Music Appreciation Final Redone

Bessie Smith

"Empress of the Blues". Most famous blues singer of the 1920s. Sold millions of copies of her tunes on the Black Swan label, the first African-American recording company.

parallel chords

"Gliding chords". Without a strong tonal center and rigid harmonic guidelines.

Billie Holiday

"Lady Day". Discovered in 1933. Sang in clubs in Brooklyn and Harlem. Recorded with Benny Goodman.

sprechstimme

"Speech voice". Vocal melody spoken rather than sung on exact pitches.

Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong

"The American Bach". Played trumpet. Developed scat singing.

W. C. Handy

"The Father of the Blues". Published "Memphis Blues" and "St. Louis Blues". Proved money could be made from writing down and publishing jazz.

Scott Joplin

"The King of Ragtime". Wrote "Maple Leaf Rag" and "The Entertainer".

Benny Goodman

"The King of Swing". Clarinetist. Announcer of radio program "Let's Dance".

ragtime

1890-1917. "Ragged Rhythm". African-American style of piano music characterized by highly syncopated rhythms. Pianist's right hand plays lively, syncopated rhythms while the left plays basses notes and steady oom-pah.

Impressionism in music

1890-1940. French style of composition. Designed to create a descriptive impression by evoking mood through use of rich and varied timbre. Exotic scales (chromatic, whole tone, and pentatonic). Unresolved dissonances, parallel chords, rich orchestral color. Non-pulse rhythms, generally in small-scale programmatic forms.

big band/swing band

1935-1945. Swing grew out of Dixieland. The bands were bigger, with 14 to 20 players. Saxophones were on the front line doubling on clarinet. The second line was brass (trumpets and trombones). The rhythm section in the back consisted of piano, bass, and drums. Swing music was played in dance halls or grand ballrooms and was for dancing. Saxophones had melody (instead of trumpet in Dixieland).

bebop

1940s. Revolt against the big band, arranged music, and written down parts. Small combo. In general, faster tempo and was improvised. More tension than other music of the era from tonal clashes, unusual harmonies, fast tempos, and complex rhythms. Not for dancing. Absence of easily recognizable melody.

cool jazz/West Coast Jazz

1950s. Revolt against the complexities of bebop. Created by conservative musicians who wanted a type of chamber music. Sounds were light and airy. Lower levels of volume, moderate tempos.

Neoclassicism

20th century style of music that combined elements of Classical and Baroque music with modernist trends. Used lots of symphony.

blues

A form of vocal and instrumental music and a style of performance. Originated around 1890 and was sung in rural areas of the South. Progression, blue notes, blue rhythm. Lyrics concern unhappy situations.

syncopation

A normally weak beat is stressed. Ragtime has a lot of this.

combo

A small jazz band.

New Orleans style Dixieland

Aka "New Orleans Jazz". Fusion of African-American elements. Improvisation. Multiple players, polyphonic texture. Melody on trumpet and cornet. Countermelody above on cornet, countermelody below on trombone. Rhythm section was string base or tuba, guitar or banjo, or piano and drums. Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong developed early jazz styles.

12-tone system/serialism

Aka "dodecaphony". Based on a particular arrangement of 12 chromatic tones called a tone row. Once established, this is the basis from which the composer builds the piece. Created by Schoenberg.

Charlie "Bird" Parker

Alto sax player, bebop virtuoso.

John Philip Sousa

American "March King", directed US Marine Band from 1880-1892, then formed Sousa Band. Fostered the American wind band tradition (an outgrowth of the British military band).

Aaron Copland

American composer, studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Composed "A Lincoln Portrait" and "Fanfare for the Common Man". Used jazz idioms, Neoclassicism, and the 12-tone technique (in the 60s).

blue notes

Bent notes, vocal shadings, scoops and slurs produced.

whole tone scales

Built entirely of whole step intervals (without half-steps)

Impressionism in painting

Claude Monet and followers. Colorfully depicts joys of life and beauty of nature. Paintings seem as formless collections of tiny colored patches when viewed closely, but from a distance the brushstrokes blend into a recognizable form.

"O Fortuna" from "Carmina Burana"

Contains three large parts, highly repetitive, evokes Fortuna, goddess of luck. Tonal, evoking archaic music. Strong, primeval rhythmic drive.

Dave Brubeck

Cool jazz piano player.

Paul Desmond

Cool jazz sax player.

Miles Davis

Cool jazz trumpet player. Studied at Julliard in 1945.

"Billy the Kid", "Rodeo", "Appalachian Spring"

Copland's ballets.

Bartok's "Concerto for Orchestra"

Different sections featured. Comissioned by the Boston Symphony. Five movements (instead of the regular concerto three). Fourth movement is "Interrupted Intermezzo". Allegretto, rondolike form; polytonal and atonal harmonies.

Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern

Expressionist composers.

pentatonic scales

Five-note pattern used in some African, Far Eastern, and Native American music. Used in Western music as an example of exoticism.

9th chords

Five-tone chord spanning a ninth between its lowest and highest tones.

Carl Orff

German Composer, wrote "Carmina Burana", from which "O Fortuna" comes.

Expressionism in painting

Germany. Began just before onset of WWI (1914-1918). Used deliberate distortions to assault and shock the audience. Concerned with social protest. Many opposed WWI and used art to the depict horror of bloodshed.

primitivism

Harsh dissonances, percussive orchestration, pounding/repetitive/insistent rhythms. Stravinsky used in "The Rite of Spring", Neoclassicists used.

Bela Bartok

Hungarian composer. Wrote "Concerto for Orchestra".

spiritual

Hymns with a beat.

"The Firebird", "Petrushka", "The Rite of Spring"

Igor Stravinsky's three ballets.

Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel

Impressionist composers.

scat singing/vocables

Improvised syllables without meanings.

underscoring

In movies. Comes from an unseen source, often an invisible orchestra.

source music

In movies. Functions as a part of the drama, from a logical source, like someone turning on the radio.

Serge Diaghilev

Legendary impresario of Paris-based Russian Ballet, commissioned Stravinsky to write his three ballets. Their production secured Stravinsky's fame.

improvisation

Making up music on the spot. Jazz is heavily rooted in this.

running counter to the action

Music creates irony by contradicting what is being shown on the screen.

call and response

Originated in West Africa. Voice is answered by an instrument, or when one instrument is answered by another or the group.

George Gershwin

Pianist/songwriter. Mastered fusion of ragtime, blues, and jazz. Composed "Rhapsody in Blue" (combined jazz and classical) and "Porgy and Bess" (falls between opera and musical theater. "Summertime" evokes African American spiritual).

Thelonious Monk

Piano player, bebop virtuoso.

Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey

Popular big band leaders.

gospel songs

Religious songs recounting passages from the Scriptures.

blue rhythms

Singers and instruments play around the beat--just before or right after.

"Pierrot Lunaire"

Song cycle by Arnold Schoenberg. Used the 12-tone system. Atonal and Expressionist, uses sprechstimme.

Expressionism in music

Stressed intense, subjective emotion. Preoccupation with madness and death, concerned with social protest.

atonality

The absence of key. Used in Expressionism.

symbolist poetry

The literary response to Impressionism. Writings are suggestive of images and ideas rather than literary descriptions. Sounds of words became more important than their meaning. Stephane Mallarme.

rhythm section

The part of a jazz ensemble that provides the pulse, beat, groove, and/or harmonic material of a tune.

Dizzy Gillespie

Trumpet player, bebop virtuoso.

leitmotif

Used by film producers to create musical unity. Recurring theme for a particular character or thing. Helps to establish character or delineate social levels of characters.

progression

Usually twelve bars (measures) involving three basic chords. Repeated over and over.

20th century nationalism

Works based on traditional and popular music (in the United States). Contained folk idioms.

"Prelude to 'The Afternoon of a Faun'"

Written by Claude Debussy. Inspired by poem by Mallarme. Suggests dreams and erotic fantasies of a pagan forest creature.

Claude Debussy

Wrote "Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun'". Impressionist composer.

Leonard Bernstein

Wrote "West Side Story". First American-born conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.