Music Section 1
What is atonal music? A. Music that rejects tonality. B. Music that, for the most part, sounds incredibly pleasing to the average music listener. C. Music that is to be performed solely on a single note. D. Music that focuses on a single tonal, rather than two tonals (bitonal), or more than two tonals (polytonal).
A
What do musicians usually tune their instruments to?
A-440
What does a dot do in rhythmic notation?
Adds half of the original value to the note
What is a female who performs more comfortable at low tessitura known as?
Alto
What are the two components of a wave?
Amplitude and frequency
What type of triad may be inverted?
Any triad
How is the rhythm of swing music played?
As if it were 12 8 time but written as 4 4
Order of flats in key signature
B E A D G C F
What is a male who performs more comfortable at low tessitura known as?
Bass
How is the frequency of a theremin regulated?
By distributing the electrical fields
How is a first inversion indicated?
By putting a 6 after the chord
How is second inversion indicated?
By putting a six above a four after the chord
How do you calculate the name for intervals?
By the letter changes (C to E would be 3)
What is the resting note or do?
C, the anchor, a point of response and completion known as the tonic pitch.
A chain of triads, each pulling to the next
Chord progression
What are the four groups of instruments categorized by Sachs and Hornbostel?
Chordophones, aerophones, membranophones, and idiophones
If pitches outside of the key occur, they are called?
Chromatic pitches
What is 4 4 time known as?
Common time
What is the system of organizing pitch and harmony that we find intuitive today in western cultures?
Common-practice tonality
Which type of harmony uses more chromatic pitches and four or more separate pitches at the same time?
Complex harmony
What are the two types of polyphonic music?
Counterpoint and imitiative
Who were the two ethnomusicologists who categorized music into four groups?
Curt Sachs and Erich Von Hornbostel
What is 2 2 time known as?
Cut time
The triad built on the seventh scale degree is a?
Diminished triad
What is the first beat of any measure called?
Downbeat or strongbeat
What type of meter goes from strong to weak to strong to weak, etc?
Duple
What type of meters are there?
Duple, triple, quadruple, and irregular/assymetrical
What does the lower value of a time signature indicate?
Durational value of a beat
What is compound subdivision?
Each beat is divided in 3 parts
What is simple subdivision?
Each beat is divided in half
C minor is relative to
Eb major
What instrument category was later added?
Electrophones
Order of sharps in key signature
F C G D A E B
What was the Western grouping of orchestra instruments called?
Families
Highest note in a triad
Fifth
When the third of the triad is on the bottom, it is in?
First inversion
What does clef mean?
French for "Key" for reading the lines of a staff
How did Rusolo contribute to music?
Generated and categorized noises
A series of chords or intervals that moves from dissonance to consonance
Harmonic progression
If two or more pitches occur its a?
Harmony or counterpoint
If the frequency of a soundwave is high, is the pitch high or low?
High
What is a fugue?
Imitative polyphonic composition where themes repeat
Rondo form
In this form, the unifying theme (A) returns after each contrasting theme. Ex: ABACA
What is another way to describe a melody?
Its contour and direction, descends at the end
What type of music is polyrhythm common in?
Jazz
The set of seven notes/scale in a piece of music
Key
What us the seventh scale degree known as?
Leading tone because Western ears beg to resolve to it.
What are the basic techniques of tape music?
Looping and splicing
Is a high amplitude loud or soft?
Loud
If one pitch occurs its a?
Melody
What are irregular/asymmetrical meters?
Meters that cannot be divided into steady pulsations
What are the variations of grouping?
Mixed meter, irregular and asymmetrical
What are the four types of textures in Western music?
Monophony, homophony, polyphony and heterophony
Does a high tessitura call for more or less pitches in the register?
More pitches
What is sonata form?
Most important new form of Classical era, new way of handling contrasts between keys and themes
What is improvisation as it relates to music?
Music that is created by the performer during the moment of performance.
What cities had famous postwar centers for electronic music?
New York, Rome, Paris, and Cologne
Can looping and splicing be reproduced by a human performer?
No, it cannot
What does the upper value of a time signature indicate?
Number of beats in a measure
What is being colored by the faint presence of higher pitches called?
Overtones or partials
What are major and minor scales that begin and end on the same tonic pitch called?
Parrallel
What are cadances?
Pausing points
Two or more meters operating simultaneously
Polymeter
What is the term for when two conflicting rhythmic patterns are present simultaenously
Polyrhythm/cross rhythm
Harmonies that pull to the dominant
Pre-dominant harmonies
What type of meter goes from strongest to weak to strong to weak?
Quadruple
Consonance
Resolving pitch; Repetition of a consonant sound within two or more words in close proximity.
Lowest of the three notes in a triad
Root
What is the way music is organized in time?
Rythm
When the fifth is on the bottom, it is in?
Second inversion
What type of harmony is diatonic and uses mostly triads?
Simple harmony
How does a conjuct melody move?
Smoothly, in a stepwise motion that is mostly half and whole steps
What is a female who performs more comfortable at high tessitura known as?
Soprano
What were the categories of western families?
Strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion, and in some cases keyboards
What is the term for when accented or emphasized notes fall on weak beats or between beats?
Syncopation
What is a male who performs more comfortable at high tessitura known as?
Tenor
Dissonance
Tense pitch; harsh, inharmonious, or discordant sounds
In 1910, what did Schoenberg conclude?
That chromatic music had become so free that the next step forward was to free dissonance from the need to resolve to the tonic.
What is it called when the root is on the bottom?
The chord is in root position
What does amplitude measure?
The decibel level of how loud or soft a tone is
Why is the first term used for electrically generated music in Frenhc?
The first practitioners were in Paris
What is a enthomusicologist?
The modern term for scholars who study the music of other cultures or study other cultures comparatively
What does a meter describe?
The pattern of emphasis superimposed on groups of beats
What is counterpoint polyphonic music?
The simultaneous melodies are usually in different registers (how I remember this is when you go to a store at the counter there is a register)
irregular meter
The time signature changes frequently -- often every measure -- and serves more as an organizational guide than an indication of strong downbeat
What system did Schoenberg develop and what did it do?
The twelve-tone method. Instead of a scale, each piece had a primary "tone row" consisting of all twelve chromatic pieces.
What is the name of one of the best known early electronic instrument which is still occasionally used today?
Theremin
Notes of the same pitch can be connected with a curved line called a(n)
Tie
What is the function of the dominant pitch?
To act as a second gravitational center that sets melodies in motion by pulling them away from the tonic pitch.
How can a harmony be made more complex?
To modulate (change keys) frequently
What are the three main clefs used today?
Treble "G-clef", Bass "F-clef", and alto "C-clef" but if the C is centered on the fourth line it is called tenor clef.
Three note chord consisting of the root, third, and fifth
Triad
What type of meter goes from strong to weak to weak to strong, etc?
Triple
What is homophonic music?
Two different things going on at once: a melody and a harmonic accompaniment
What is polyphonic music?
Two or more melodies unfolding simultaneously
What is heterophonic music?
Two performers are producing versions of the same line, but are not playing precisely.
What is the simplest way to modulate?
Use accidentals to create the dominant seventh chord of the new key and then resolve it to the new tonic
Common way of structuring a composition is by?
Using the theme and variations
When were enormous advances made for electric and radio technology?
WWII
When is a chord or melody diatonic?
When no accidents are needed other than those in the key signature
What is a pickup or anacrusis?
When the first word falls before the downbeat
How does a disconjuct melody move?
With more leaps
How is the meter indicated?
With the time signature
What is a motive?
a distinctive, easily recognizable fragment of a melody that is used repeatedly in a long composition
Blues Scale
a major scale in which the 3rd, the 7th, and sometimes the 5th degrees are lowered
What is a melody?
a series of notes arranged in order to form a distinctive, recognizable musical unit; the "tune"
What is monophonic music?
a single unaccompanied melody
Steady pulse that underlies most music
beat
Tonic triad
built on the first degree of the scale, provides rest and sense of arrival
Two or more notes being played at the same time
chord
What are two different labels for the same key called?
enharmonic pitches
What is the lowest A called?
fundamental
What does form describe?
how music is organized on a larger time scale
What is the bass line?
lowest "voice" in a series of chords
Mixed meter
measures that have different meters occur in rapid succession
What was a electrically generated composition first known as?
musique concrete
What are the three varieties of a minor scale>
natural, harmonic and melodic minor
What type of instruments provide the most non-pitched music?
percussion instruments
What four properties does a single isolated sound contain?
pitch, duration, volume, and timbre
What are the two kinds of musical sounds?
pitched and non-pitched
What is the most common chord progression?
predominant - dominant - tonic
Timbre/tone color
quality of sound
What is music?
sound organized in time
What does frequency determine?
the pitch of the sound
Middle note in a triad
third
What is imitative polyphony?
when one melody line begins and then another right after -second line may be higher or lower than initial melody (how I remember this one is you are imitating it so repeating it right after)
What does diatonic mean?
within the key