Music 1010 Study Guide

When one phrase is low and the next phrase is high, or one phrase is long and the next phrase is short, they can be called

contrasting phrases

What is an important aspect of dance music in the Renaissance?

easy-to-follow phrases, almost always four to eight bars long

An octave spans how many notes?

eight

Any composer's style will have unique features as well as

features that reflect the style of his or her historical period.

A standardized pattern for organizing musical elements is called

form.

If a person sings a tune while playing chords on an instrument like a guitar or piano, what kind of texture does the music have?

homophonic

Dufay's "Ave maris stella" is an example of what kind of music?

homophonic setting of a Gregorian hymn

The twelve possible positions for the major- and minor-mode scales are called

keys.

A recurring pattern of strong beats and weak beats is called a

meter

The salient characteristic of Machaut's chansons is the use of

non-imitative polyphony.

What is the term for music that has no underlying pattern of strong and weak beats at all?

nonmetrical

Which of the following statements about musical form is the most accurate?

A form provides some fixed elements but allows composers possibilities within the details.

What is a motet?

A short piece of sacred choral music that is usually polyphonic and unaccompanied

Music based on the C-to-C pattern of whole and half steps is in the major mode; music based on the _____________ pattern is in the minor mode.

A to A

How do rhythm and meter relate to one another in music?

The meter serves as the regular background, while the rhythm can coincide with it, cut across it, or even contradict it.

What is a scale?

a limited number of fixed pitches used to make music

An organized series of pitches played in a certain rhythm, and usually having an emotional character, is called

a melody

What is the basic form of the sequence?

a series of short tunes that are repeated (AA'BB'CC')...)

The diatonic scale uses

a set of seven pitches within an octave (do re mi fa sol la ti do).

The chromatic scale uses

a set of twelve pitches within an octave (all the white and black piano keys).

Which of the following does not demonstrate a common quality of sacred music in the Renaissance?

abrupt changes of texture, mood, and dynamics occur throughout a piece

Which of the following indicates that the music should be played at a slow tempo?

adagio

After 1300, the newer, more sophisticated polyphony being created by composers was known as

ars nova.

When a person sings a song, the natural tendency is to breathe

at the ends of phrases

The form diagram that represents a tune followed by a contrasting tune followed by a repetition of the first tune is

A B A

The form diagram that represents a tune followed by a contrasting tune followed by a repetition of the first tune with significant changes is

A B A'

The consistent use of syncopation is the hallmark of

African American-derived popular music

What are points of imitation?

to mark the beginning of a second melody overlapping the first (usually at different pitch).

Benjamin Britten wrote The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra to teach listeners

to recognize the sounds of the various instruments of the orchestra.

What does it mean to perform a cappella?

to sing with no instruments accompanying the voices

What is modulation?

Changes in the tonic or home pitch

what is a chanson?

French songs that are secular.

The names of medieval modes—which are different from the major or minor modes—come from which language?

Greek

What is an example of nonmetrical music?

Gregorian chant

Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra uses a tune written by which English composer?

Henry Purcell

The conventional terms for tempo come from what language?

Italian

The first master of the High Renaissance style was

Josquin Desprez.

Who was the first master of High Renaissance style?

Josquin des Prez

What were medieval poet-composers called in Germany?

Minnesingers

What musical form do troubadour, hymn and folk songs set their stanzas to? Similarly, was Bernart's song, "La dousa votz," performed in a secular or religious manner?

Strophic form (A A A...) and La Dousa votz was secular

Why was accurate declamation important to composers of the Renaissance?

They wanted the words of their compositions to be clearly heard and understood.

The Requiem Mass is sung at what occasion?

a funeral

The first step in the development of organum was

adding a second melody that moved parallel to the original chant, note by note.

Which of the following indicates that the music should be played at a fast tempo?

allegro

What is the term for the distance, or difference in highness and lowness, between any two pitches?

an interval

What are the basic units of measurement for musical time?

beats

How are musical instruments categorized into families or groups?

by the method they use to produce sound

Machaut's "Dame, de qui toute ma joie vient" is an example of a

chanson

Standard groupings of simultaneous pitches that work well in combination are called

chords

The saxophone's closest musical relative is the

clarinet

The distinct high point of a tune is called the

climax.

Which of the following techniques began to be used in the fifteenth century?

composed homophony

What is word painting?

composing music to match the meaning of the words being sung

When the main beats of a duple meter are subdivided into threes, what is the resulting meter called?

compound duple meter

A chord that sounds stable and that offers a feeling of resolution can be described as

consonant.

Which term means "growing" or "getting louder"?

crescendo

A chord that sounds unstable or tense can be described as

dissonant

What is the term for a meter in which the main beats are grouped in twos or fours?

duple meter

What is the musical term for the level of sound, that is, its loudness or softness?

dynamics

In Renaissance music, the term paraphrase refers to what procedure?

embellishing chants with extra notes, creating graceful rhythms, and smoothing out awkward passages

What is an accent?

emphasis on a certain beat to make it sound stronger than the surrounding beats

Which term refers to the shape, arrangement, relationship, or organization of the various elements of a piece of music?

form

Which term means "loud"?

forte

Which of the following is a form?

fugue

What is the term for a category or type of music, such as symphony, concerto, or opera?

genre

The repetitions and contrasts that determine the musical form of a piece of music

have an emotional effect on the listener.

Music that has one main melody accompanied by other, less prominent sounds is

homophonic

When melodies sounding together are the same or fairly similar, with one starting shortly after another, the result is

imitative polyphony.

The structural technique of repeating long rhythmic patterns over and over at different pitch levels each time is called

isorhythm.

What did the Counter-Reformation seek to reform about the music of the church?

it recommended that extravagant musical elements be removed from church services

What produces low sounds?

long vibrating elements

An important new vocal genre based on a one-stanza poem and developed in Italy after around 1530 was called the

madrigal.

Which of these percussion instruments is capable of playing scales and melodies?

marimba

Each occurrence of the strong beat/weak beat pattern is called a

measure

Groups of notes sung on a single syllable are called:

melisma

Groups of notes sung on a single syllable are called

melismas

The element of music that seems to evoke human sentiment most directly is

melody

What were medieval poet-composers called in Germany?

minnesingers

Music that consists of a single melody without any accompanying sounds is

monophonic.

Which type of piece—based on a fragment of chant—often presented more than one set of lyrics simultaneously?

motet

The conventional system of signs that indicate relative durations of long and short sounds is called

musical notation

A combination of distinctive rhythms, harmonies, and tone colors contributes to a composer's

musical style.

Because plainchant does not have a clear beat or meter, it is said to be

nonmetrical.

Melodies and tunes tend to fall naturally into smaller sections, called

phrases.

The member of the flute family that is the smallest and plays in the highest range is the

piccolo

What is the musical term for the "highness" or "lowness" of a sound?

pitch

What are the two main subcategories of percussion instruments?

pitched and unpitched

The official music of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages was a great repertory of melodies designated for the liturgy, which were known as

plainchant.

Which term refers to a brief passage of imitative polyphony that usually uses a single melodic motive?

point of imitation

Music that has two or more melodies that are played simultaneously and that are of approximately equal interest is

polyphonic

Contrapuntal is a term that is often used to describe

polyphony.

Who were the jongleurs?

popular musicians of the Middle Ages

In Gregorian recitation, the pitch on which the text is sung is called the

reciting tone

What skill is essential for a listener's ability to discern musical form?

remembering musical themes and recognizing them when they return

Elements of music such as rhythm, melody, and harmony are organized into musical form by means of

repetition and contrast

"Sumer Is Icumen In" is an example of a

round or canon

Italian and English madrigals are both

secular genres

The plainchant genre that consists of a series of short tunes each sung twice, with some variation, is called

sequence

When the same phrase occurs at two or more different pitch levels successively, it is called a

sequence.

The form of Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra is a

set of variations on a theme.

Why is Hildegard of Bingen so notable?

she composed plainchant melodies in her own style

What produces high sounds?

short vibrating elements

In Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, the use of variation form is meant to

show off a catalogue of instrumental sounds and endlessly varied moods

What is the difference between simple and compound meter?

simple are divided into 2 notes & compound can be divided into 3

Which of the following is a genre?

string quartet

Violin, viola, cello, bass, and harp are all members of what group?

strings

A typical large orchestra today includes which sections?

strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion

When all the stanzas of a poem are set to the same melody, the song's form is called melismatic.

strophic.

Making a weak beat unexpectedly strong by displacing an accent is called

syncopation

Which of the following is an unpitched percussion instrument?

tam-tam

What are three aspects of a piece of music that can determine its genre?

text, function, and performing forces

Melody exists in the horizontal dimension from left to right, while __________ exists in the vertical dimension.

texture

Music in the Middle Ages in Europe was cultivated and supported by

the Christian church.

Master Léonin and his follower Pérotin are known as part of what school of organum?

the Notre Dame School

The hymn "Ave maris stella" was addressed to which figure?

the Virgin Mary

Generally, the term "rhythm" refers to the time aspect of music, but more specifically, "a rhythm" refers to

the actual arrangement of long and short notes in a particular melody or passage.

"The Middle Ages" refers to what period of European history?

the fifth to the fifteenth century

To what does the term tone color (or timbre) refer?

the general quality of a sound, which depends on the amount and mixture of overtones produced

What is the smallest interval in regular use in Western music?

the half step

What is an octave?

the interval between two pitches that seem to "duplicate" one another

If music is said to be "in the key of G major," it means that

the major mode is positioned on G

What is a defining feature of the diatonic scale?

the mixing of half and whole steps

What is especially notable about Josquin's chanson, "Mille regrets?"

the mood of the music carefully matches the meaning of the words

In the nineteenth century, what became the most important solo instrument?

the piano

What is tonality?

the sense of focusing around a single "home" pitch that feels more important than all the other pitches of a scale

Renaissance composers using paraphrase emphasized what aspect of the chant?

the sonorous aspect

What is harmony?

the sounding at the same time of different pitches, in groupings called chords

What does the term tempo refer to?

the speed of music

Which of the following was an important development in Renaissance music?

the standardization of the Mass into a five-section form

Melodies nearly always give a sense of focusing around a single "home" pitch that feels more important than the other pitches of the scale. This home pitch is known as

the tonic.

What is the difference between troubadours and trouvères?

the troubadours were from southern France and the trouvères were from northern France

Non-imitative polyphony occurs when

the various melodies sounding together are different from one another.

What is musical texture?

the way different melodic lines and sounds interact or blend with one another

In the most general sense, what does the term rhythm refer to?

the way music unfolds in time

The most general term for the basic subject matter of longer pieces of music is

theme.

Which of the following statements is not true about estampies?

they had complex musical arrangements that were meticulously notated

What is the main difference between C major and C minor?

three of the scale degrees are lower in the minor scale

Which of these is a central function of musical form?

to extend music over a definite time span and hold the listener's interest

What is the main purpose of the Prelude chapters, which provide historical context for each time period covered in this book?

to suggest, where possible, correlations between musical style and culture

What is the term for a meter in which the main beats are grouped in threes?

triple meter

Which of the following brass instruments has the highest range?

trumpet

The whole step or whole tone is the equivalent of

two half steps

Which of the choices below lists the members of the violin family in order from the highest range to the lowest range?

violin, viola, cello

The best sixteenth-century composers concentrated primarily on

vocal music.

To what instrument family does the English horn belong?

woodwind

Flute, clarinet, oboe, and bassoon are all members of what group?

woodwinds

What is a metronome?

a device that can tick out beats at any desired tempo

What is a motive?

a distinctive, easily recognizable fragment of a melody that is used repeatedly in a long composition

What are two common Renaissance dances?

Pavan and Galliard

Which of the following statements about plainchant is false?

Plainchant is based on the major/minor system.

A good indication of the renaissance mind-set, in the early fifteenth century, was a new way of treating plainchant in __________ compositions

Polyphonic

Whose taste and interests likely helped the madrigal become an important genre in England?

Queen Elizabeth I

Why was the motet a popular genre among composers of the sixteenth century?

Unlike the Mass, which always used the same text, motets could be written for a variety of texts, giving church composers new means of expression.

Which of the following late Renaissance masters lived and worked in England?

William Byrd

From what kind of piece did Josquin derive melodic material for his Pange lingua Mass?

a Gregorian hymn

A stopping or pausing place is called

a cadence

What was the chief characteristic of the High Renaissance style, which emerged around 1500?

a careful blend of imitative counterpoint and homophony

What is a modulation?

a change of key within a piece of music

What modern instruments developed from the shawm and sackbut?

oboe and trombone

The pavan and the galliard were dances that were usually

paired together.

When two phrases have the same notes but different words, or the same rhythm but different notes, they can be called

parallel phrases.