Music Listening Today Chap 1-9

mute

A device for muffling the sound of an instrument

Dissonance Dissonant

A group of simultaneous sounds that seems disagreeable or harsh

Symphony Orchestra

A large ensemble of approximately 100 players containing the four families of instruments

Movement

A large independent section of an instrumental composition

Textures

Basic setting of music: monophonic, homophonic, polyphonic

Modulation

Changing the tonal center as the music progresses, usually without a break

Rhythmic modes

Constant repetition of rhythm patterns

Organum

Early polyphonic music of medieval times

Wind bands

Ensemble comprising wind and percussion instruments

Requiem

Funeral Mass of the Roman Catholic Church

Mass

Holy Communion in Catholic church. and the musical setting of the Ordinary of Mass

Estampie

Instrumental dance during middle ages

Forte

Italian word meaning loud

Piano

Italian word meaning soft

difference between medieval and renaissance motet

Medieval: the motet was a combination of Gregorian chant and secular music that was sung in the courts, not churches. Its religious component was the use of phrases from Gregorian chant in one of its lines of melody as the cantus firmus, or base. The structure consisted of the cantus firmus and two or more lines sounding at the same time. It was complex. Renaissance: The Renaissance motet is very different from the medieval motet. The Renaissance motet is a unified piece with all voices singing the same Latin text. It borrows some phrases from chant, and it conveys the desired spirit of reverence. Above all, the Renaissance motet is serious, restrained, and designed for inclusion in the worship service. In addition, it avoids the complicated musical complexities.

Gregorian Chant

Monophonic chant originally sung by monks and priests.

Concerto

Multi-movement work that contrasts a soloist with an orchestra or band

Canon

Music in which one or more lines imitate one another for almost the entire work

Pizzicato

Notes on a string instrument that are played by the fingers plucking the string instead of using the bow.

Ordinary

Part of Mass that are ordinarily included: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei

Forms

Pattern or plan of music

Cantus firmus

Preexisting melody used as the basis for a polyphonic vocal work.

scales

Prescribed pattern of pitches. Serve as "skeleton" around which melodies are built.

2 -Main points of Chapter 2

Rhythm is the flow of music through time. The beat is the steady pulse found in almost all music in Western civilization. Meter refers to the pattern with which certain beats are emphasized. The notation of rhythm is based on a 2:1 ratio of notes and rests. Tempo is the speed of the beats, not the notes. Syncopation exists when the emphasis occurs where it is not expected or is omitted where it is expected. Polyrhythms are created when two or more rhythmic patterns occur at the same time.

Liturgy

Ritual for public worship

Cadenza

Section in which a soloist plays a free paraphrase on the themes of the work

Encore

Short extra number of performed at the end of a concert in response to the sustained applause of the audience

Motive

Short recurring melodic or rhythmic fragment, the smallest unit of musical form

Vibrato

Slight, rapid fluctuations of pitch

Homophonic / Homophony

Texture consisting of a line of melody with accompaniment

Monophonic / Monophony

Texture consisting of one melodic line alone without any accompianiment

Polyphonic / Polyphony

Texture in which two or more melodic lines of approximate equal importance are sounded at the same time

Dynamics

The amount of loudness in music

Tonality

The centering of pitches around one particular pitch

Interval

The distance between two pitches

alto

The lower, heavier female voice

council of trent

The most esteemed composer of the late Renaissance was Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. The Council of Trent was held intermittently between 1545 and 1563. The Church felt threatened by the Protestant Reformation. One aspect that was under attack was its music, which over the centuries had strayed far from Gregorian chant. Complaints about the use of secular tunes, complicated polyphony that made the words nearly impossible to understand, use of noisy instruments, and the irreverence of the singers. The council directed that the music be purged of "barbarism, obscurities, contrarieties, and superfluities" so that "the House of God might rightly be called a house of prayer." To his credit, Palestrina achieved a return to the purity and reverence of earlier music without discarding the highly developed style of his predecessors.

Proper

The portion of Mass that is "proper" for a specific day in the church year.

Chord

The simultaneous sounding of three or more pitches. Two most prominent types are major and minor.

Major/Minor

Tonalities used in Western music that are generally associated with brighter (major) or darker (minor) tonal qualities

Timbre

Tone quality or tone color in music

Dies irae

Traditional gregorian chant sung at funerals

Counterpoint Contrapuntal

Two or more independent lines with melodic character occurring at the same time

Motet

a sacred composition for voices

Melodies

series of consecutive pitches that form a musical entity

Crescendo

to gradually become louder (Italian term)

Decrescendo Diminuendo

to gradually become softer (Italian term meaning to diminish in volume)

Genres

type of classification of music

3-Main Points of Chapter 3

• Sound is created by molecules vibrating and colliding with one another in the air. The more rapid the vibrations, the higher the pitch of the sound. • The first seven letters of the alphabet are used to designate pitches. These letter names are repeated for each octave. Each note in an octave is either half (making it lower) or twice (making it higher) the number of vibrations of the note with the same name in the adjacent octave. • Pitch levels are depicted in notation on a graphlike staff. Higher notes use the treble clef (Icon) and lower notes use the bass clef (Icon), with a half-step higher indicated by a sharp (♯) and a half-step lower indicated by a flat (♭). • A melody is a series of consecutive pitches that form a logical entity. Most melodies can be divided into shorter groups of notes called phrases. A listener's impression of a melody is very much affected by other factors in the music such as the accompanying music and instruments or voices performing it. • Harmony is the simultaneous sounding of pitches, usually in chords containing three or more notes. Chords vary from sounding pleasing (consonant) to tense (dissonant). Most chords are built in an every-other note pattern such as C-E-G. • The music in almost all songs and instrumental works centers around one particular note. Changes of this center (key), called modulations, occur rather often. • Scales are the tonal framework around which music is created. Three types of scales predominate in the music of Western civilization: major, minor, and the five-note pentatonic scale. Music using the major scale tends to have a brighter quality than music in minor. Music using the pentatonic scale often has a folklike or Asian quality. • Texture in music refers to the basic arrangement of the lines of melody and harmony. Homophonic texture with its melody-plus-accompaniment character is most familiar to us today. Polyphonic texture has two or more different melodic lines occurring at the same time. Monophonic texture consists of only one line of music performed alone. • Two types of polyphony or counterpoint exist in music. One occurs when a melodic line is imitated in follow-the-leader fashion several beats later, which happens in a round or canon. The other exists when two different lines with melodic character occur at the same time.

6-Main Points of Chapter 6

• The human voice is an important "instrument" in music. It produces sound as air causes the vocal cords in the larynx to vibrate. • The pitch of vocal sounds is regulated by the length and tension of the vocal cords. Women have shorter vocal cords; therefore, they produce a higher pitch than men. Women in choral groups usually sing the soprano (higher) part or the alto (lower) part. Men in choral groups usually sing the tenor (higher) part or the bass (lower)part. • Styles of singing vary enormously in America and around the world according to the type and style of the music. • Wind bands usually contain no string instruments. Instead, they often include saxophones, baritone horns, cornets, and a different type of tuba called a sousaphone. • Harpsichords, pianos, and pipe organs are instruments that control their pitches from a keyboard. Harpsichords create sounds when strings are plucked by a mechanism, whereas pianos produce sounds when hard felt hammers strike strings. Pipe organs create sound when air is blown through pipes and can produce a wide array of timbres. • Electric guitars are shaped like other guitars, but they are actually electronic instruments. Many versions of electronic keyboards also have achieved wide popularity. • Electronic music is created by synthesizers working in conjunction with computers. Early versions of electronic music were created by manipulating tape. Today electronic music is created using digital recording technology.

5-Main Points of Chapter 5

• The instruments in a symphony orchestra are traditionally divided into four groups: strings, woodwinds, brasses, and percussion. Each of these families of instruments differs in how sounds are produced, basic timbres are modified, different pitches are created, and sounds are started and stopped. • Violins, violas, cellos, and double basses produce sound when a bow is drawn across their strings or a string is plucked (pizzicato). Harps can only be plucked. String players rapidly rock their left hand back and forth (vibrato) to add warmth to the sound. • Pitches on string instruments are determined by where a player places a finger on one of the strings. It is also possible to play on more than one string at a time. Several different styles of bowing can be used. • Flutes, clarinets, oboes, and bassoons constitute the woodwind family. All were originally made of wood, but because of their more brilliant sound, metal flutes replaced their wooden predecessors. Oboes and bassoons produce sound through the use of two cane reeds wired together, whereas clarinets use a single cane reed on a mouthpiece. Flutes employ a stopped-pipe principle, in which air entering a pipe collides with air moving out to produce sound. • A vibrato can be used on all woodwinds except the clarinet, which uses it only in jazz style. Different pitches are produced by opening and closing holes and/or depressing and releasing keys. Sounds on woodwind instruments are started and stopped by the action of the player's tongue. • Members of the brass family include trumpets, French horns, trombones, and tubas. All are made of metal. Sounds are produced on them by a buzzing action of the player's lip membranes against a mouthpiece. All produce the pitches of the overtone series. By changing the length of the tubing, by opening and closing valves, or by moving the slide on the trombone, all pitches within the range of the instrument are available. • Percussion instruments all produce sound by being shaken or struck, usually by sticks or beaters. Some percussion instruments produce definite pitches. This group includes xylophones, chimes, and timpani. Others sound no definite pitch and include snare and bass drums, cymbals, and castanets.

8-Main Points of Chapter 8

• The medieval period was the time of Scholasticism and the construction of many of the great cathedrals. It also featured chivalry, guilds, and the founding of universities. Many works of music and art were created anonymously. • Polyphony developed in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Composers added a third and fourth line to music in organum, which consisted of parallel lines of melody a fourth or fifth apart. Polyphonic religious works were based on phrases from Gregorian chant. • Rhythmic modes, similar to those found in poetry, were used to keep the different lines together. • The motet was built over a phrase of Gregorian chant, which was sung in Latin in long notes. Two or more different lines of music were added with words in vernacular languages on secular topics. Complicated rhythmic and melodic schemes were worked into the music. Motets were performed in the courts, not churches. • Secular music also existed in instrumental dance music and the songs of the troubadours. These were solo songs based on romantic poems.

4-Main Points of Chapter 4

• The term for the degree of loudness in music is dynamics. Dynamics are indicated in a general way by the terms forte for loud (abbreviated ) and piano for soft (abbreviated ). These basic terms are often modified; for example, fortissimo (abbreviated ) for very loud. • Gradual changes in dynamic level are indicated by the abbreviation cresc. for crescendo (get louder) or decresc. for decrescendo (get softer). The symbol for crescendo is , and the opposite is used for decrescendo . • Timbre refers to the tone quality of an instrument or voice. It is determined by the number and strength of the partials sounding in the overtone series. That series is the pattern of pitches that results when a string or column of air is divided in half or at other fractional points. • Music is organized sounds occurring in a specific span of time. Often, portions of music are organized according to forms or patterns of music. These forms make use of three general aspects of music: • Repetition: —Generally repeating the same musical ideas. • Variation: —The same basic musical ideas are repeated but varied. • Contrast: —Entirely different musical ideas are presented. • Letters in italics are used to designate forms. The larger sections of a work are indicated by capital letters, whereas short sections of a work are indicated in lowercase letters. • A concerto features contrast between a small group and a larger group or a soloist and a larger group. Concertos often contain a section called a cadenza, where the soloist plays alone a free-sounding, often technically impressive, section based loosely on one or more of the themes of the music

9-Main Points of Chapter 9

• The word Renaissance means "rebirth" and is the name given to the period that lasted from about 1450 to 1600, when there was a revival of interest in the culture of the ancient Greeks and Romans. It was also the age of explorers and the introduction of the printing press. • The bass voice part became an important addition to choral music. • The Renaissance motet had a sacred text sung in Latin with all parts singing the same text. New phrases of text were often introduced in imitation. Its mood was reverent and restrained, with no strong feeling of meter. • Madrigals were the most popular genre of secular vocal music. They were similar to motets in that they were usually sung without accompaniment by a small group of singers. But madrigals have secular texts in a vernacular language, were performed at social gatherings, often contained text painting, and generally are more lively. • Instrumental music during the Renaissance featured the lute. Most instrumental music was created as dance music.

7-Main Points of Chapter 7

• Western civilization and its music developed over 2,500 years ago in the city-states around the Mediterranean, especially Athens. • The only music preserved in written form from ancient times is Gregorian chant. It was the basis for the Mass in the Christian Church. • Certain Gregorian chants are designated for particular days in the Church calendar, and these chants are called the Proper of the Mass. The Ordinary of the Mass is sung or said at nearly all Masses. • The Requiem is the funeral Mass. It includes the "Dies irae" chant, which means "Day of Wrath," referring to the final judgment. • The music of Gregorian chant is monophonic, sung unaccompanied in Latin by monks and priests, and has no metrical rhythm. It is intended for worship, not for concert performances. • A number of morality plays with music were created to educate listeners about the Christian faith. The music for these plays is similar to Gregorian chant in character.