Intro to Music Unit 3 and 4

Phrase

"shorter burst of ideas in speech; in music they are symmetrical - repeating rhythms and patterns. If we were to liken an entire piece of music to a paragraph, then short musical groups called phrases would be considered clauses in sentences. Many of them together, in both music and the paragraph will make larger structures, and form the work as a whole.

Common Ratio of Note Durations

2:1 We see that in the chart in "Notating Pitch Duration" The whole note is twice as long as the half note, which is twice as long as the quarter, which is twice as long as the eighth etc...

Beat

A beat is a regular pulse that we hear repeated in music. By listening to the beat we can tell the meter of a piece, i.e. triple or duple, simple or compound, but that will be gone into in another thread.

Chord progression

A series of chords in the baroque period often replaced the cantus firmus single melody that was sung underneath the other melodies from renaissance and medieval music. In the next unit we will discuss the bass framework which is a series of repeating chords, which serves the same function as the ostinato repeating melody, except it is chords repeating instead of a melody

Accent

Accent is stress on a beat; and as we learned from the previous thread, there is an accent at the beginning of each measure or repeated figure, and so is the way to tell what the meter of a given song is

What are atonality and dodecaphony? How are they related, and why did they evolve?

Arnold Schoenberg and his two main pupils Alban Berg and Anton Webern are associated with this music which lacks a tonal center. It is associated with expressionism. From about 1908 to somewhere between 1916 and 1923 is the height of atonal writing with these three composers. After 1923 Schoenberg wrote his first 12-tone (dodecaphonic) piece. Atonality: a chromatic harmony that uses 12 notes Dodecaphony: a 12 note system which uses all 12 pitches before repeating a pitch - this is more specific than atonality Both were evolved by Arnold Schoenburg

Cantus firmus--origin, technique, and relationship to ostinato

Cantus firmus technique refers to an underlying melody in a polyphonic piece that the other melodies are sounded on top of. In early music the cantus firmus melody was performed very slowly and would be sounded one time over the course of a piece while the melodies above it would play or sing much more quickly. By the baroque era, the cantus firmus was often shortened to melody of only a few measures which would then be repeated over and over again. Such a repeating melody is called an ostinato.

Differences between Eastern and Western modes and features of Eastern modes shared with American blues

Eastern modes often included microtones and have more than 8 notes in them while the Western modes always have 8 notes and all use particular fixed patterns. In the blues the blues note or the 7th is often adjusted using a microtone from what it would otherwise be, and this likely stems from non-Western scales.

Cadence vs Half Cadence

If we contrast it with half-cadence, then a cadence or full cadence would be a pause that also indicates closure and finality and usually ends on a I or tonic chord, while a half cadence would be a pause that would not indicate closure, more like a comma in a sentence, and usually ends on a V or dominant chord.

Meter and Types

If you hear a repeated pattern where you can count along ONE two three ONE two three etc... where there is always a slight accentuation on the ONE, then you have a triple meter. If you hear a repeated pattern where you can count along ONE two ONE two etc... where there is always a slight accentuation on the ONE, then you have a duple meter. The same goes for quadruple and ONE two three four ONE two three four etc...

What is isorhythm, its components, and its practitioners?

Isorhythm involves two components a repeating melody or colore, and a repeating rhythm or talea and was predominant in the 14th and early 15th centuries. The talea is a fixed rhythmic figure that is repeated throughout a piece. The pitches can change but the rhythm stays the same. The colore is a fixed melodic figure that is repeated throughout a piece. Composers like Machaut and Dufay used this device a lot.

What is an interval?

It is the distance between two notes. The main two intervals we use in constructing scales are the whole step and the half step. The whole step is made up of two half steps. In a major scale, the intervals are Whole step, Whole step, Half step, Whole step, Whole step, Whole step, Half step or in C major: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.

Voice range

It is the possible range an instrument or the voice is able to produce. As I mentioned, the untrained voice can do about 2 octaves whereas instruments like the violin have a practical range of about 5 octaves. Instruments which play higher notes use clefs that indicate higher notes, so the violin or the soprano use the treble clef, while the bass uses the F or bass clef.

Types of musical texture

Monophony represents a single line of music sung by as few as one person or as many as a whole choir. Music is also considered monophonic if it is a single melody with a non-melodic percussion accompaniment, or if it is accompanied by a single note sung or sounded underneath the melody called a drone. Polyphony implies at least two melodies sounded at the same time in different voices. Homophony is a texture which involves multiple voices like polyphony, but is dominated by, (or to put it another way, the ear is drawn to) a single voice or melody while the other voices play or sing chords that support this melody. Such textures are often referred to as "treble dominated" which means the ear is drawn to the melody in the upper voice, while the lower voices serve a supportive and dependent function.

Rhythm

Rhythm is hard to define, but it is basically, in this context, the movement of pitches through time

Whole tone scales--nature, origin, and use?

Russian background, used in jazz and French impressionistic pieces and gives them a sense of ambiguity. The two kinds, as mentioned in the Questions sections, are C D E F# G# A# C and C# D# F G A B C#

What are the primary and secondary chords and their roles? Why are I, IV, and V so important?

Since all of the notes of the scale are included in these four primary chords ( I, IV, and V) these three chords can be used to harmonize any melody as long as it remains in a single key. The other chords (ii, iii, vi, and vii) are not strictly necessary, but add color and variety to a piece of music, so these are called secondary chords.

Dot

The dot increases the value of a note by half.

Relationship of church modes and major and minor scales

The four church modes are Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixolydian. Major scales are expressed in a more positive tone while the minor songs are more sad and negative.

What is centonization and is it still a current procedure?

The idea is that there are a lot of short phrases or short melodies that are recognizable and used by a culture and the composer or improviser strings those together in a creative way to create a piece or a new melody. This is used today in Indian classical music in particular, but it is also a crucial part of jazz and blues.

Pentatonic scales and blue notes

The major pentatonic scale is a major scale that is missing the fourth and sixth notes, thus five different notes: C D E G A C It is often used in spirituals and folk music The minor pentatonic scale is a minor scale that is missing the second and sixth notes: C Eb F G Bb C There are also situations in which the two are mixed in which case the most common mixing is singing an entire song using the major pentatonic and then ending on the flat third of the minor pentatonic

Staff

The modern staff has four spaces and five lines and notates pitch. Notes high up on the staff are higher than notes lower down on the staff.

Flags and Beams

The notes that are an eighth note in length and smaller have at least one flag on top of them (the smaller the note value, the more flags, see the chart in "Notating Pitch Duration"). When there are several flagged notes that follow each other rather than having a mess of eighth or sixteenth notes with flags making it difficult to see the notes the flags are beamed together which means they are connected by a line. If several sixteenth notes (shown by two flags) are beamed together they are beamed with two lines to show that they are all sixteenth notes. With 32nd notes three lines etc... but there are not beams for notes that have a value of a quarter note or more.

Types of text settings

The relationship between the words of the text and the melody. Syllabic means one note to one syllable, neumatic means two or three notes (a few) to one syllable, and melismatic means several notes (more than 4) to one syllable.

Clef

The space above the line that has F (bass clef), C (tenor or alto), or G (treble clef) will be one note or letter higher than those notes, so it will be G (bass clef), D (tenor or alto), or A (treble) depending on the clef. The line above that will be one note higher than that, and so on.

Time Signature

The time signature looks like a fraction. The numerator lets you know how many beats there are per measure, i.e., in duple meter it would be two, in triple, three, and in quadruple 4. The denominator lets you know what note value gets the beat. It will always be an even number because, as we know from the common ration of note durations, the not values are divisible by two. If a half note gets the beat then the denominator will be two, if a quarter gets the beat then it will be 4, an eighth will be 8 etc... So a triple meter where an eighth note gets the beat would be 3 (for triple meter)/8 (for the beat value) 3/8. A quadruple meter where the sixteenth note gets the beat would be 4/16. 4/4 = a whole note which is 4 beats, and an 8th note is 1/2 2/2 = a whole note that is 2 beats, and a quarter is 1/2 4/8 = a half note that is 4 beats, and sixteenth is 1/2

Chord function--Consonance, Dissonance, and Resolution

The tonic and dominant chords and the resolution from the dominant chord to the tonic chord are the building blocks of tonal music. The tonic chord in a piece is made up of the first note, third note and fifth note of the scale-key of the piece. Consonance are notes that sound good when played together Dissonance are chords that do not sound good when played together Resolution is the process of making chords harmonious

Pythagoras--his contribution and his methods

Through dividing strings by half, 2/3,3/4 etc... he came up with something approaching the major scale. He was a scientist and philosopher to whom music was a natural extension of math and science and so music, by this logic, could be enriched by the same mathematical approach

What is sequence?

When a figure is repeated with the same rhythm and the same melodic shape, but it begins on a different pitch, then you have a sequence. You might say, in terms of isorhythm, that the talea is present, but the colore, or set of pitches, changes.

Paraphrase and thematic transformation

When a melody is changed, by adding or subtracting a note, or the rhythm is changed slightly etc... then it is being thematically transformed, or paraphrased. Haydn is often credited with this, but it has been around for much longer. The example found in Beethoven's 5th in the "Building Melody" lecture elucidates this idea.

Harmonia-what is it and is it valid today?

a kind of natural religion based on numbers and music. What is at core here is the question, do physics and physical laws govern the universe, or not?

chromatic note

a note with a sharp (#) or a flat (b) in front of it. The sharp sign raises the note by 1/2 step, and the flat sign lowers the note by one half step. Look at the keyboard in 'Pitch Notation' and find C. The black key above and to the the right of it is C#, it is 1/2 step above C.

What is polytonality? Who are the main practitioners?

it is the use of two different keys. Although Stravinsky is usually credited with it it is really Darius Milhaud who employed it consistently and in in whose works it is most clear.

Rest

measured silence that also follows the 2:1 ratio that the note lengths follow. A rest is counted silence whole = 4 half = 2 quarter = 1 eighth = 1/2 sixteenth = 1/4 thirty-second = 1/8

Tempo

the speed at which the music progresses. The beat can vary in rate, called a tempo. largo - very slow, broadly grave - very slow, solemn adagio - slow andante - moderately slow, walking pace moderato - moderate allegretto - moderately fast allegro - fast presto - very fast prestissimo - fast as possible

Syncopation

when a beat that is not normally accented gets an accent. It is a disturbance to the normal rhythm of the music. Listen to the syncopation examples in the "Beat, Meter, and Rhythm" lecture. They will show you how beats which normally don't get the beat, like 2 and 4 in a 4/4 meter, end up getting the beat and thus making it difficult to tell the meter at times.