shaken, as are African rattles (Gota); or plucked, as in the mbira, or African "thumb-piano" (Mbira). The variety of idiophones around the world is staggering.

A cappella

In early times, choral music was often performed without accompaniment, a style of singing known as a cappella (meaning "in the chapel").

Gamelan

In its most general sense, the term "orchestra" may be applied to any performing body of diverse instruments---- this would include the gamelan orchestras of Bali and Java, made up largely of gongs, xylophone-like instruments, and drums.

Motet

In the Renaissance, one of the most popular genres was the motet---a sacred work with a Latin text, for use in the Mass and other religious services. The ability to combine newly written texts of praise with prescribed prayers was part of the appeal of the motet for composers, who were able to demonstrate their individual creativity through choice of text as well as musical inventions.

Orchestra

In the West, the term is no synonymous with orchestra, an ensemble of strings coupled with an assortment of woodwinds,brass,and percussion instruments. *The modern orchestra can feature over one-hundred players*.

Through-composed form

In through-composed form, there are no large repeated sections. The direct opposite of strophic form in a song would be through-composed form, where no main section of the music or text is repeated.

Liturgy

In time, it became necessary to assemble the ever-growing body of music into an organized liturgy, a term that refers to the set order of church services and the structure of each service.

Dissonance

Is created by an unstable, or discordant, combination of pitches.

Jacques Arcadelt

Jacques Arcadelt was an early master of the Italian madrigal, a sixteenth-century tradition that linked music and lyric poetry. Madrigals usually featured expressive text setting, word-painting, and multiple meanings.

Keyboard Instruments

Keyboard instruments, such as the piano and organ, do not fit neatly into the Western classification system.

Call-and-response (responsorial)

Many cultures use call-and-response (or responsorial) music, a repetitive style involving a soloist and a group. Some music is created spontaneously in performance, through improvisation. One formal practice based on repetition and heard throughout the world is call-and-response or (responsorial) music. In this style of performance, predominant in early Western church music and also in the music of African, Native American, and African American cultures, a singing leader is imitated or answered by a chorus of followers. This is a typical singing style for spirituals and gospel music, as you will hear in a performance of one of the most famous spirituals of all time, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.

Downbeat

Measures often being with a strong downbeat. The first accented beat of each pattern is know as a downbeat, referring to the downward stroke of a conductors hand.

Membranophones

Membranophones are drum-type instruments that are sounded from tightly stretched membranes. They too can be struck, plucked, rubbed, or even sung into, to set the skin in vibration.

Troubadours/Trouveres

Most prominent in this secular tradition were the troubadours of Languedoc (what is now southern France) and the trouveres of northern France, who not only left us the first extensive notated tradition of love song, but also helped to introduce increasingly complex instruments into the Western tradition. Troubadours and trouveres are terms that both mean "finders" or "inventors."

Instrument Combinations

Other popular combinations are the duo sonata (soloist with piano); the piano trio, piano quarter, and piano quintet, each made up of a piano and string instruments; the string; as well as larger groups--- the sextet, septet and octet. Winds too form standard combinations, especially woodwind and brass quintets.

Pentatonic

Pentatonic is the most common, or five note scale used in some African, Asian, and Native American musics.

Cantus Firmus

Polyphonic writing offered he composer many possibilities, such as the use of a fixed melody (cantus firmus) in one voice as the basis for elaborate ornamentation in the other voice.

Quadruple Meter

Quadruple meter contains four beats to the measure, with a primary accent on the first beat and a secondary accent on the third. Usually has a broader (wider) feeling.

Texture

Refers to the interweaving of the melodic lines with harmony.

Rock Bands

Rock bands often supplement amplified guitars and percussion with synthesizers, and may also feature other winds and brass.

Secular (nonreligious)

Secular (nonreligious) music has traditionally been in vernacular languages. You will hear most sung in their original language (although we provide an English translation), since a sung translation will never fit the musical lines as well as the original words.

Chromatic

Some compositions introduce other notes that are foreign to the scale, drawing from the full gamut (the complete range or scope of something.) of the twelve half steps that span the octave. These works are considered chromatic (meaning "color).

Range

Span of pitches. its the distance between the lowest and highest notes.

String Instruments

String instruments (chordophones) are sounded by bowing and plucking. Bowed strings include the violin, viola,cello, and double bass; plucked strings include the harp and guitar.

Concertmasters

String players depend on the conductor, or sometimes the concertmaster (the first-chair violinist), to standardize their bowing strokes so that the musical emphasis, and therefore the interpretation, is uniform.

Style

Style may be defined as the characteristic way an artwork is presented. The word may also indicate the creator's personal manner of expression--- the distinctive flavor that sets one artist apart from all others.

Reformation

The Augustinian monk Martin Luther (1483-1546) launched the Protestant movement known as the Reformation with his Ninety-Five Theses. Both Luther and another important reformer, John Calvin (1509-1564), believed that simple, monophonic congregational singing in the vernacular should be the basis of Christian worship. Calvin rejected polyphony as distracting from the essential focus on scriptural text: his followers (including the early Pilgrim colonist who came to North America) embraced the idea that worship song should be monophonic and shared by all congregants. But Luther encouraged his followers to add polyphonic worship to enhance the congregational unison singing.

Counter Reformation

The Catholic Church was undergoing its own reform movement, focused on a return to Christian piety, known as the Catholic Reformation or Counter Reformation.

Kyrie

The Kyrie is a prayer for mercy that dates from the early centuries of Christianity, as its Greek attests.

Mass

The Mass is the most solemn ritual of the Catholic Church and the one generally attended by public worshipers. The collection of prayers that make up the Mass (its liturgy) falls into two categories: the Ordinary, texts that remain the same in every Mass; and the Proper, texts that vary from day to day throughout the church year, depending on the feast being celebrated. Aside from the Kyrie, which is a Greek text, the rest of the Mass was in Latin. *Ordinary of the Mass, is sectioned into five prayers which are: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei.*

Council of Trent

The church organized what some view as the longest committee meeting in history: the Council of Trent, which met, with some interruptions, from 1545 to 1563

Marching Band

The familiar marching band usually entertains at sports events and parades. Besides its core of winds and percussion, this group often features remnants from its military origins, including a display of drum majors (majorettes), flags, and rifles. The repertory of marching bands is extensive, but almost always includes marches by John Phillip Sousa, such as the well-known Stars and Stripes Forever.

Agnus Dei

The fifth and the last part of the Ordinary, the Agnus Dei, ("Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world"), is sung three times, with different words for it conclusion.

Voice Types

The human voice can be categorized into various ranges, including soprano, and alto for female voices, and tenor and bass for male voices. The standard designations for vocal ranges, from highest to lowest, are soprano, mezzo soprano, and alto (short for "contralto") for female voices; and tenor and bass for male voices.

Musical Notation

The idea of putting sound to paper.

Duple Meter

The most basic pattern known as duple meter, alternates a strong downbeat with a weak beat: ONE two, ONE two; or if you marched it, LEFT right, LEFT right.

Triad

The most common chord in Western music is a triad, three alternate pitches of a scale.

String quartets

The most well-known combination is probably the string quartet, made up of two violins, viola, and cello.

Plainchant

The music of the early Christian church, called plainchant (or just chant), features monophonic (which lacks either harmony or counterpoint), nonmetric melodies set in one of the church modes or scales.

Jazz Bands

The precise instrumentation of jazz bands depends on the particular music being played but usually includes a reed section made up of saxophones and occasional clarinet, a brass section of trumpets and trombones, and a rhythm section of percussion, piano, double bass, and electric guitar.

Oral Transmission

The preservation of music without the aid of written notation is referred to as oral transmission.

Syllabic

The simplest way that words and melody can fit together is a one-to-one match called syllabic: each syllable gets one note, as in "Happy Birthday."

Madrigal

The sixteenth-century madrigal, the most important secular genre of the era, was aristocratic form of poetry and music that flourished at the Italian courts as a favorite diversion of cultivated amateurs.

Stanzas or strophes

The text of a song may help organize the tune. Words flow in phrases, just as melodies do, and both are punctuated (by cadences, in the case of music). Poems are often written stanzas, or strophes.

Credo

The third section, the Credo ("I believe in one God, the Father Almighty"), is the confession of faith and the longest of the Mass texts.

Subdominant chord (IV)

The triad built on the fourth scale step (fa) is known as the subdominant (IV). The movement from the subdominant to the tonic (IV to I) is familiar from the "Amen) sung at the close of many hymns.

Phrases

The units that make up a melody are phrases. A phrase in music, as in language, is a unit of meaning within a larger structure.

Vocalise

The voice can even be used for its timbral characteristics, like any other instrument----as in the technique are called vocalise, or wordless melody (singing on a neutral vowel like "ah").

Fugue

The work (orchestra) closes with a grand fugue, a polyphonic form popular in the Baroque era (1600-1750), which is also based on Purcell's theme. The fugue, like the variations, presents its subject, or theme, in rapid order in each instrument.

Instrument Classification System

The world instrument classification system divides into aerophones (such as a flute or horns), chordophones (violins or guitars), idiophones (bells or cymbals), and membranophones (drums).

Ars Antiqua

There music of the Art antiqua (old art), which is displaced, ushered in developments in rhythm, meter, harmony, and counterpoint that transformed the art of music.

Gloria

This prayer is followed by the Gloria ("Glory be to God on high"), a joyful hymn of praise.

Vibrato

Throughout the ages, the human voice has served as a model for instrument builders, composers, and players who have sought to duplicate its lyric beauty, expressiveness, and ability to produce vibrate (a throbbing effect) on their instruments.

French Chanson & Italian Madrigal

Two important secular genres arose from the union of poetry and music: the French chanson ( an outgrowth of the medieval version we heard by Machaut) and the Italian madrigal. The intricate verse structures of French and Italian poetry helped shape these musical form.

Vernacular

Vernacular musics (often called "popular" or traditional," wrongly understood as spontaneously generated by untrained musicians) are essential traditions in their own right, and both rock and especially jazz are believed by many to be new art forms, having stood the test of time.

Sacred Music/ Secular Music

We can distinguish in most cultures between scared music, for religious purposes (like the Islamic Chant), and secular music, for entertainment (such as the Mariachi Band). Sacred Music: Sounds designed to inspire the faithful to worship. Secular Music: Social music-making for entertainment and personal expression.

Pitch

We tend to characterize any musical sound as one that has a perceivable and measurable pitch.

Musical Tempo

We use Italian terms to designate musical tempo. Allegro (fast;cheerful), moderato (medium;moderate), adagio (quite slow), accelerando (speeding up), ritardando (slowing down), grave (solemn; very,very, slow), largo (broad; very slow), andante ( a walking pace), vivace (lively), and presto (very fast).

Climax

What makes an striking effect is the climax, the high point in a melodic line, which usually represents a peak in intensity as well as in range.

Accented beats

When beats are stronger than others. In much Western music, these beats occur at regular intervals- every other beat, every third beat, every fourth beat, and so on- and thus we hear groupings of two, three, and four.

Motive

Within a theme, a small fragment that forms a melodic-rhythm is called a motive. Motives are the cells of musical growth, which, repeated, varied, and combined into new patterns, impart the qualities of evolution and expansion. These musical building blocks can be seen even in simple songs, like the national tune America.

Melody

A melody is a line, or the tune, in music. A melody is a succession of single pitches that we hear as a recognizable whole. We relate to the pitches of a melody in the same way we hear the words- of a sentence-- not singly but as an entire cohesive(bond;whole) thought.

Countermelody

A melody may be accompanied by a secondary melody, or a countermelody. A second melody played against the first melody is called a countermelody (literally, "against a melody").

Disjunct

A melody that moves by leaps is disjunct. Melodies that move in larger, disconnected intervals (like The Star-Spangled Banner) are described as disjunct.

Conjunct

A melody that moves in small, connected intervals is conjunct. Melodies that move principally by small intervals in a joined, connected manner (like Joy to the World).

Movements

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected ( music pieces) from a composition are sometimes performed separately , a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession. *The symphony is in four sections, or movements, with contrasting tempo indications for each movement, in Italian.* Large-scale compositions, such as symphonies and sonatas, are divided into sections or movements.

Sharp

A sharp (#) is a symbol that raises a pitch by a half step; a sharp raises a note by a half step.

Transposition

A shift in the pitch level of an entire work.

Key

Composers can shift the pitch level of an entire work.

Binary form (A-B)

Basic structure in music. Binary (two-part) form is based on a statement and a departure, without a return to the opening section.

Ternary form (A-B-A)

Basic structure in music. Ternary (three-part) form extends the idea of statement and departure by bringing back the first section.

Compound meters

Divided each beat into three rather than two. The most common compound meter is sextuple meter ( compound duble), which has six beats to the measure, or tow main beats that each divide into three (ONE-and-a, TWO-and-a).

Measures (bars)

Each measure contains a fixed number of beats, and the first beat in a measure usually receives the strongest accent. Measures are designated with measure (bar) lines.

Contour

Each melody is unique in contour (how it moves up and down) and in range, or span of pitches. The contour of a melody is its overall shape as it turns upward or downward or remains static.

Homorhythm

Homorhythm, is a kind of homophony where all the voices or lines move together in the same rhythm. When there is text, all words are clearly sounded together. Like homophony, it is based on harmony moving in synchronization with a melody. Homorhythmic settings in which all voices move together rhythmically.

Concertmaster

In an orchestra concert, the concertmaster (the first-chair violinist) will make a separate entrance and then tune the orchestra by asking the oboe player to play a pitch, to which all the instruments tune in turn.

Rhyme scheme

Its four phrases, both the text and the music, are of equal length, and the rhyme scheme of the text (the way the last syllables in each line rhyme) is a-b-a-b.

Scat-singing

Jazz singers often launch into scat-singing, a vocal improvisation using wordless vocables, like "Shoo-be-doo-be-doo-wop" (Louis Armstrong famously invented this technique), and in English as a refrain.

Form

Is the organization principle in music; its basic elements are repetition, contrast and variation.

Tempo

Is the rate of speed, or pace of the music. Most Western music has steady beats underlying the movement; whether these occur slowly or rapidly determines the tempo, or rate of speed, of the music, a temporary structure Consequently (as a result), the flow of music in time involves meter patterns (the grouping and emphasis of the beats) and tempo. Tempo also carries emotional implications. We hurry our speech of agitation or eagerness. Vigor and gaiety are associated with a brisk speed, just as despair usually demands a slow one. Since music moves in time, its pace is of prime importance, drawing from listeners responses that are both physical and psychological. Because of the close connection between tempo and mood, tempo markings indicate the character of the music as well as the pace.

Rhythm

Is what moves music in forward time. Music is propelled forward by rhythm, the move of music in time.

Meter

Meter, marked off in measures (or bars), organizes the beats (the basic units) in music. Organized patterns; are marked off in measures (or bars). Organizes the flow of rhythm in music.

Major/Minor Scales

Most Western music is based on major or minor scales, from which melody and harmony are derived. Major Scales are the most familiar sequence of pitches. The minor scale sounds quite different from the major. One reason is that it has a lowered, or flattered, third note.

Movement

Music composition is an organic form in which the individual notes are bound together within a phrase, the phrases within a theme, the themes within a section, the sections within a movement (a complete, comparatively independent division of a large scale-work), and the movements within the work as a whole (like a symphony)--- just as a novel binds together the individual words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters into a cohesive whole.

Diatonic

Music in a major or minor key focuses on the seven notes of the respective scale and is considered diatonic. In diatonic music, both the melody and the harmony are firmly rooted in the key.

Repetition and Constrast

Music of all cultures mirrors life in its basic elements of repetition and contrast, the familiar and the new. Repetition fixes the material in our minds and satisfies our need for the familiar, while contrast stimulates our interest and feeds our desire for change. Every kind of musical work, from nursery rhyme to a symphony, has a conscious structure.

Homophony

Occurs when one melodic voice is prominent over the accompanying lines or voices. The most commonly heard texture, homophony, a single voice takes over the melodic interest, while the accompanying lines are subordinate. Normally, the accompanying lines become blocks of harmony, the chords that support, color, and enhance the principal line. Homophonic texture is heard when a pianist plays a melody in the right hand while the left sounds the chords, or when a singer or violinist carries the tune against a harmonic accompaniment on the piano. Homophonic texture, then, is based on harmony, just as polyphonic texture is based on counterpoint. The differences between the two can be subtle, depending on whether a listener perceives additional musical lines as equal or subordinate to a primary melody.

Variation

One kind of form that falls between repetition and contrast is variation, where some aspects of the music are altered but the original is still recognizable. You hear this formal technique when you listen to a new arrangement of a well-known popular song: the tune is recognizable, but many features of the known versions are changed.

Microtones

Other scales types are found around the world, sometimes using microtones, which are intervals smaller than half steps. Some non-Western music features intervals even smaller than half steps, called microtones: or example, you can hear "bent," or inflected, pitches in Indian sitar music and microtonal sliding between pitches in Islamic chant. Some scales are not easily playable on Western instruments because they employ intervals smaller than the half steps. Such intervals, known as microtones, may sound "off-key" to Western ears.

Frequency

Pitch is determined by its frequency (number of vibrations per second). This pitch depends on the length or size of a vibrating object. EX: a short string(violin) vibrates faster than a long string(cello).

Meaures (bar) lines

Regular vertical lines through the staff.

Whole step

The distance between C and D is two half steps, or one whole step.

Canon and round

The duration of the imitation may be brief or it may last the entire work. A strictly imitative work is known as a canon; and the simplest and most familiar form of canon is a round, in which each voice enters in succession with the same melody that can be repeated endlessly. EX: Row, Row, Row Your Boat. In the example opposite, the rounds beings with one voice singing "Row, row,row your boat," then another voice joins it in imitation, followed by a third voice and finally a fourth, creating a four-part polyphonic texture.

Monophony

The simplest texture is monophony, a single voice or line without accompaniment. Melodic lines may be thought of as the various threads that make up the musical fabric, or the texture, of a piece. The simplest texture is monophony: a single voice. ("Voice" refers to an individual part or line, even in instrumental music.) Ex: You singing in the shower. It maybe accompanied by rhythm and percussion instruments that embellish it, but interest is focused on the single melodic line rather than on any harmony.

Triple Meter

Triple meter, Another basic pattern, has three beats to a measure- one strong beat and two weak ones (ONE two three). Is traditionally associated with dances such as the waltz and the minuet.

Tone Color (timbre)

This quality distinguishes voices(sounds) from instruments, a trumpet from a clarinet.

Duration

This symbol designates the frequency and the duration, or length of time, of a pitch.

Chord

A chord is are the simultaneous sounding of three or more pitches; chords are built from a particular scale, or sequence of pitches.

Transpose

A composer establishes the home key, then shapes the passage of modulation (the corridor) into a key area that is not far away from the starting point. Alternately, composers may take an entire work and transpose it to a new key (making a transposition). This is convenient when a song's original key is too high or low to sing or play easily. You could begin on a different pitch and shift all the other pitches a uniform distance. In this way, the same song can be sung in various keys by differing voice ranges (soprano, alto, tenor, or bass).

Volume

A pitch also has a certain volume (loudness or softness), and a distinct quality known as tone color or timbre.

Sequence

A sequence results when a motive is repeated at a different pitch. Certain procedures help the music flow logically. The simplest is repetition, which may be either exact or varied. Or the idea may be restated at a higher or lower pitch level; this restatement is known as a sequence.

Theme

A theme, a melodic idea in a large-scale work, can be broken into small, component fragments (motives). When a melodic idea is used as a building block in the construction of a larger work, we call it a theme. The introduction of a theme and its elaboration are the essence of musical thinking. This process of growth has its parallel in writing, when an idea, a topic sentence, is stated at the beginning of a paragraph and enlarged upon and developed by the author. Just as a sentence leads logically from one to the next.

Encore

An additional piece which is demanded by extended applause. In this case (if they have prepared for an extra song), the encore( French for "again") is generally announced.

Interval

An interval is the distance between any two pitches. The distance between any two pitches.

Octave

An octave is the interval spanning eight notes of the scale. In Western music, the octave is divided into twelve half steps; two half steps makes a whole step.

Ostinato

An ostinato is the repetition of a short melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic pattern. Another widely used procedure linked to the principle of repetition is ostinato, a short musical patter----melodic , rhythmic, or harmonic---that is repeated throughout a work or a major section of a piece. This unifying technique is especially prevalent (widespread in a particular area at a particular time) in popular styles such as blues, jazz, rock, and rap, which rely on repeated harmonies that provide a scaffolding (a temporary structure) for musical development.

Heterphony

Another common texture in non-Western cultures in heterphony, in which several musicians sing or play the same musical line (a in monophony), but each one varies some element---- maybe a pitch or rhythm---- so that they're "out of sync" with each other. There are usually subtle, nuanced (A very small difference in color, tone,meaning,etc.) variations that developed from individual expression. To Western ears, heterphony might sound as though the musicians are having trouble staying together and spirituals often depend on heterophonic texture---- musician's individual interpretations result in simultaneous elaborations of the same melody.

Tritonic

Another non-Western scale type is tritonic, a three-note pattern also found in the music of some African cultures.

Polyrhythm

Another technique is the simultaneous use of rhythmic patterns that conflict with the underlying beat, such as "two against three" or "three against four"-in a piano piece for example, the left hand might play two notes to a beat, while the right hand plays three notes to the same beat. This is called polyrhythm ("many rhythms") .

Strophic Form

Common in songs, features repeated music for each stanza of text. One of the most common vocal in music, both popular and classical, is strophic form, in which the melody is repeated with each stanza of the text, as for folk or carol (Silent Night). In this structure, while the music within a stanza offers some contrast, its repetition binds the song together. As mentioned earlier, the most common type of musical setting, in both popular and art music, is strophic form, in which the same music is repeated for each stanza. Or the song might feature a refrain, or chorus, words and music hat recur after each stanza. In sung dramas (like operas), the text may be free (unrhymed, metrical) verse or even prose, as people speak to each other. We will hear a variety of melodic styles in opera: some song-like passages (called arias) are very lyrical, while other are more speech like.

Syncopation/offbeat

Composers have devised a number of ways to keep the recurrent accent from becoming monotonous (boring). The most common technique is syncopation, a deliberate upsetting of the normal pattern of accents. Instead of falling on strong beat of the measure, the accent is shifted to a weak beat, or offbeat (in between the stronger beats). Syncopation can be heard in many kinds of music such as African American dance rhythms out of which jazz developed. Syncopation is only one technique that throws off the regular patterns.

Dynamics

Describe the volume, or how loud or soft the music is played; Italian terms for dynamics include forte (loud) and piano (soft). *Composers indicate tempo and dynamic as a means of expression* Dynamics denote the volume (degree of loudness or softness) at which music is played. Like tempo, dynamics can affect our emotional response. The main dynamic indications, listed below, are based on the Italian words for soft (piano) or loud (forte). pianissimo (pp): very soft. mezzo forte (mf): moderately loud. piano (p): soft. forte (f): loud. mezzo piano (mp): moderately soft. fortissimo (ff): very loud. Directions to change the dynamics, either suddenly or gradually, are also indicated by words or signs: crescendo (<): growing louder. decrescendo or diminuendo (>): growing softer.

Polyphony

Describes a many-voiced texture with different melodic lines based on counterpoint-- one line set against another. Polyphony ("many-voiced") describes a texture in which two or more different melodic lines are combined, thus distributing melodic interest among all the parts. Polyphonic texture is based on counterpoint; that is, one musical line set against another. *Notre Dame in Paris, is one of the first centers in which polyphony (multivoiced music) was notated and integrated into musical worship.* Polyphony, or the combination of two or more simultaneous melodic lines, is the single most important feature in the development of Western music.

Harmony

Describes the vertical aspects of music: how notes (pitches) sound together.

Simple meters

Duple, triple, and quadruple- are the most common; each beat is divided into two. In simple (simple duple, simple triple, and simple quadruple), the beat is divided into two (ONE-and, two-and; or ONE-and, two-and, three-and)

Flat

Flat ( ♭) lowers a pitch by a half step; lowers a note to a half step.

Nonlexical

For starters, does the text communicate something that can be understood, or are the syllables nonlexical. Examples of nonlexical syllables are "Na na na na, na na na, na na na na, Hey Jude" ( from the Beatle's Hey Jude) and "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah-zip-a-dee-ay" (from Disney's Song of the South).

Binary (A-B)/Ternary (A-B-A)

Formal patterns are generally outlined with letters: binary form as A-B and ternary form as A-B-A . Both two-part and three-part forms are found in short pieces such as songs and dances. The longer ternary form, with its logical symmetry and its balance of the outer sections against the contrasting middle one, constitutes a clear-cut formation that is favored by architects and painters as well as composers.

Half Steps

In Western music, it is divided into twelve equal semitones, or half steps.

Drone

In many Asian cultures, harmony is relatively simple, consisting of a single sustained pitch, called a drone, against which melodic and rhythmic complexities unfold.

Note/Staff

In the Western tradition, we represent each pitch with a symbol called a note, that's placed on a staff (five parallel lines).

Melisma

In the last example (Handel's Messiah), you can see how "rejoice" is drawn out in a long melisma, not only emphasizing the word, but capturing its joyful meaning through music. (One syllable may get a few notes); (Composers use melisma with a melody that pictorializes a word).

Latin

Not only was Latin the language of the Roman Empire, it was also the language of learning at medieval and Renaissance universities and of the Roman Catholic Church until the Second Vatican Council of 1962, when the church approved the use of vernacular ( the language of the people) for the Mass.

Inflection

One way of producing microtonal music is by an inflection of a pitch, making a brief microtonal dip or rise from the original pitch; this technique, similar to that of the "blue note" in jazz makes a host of subtle pitch changes.

Cadences

Phrases that end in resting places are call cadences. The the same phrase ends in a resting place, or cadence, which punctuates the music in same way that a comma or period punctuates a sentence.

Nonmetric

Some music is nonmetric, with an obscured pulse. Some music moves without any strong sense of beat or meter. We call this nonmetric (this is the case in the chants of the early Christian church): the pulse is veiled or weak, with the music moving in a floating rhythm that typifies (represents) certain non-Western styles.

Additive rhythms

Some-non Western cultures create meter through additive rhythms, were larger patterns are built from combinations like 2+3+3(=8), rather than recurring patterns of two or three. Typically Indian classical music.

Chromatic Scale

The Chromatic Scale is made up of twelve half steps, while in a diatonic scale consist of seven whole and half steps whose patterns form major and minor scales. The twelve half steps that make up the octave constitute what is known as the chromatic scale. You see twelve half steps on the keyboard, counting all the white and black keys from C to the C above it.

Beat

The beat is the basic unit of rhythm, a regular pulse that divides time into equal segments.

Modulation

The changing of the key during work. Composers begin by establishing the home key (for example, C major), then change to a related key, perhaps the dominant (G major), through a process known as modulation. In so doing, they created tension, because the dominant key is unstable compared with the tonic. This tension requires resolution, which is provided by the return to the home key.

Thematic development

The expansion of a theme, achieved by varying its melody, rhythm, or harmony, is considered thematic development. This is one of the most important techniques in music and requires both imagination and craft of the part of the creator. Thematic development is generally too complex a process for short pieces, where a simple contrast between sections ad modest expansion of material supply the necessary continuity. But it's necessary in larger forms of music where it provides clarity, coherence, and logic.

Dominant chord (V)

The fifth scale step (sol), the dominant, forms the chief active chord (V) , which brings a feeling of restlessness and seeks to resolve to the tonic.

Melismatic

The opposite style of syllabic is melismatic, in which a single syllable is elongated by many notes, thereby giving a particular word more emphasis. Both styles, and a middle ground called neumatic (with a few notes to each syllable), are represented in from Handel's Messiah. (One syllable may get many notes).

The Key as a Form-Building Element

The three main chords of a musical work--- tonic (I), dominant (V), and subdominant (IV)--- are the foundation over which melodies and harmonic progressions unfold. Thus, a piece's key becomes a prime factor for musical unity. At the same time, contrast between keys adds welcome variety.

Tonic(rest) chord(1)

The three-note chord, or triad, built on the first scale step is called the tonic, or I chord, and serves as a point of rest. This rest chord is counter posed against other chords, which are active. The active chords in turn seek to be completed, or resolved, in the rest chord--the dynamic force in Western music, providing a forward direction and goal.

Tonic Chord

The tonic chord, built on the first scale note, is the home base to which active chords (dominant and subdominant) need to resolve.

Tonic/Tonality

The tonic is he central pitch around which a melody and its harmonies are built; this principle of organization is called tonality.

Improvisation

What makes each piece of music unique is the way the composer adapts a general plan to create a wholly (entirely;fully) individual combination. And performers sometimes participate in shaping a composition. In works based mostly on improvisation (pieces created spontaneously in performance--- typical of jazz, rock, and certain non-Western styles), repetition, contrast, and variation all play a role. We will see that in jazz, musicians organize their improvised melodies within a pre-established harmonic pattern, time frame, and melodic outline that is understood by all the performers.

Imitation

When a melodic idea is presented in one voice, then restated in another--- is a common unifying technique in polyphony; canons and rounds are two types of strictly imitative works. When several independent lines are combined (in polyphony), one method that composers use to give unity and shape to the texture is imitation, in which a melodic idea is presented in one voice and then restated in another. While the imitating voice restates the melody, the first voice continues with new material. Thus, in addition to the vertical and horizontal threads in musical texture, a third, a diagonal line results from imitation.