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