Film Music Lesson 2A and 2B
Octave
-The repeating pattern of notes on the keyboard -An octave is the span of eight letter-name notes. -The first note of a seven-note scale and the eighth note have an arithmetic relationship of 2:1 in terms of pitch frequency -Two notes an octave apart sound so similar that we call the two notes by the same letter name, and if they are played at the same time, they sound much like a single pitch -12 pitches in the span of an octave (including white and black keys)
Whole step or whole tone
-equal to two half-steps -Examples of whole-steps are: C to D (white to white), C# to D# (black to black), E to F# (white to black), and Bb to C (black to white).
Half-step or semitone
-the distance between two adjacent keys -Adjacent keys are any two keys directly next to each other, such as C to C# (white to black), C# to D (black to white), or E to F (white to white)
Piano
-total of 88 keys with a recurring pattern of 12 white and black keys -keys are identified by the notes they represent, using the first seven letters of the alphabet, from A to G -We usually begin with the letter C -The black keys are referred to as either sharp (#) or flat (b), depending on whether they are a half-step above (#) or below (b) the letter name note
Many jazz musicians and scholars would identify three essential features:
1. Improvisation, or performances that are made up on the spot by one or more of the players. 2. Rhythms that create a Swing Feeling. 3. a Bluesy Flavor.
The Romantic Era cont.
Among many notable musical moments in this final movement is the introduction of Gothic church bells (3:00), followed by a low brass rendition of the Dies irae (3:27), the ancient Gregorian chant that is the burial hymn for the dead. ("The funeral knell tolls, burlesque parody of the Dies irae.") Each phrase of the Dies irae is followed by a harmonized repetition of the phrase, played twice as fast by French horns (3:48), which is in turn followed by a dance-like caricature of the melody on clarinet (3:58). As the Dies irae concludes, the "dance of the witches" begins (5:05). Two minutes later (7:05) the Dies irae returns in the low strings, beginning a minute of back-and-forth between the two themes, before a climactic moment when the two are combined in counterpoint against each other (8:07). A half minute later, Berlioz introduces yet another novel sound to the orchestra, when he instructs the strings to play col legno ("with the wood"), creating an effect suggestive of the crackling of hellfire. Perhaps the only thing that seems out of place is the symphony's triumphant conclusion on a C major triad. But this was, after all, a piece for the concert hall. Berlioz likely did not want to leave his audience in the depths of hell.
The Romantic Era
Beethoven was the first Romantic composer.If the Classical ideals of grace, balance, and proportion continued to underlie and inform Beethoven's most impassioned, tempestuous works, those who would follow him heard only unrestrained emotional expression in his music. After Beethoven, "Romantic excess" would become a redundancy. He demonstrated music's capacity to lay bare the human heart, to pour out the passion of a human soul. If the eyes are indeed the windows of the soul, then Beethoven revealed to us—even as he was going deaf—that the ears are the portals to the world of spirit, where our souls abide. It is perhaps this desire to explore and express the reality of all that is invisible that is the essence of Romanticism. The Romantic spirit embraced imagination, fantasy, and literature as potent forces of inspiration. The notion of telling a story through purely instrumental music--what is referred to as program music—reflected not only composers' greater artistic ambitions, but also a growing awareness of music's capacity to suggest such an unfolding narrative. Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 (the "Pastoral" symphony) was influential in this regard.
Jazz vs Blues
Blue notes and the 12-bar form are staples of both blues and jazz. While blues is predominantly a vocal genre, jazz is predominantly an instrumental genre. There is greater harmonic and melodic complexity in jazz, particularly as it has evolved. Jazz is arguably the most sophisticated extension of the musical language of tonality.
Blue notes
Blue notes derive from the vocal tradition, and as such they are notes that do not precisely fit the 12-note system of Western music. That is, the songs that were sung contain notes in the "cracks" of the piano (or of any other fixed-pitch instrument)
Thematic Transformation
Five excerpts from Les Preludes. I: At the outset, we hear the initial statement of the theme, conjuring its primordial origins. II: Some 35 measures later, and two minutes into the piece, we hear the first thematic transformation, one that affirms the heroic nature of life's journey: III: Just twelve measures later (m. 47), the tempo slows down, the dynamics quiet, the meter changes, and the instrumentation is reduced to strings only. The theme has been transformed again, now tender, and suggestive of love. IV: About three minutes later, at measure 101, we hear yet another thematic transformation. The serene melody passes from strings to French horn, to flutes. The musical elements combine now to conjure a pastoral setting. The French horn, in particular, is associated with the countryside because of its history with the hunt. And flutes have on more than one occasion been used to suggest the sounds of birds. V: If we're following Liszt's program, we might expect a suggestion soon of the battle to come. Indeed, the previous excerpt went beyond the pastoral theme itself, signaled by a change in tempo and meter, with the cellos carrying the theme forward in development. Half a minute later, the martial character of the thematic transformation is unmistakable, as the transformed three-note motive (A - G# - C) in the brass leads a "tempestuous" march. This brief excerpt gives us an opportunity, as well, to highlight a very important developmental technique in composition: sequence. A sequence is a repetition of a motive or passage at a higher or lower pitch level than the initial statement. In this case, we hear five seconds of music (0 - 5 seconds) that includes the initial three-note motive and its repetition, followed by an ascending march-like succession of five notes. Then the entire musical passage is transposed—that is, all the notes are "shifted" to another pitch level—and in this case, the transposition is up a half-step, or semitone (5 - 10 seconds). With the sequence moving upward, tension is increased.
What makes a scale either major or minor is the specific succession of whole-steps (W) and half-steps (H) in the scale.
For example, the C major scale--and every other major scale--consists of the following succession: W W H W W W H. The A minor scale--as well as every other minor scale--consists of the succession: W H W W H W W.
Richard Wagner cont.
For some, the music dramas of Wagner may seem a bit remote and unrealistic. His stories, for the most part, are based on legend--not that this would present a problem for us in a well-made motion picture. We are, though, perhaps jaded by the sophistication of our film technology. The suspension of disbelief, so necessary a precondition, becomes all the more difficult when we are presented with only an excerpt. Be that as it may, let's look at--and listen to--an excerpt from one of Wagner's music dramas, Die Walküre, which is based on Norse mythology. In the final three-and-a-half minutes of Act I, the protagonist Siegmund finds the magic sword he is fated to possess, extracts the sword from the tree, and so wins the love of the woman (who happens to be his sister Sieglinde!). There are leitmotifs in this passage (for example, the "Notung" motive at 0:53), but their identification depends on further developments within the music drama. Let's just take in the expressive musical language of Wagner, and note especially the way in which the orchestra dramatizes the moment when Siegmund pulls the sword from the tree. This could be a moment right out of a film. Let's watch. (Die Walküre, I, Hamburg: Deutsche Grammophon, 2002)
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt was the most notable composer of program music after Hector Berlioz. Liszt's output includes more than a dozen "symphonic poems," the name he gave his one-movement symphonic pieces that were based on selected literary works or references. Liszt also took the compositional device of thematic transformation, pioneered by Beethoven and Berlioz, and established it as a principal determinant of musical form. As we will discover in our study of films, thematic transformation is a key compositional device used in film music. To get a better understanding of the process of thematic transformation, let's consider one of Liszt's symphonic poems, Les Preludes (1854). Although the "program" for Les Preludes was hastily put together before its first performance, Liszt states that his notes were inspired by Alphonse de Lamartine's Meditations poetiques (1820), and they include a brief quotation. At the beginning of this fifteen-minute work, Liszt introduces his principal theme. Various sections of the piece are signaled by tempo and meter changes. And within these sections we hear the initial theme transformed to convey some of the different aspects suggested by the program.
The Classical Era cont.
Haydn's "Emperor" Quartet (1797) is among his best. The second movement--which is characteristically the slow movement of a string quartet or symphony--is a theme and variations based on a melody by Haydn himself, known as the Emperor's Hymn. It was a melody composed to inspire national pride, and it would later be used for both the Austrian and German national anthems. The major key, the slow tempo, the graceful, legato, diatonic melody--these all contribute to a serenity and nobility in the music that is uplifting and inspiring. Musical meaning is conveyed by the music itself. The adoption of this music as the national anthem of two nations, as well as the melody's continued presence in several Protestant hymnals, is a testament to the persuasive and universal nature of the music's meaning within Western culture. Haydn's theme consists of three different phrases, the first and third of which are repeated, making a total of five phrases (AABCC). Although not a typical phrase organization, symmetry is nevertheless achieved by virtue of the phrase repetitions on either side of the middle phrase. It all sounds quite natural. Following the theme, we hear a succession of four variations, allowing each of the instruments to take a turn carrying the melody (second violin, cello, viola, first violin).
The Blues
Historically, the blues developed among African Americans through the combining of elements of earlier African-American genres: field hollers, street cries, gospel hymns. Like its predecessors, the blues is foremost a vocal genre. That is to say that someone is singing a song. Early blues singers often accompanied themselves with guitar or banjo. While this accompaniment became a distinctive feature of the blues, the melody (or tune)--what was being sung--was always the most prominent and most important aspect of the blues.
Tonic
In the language of tonality the tonal center is the 1st note of the scale, known as a tonic
The Renaissance
In the late middle ages, composers had begun to combine two or more lines of music to create polyphony--literally, "many sounds." In the 1400s, a significant breakthrough in Western music was the acceptance of the interval of a third as a consonance; that is, as a relatively stable, pleasing sound. Recall from the first part of this lesson that Western tonal harmony is the result of stacking thirds, one on top of another to create triads and seventh chords. Prior to the Renaissance, though, the third was considered a dissonance; that is, a relatively unstable, harsh sound. The acceptance of the third as a consonance was an essential precondition for the development of the musical language of tonality. In Renaissance music, we hear multiple vocal lines combined to create polyphony. The resulting harmonies often sound like major and minor triads--which they are. Interestingly, though, for Renaissance composers these were not chords, as we think of them; rather, they were intervals resulting from the interactions of melodic lines, combined in ways that allowed for the "proper" resolutions of dissonances into consonant sonorities. This is the art of counterpoint--of combining "note-against-note"--which creates the polyphonic textures that characterize much Renaissance music. There was an array of sacred and secular music in the Renaissance, both vocal and instrumental.
The Classical Era
It is ironic that the Baroque era, which had its founding as a reaction against the complexity of Renaissance polyphony, would eventually give rise to the most extraordinary and complex polyphony in all of Western music, as heard in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). J.S. Bach is the supreme master of counterpoint--which is the art of weaving together intricate lines to create a rich, polyphonic texture. His music is widely regarded as the epitome of the mature Baroque style. With the advent of the Classical style, then, once more a stylistic era would emerge as a reaction against the complexity of an earlier era. Even before Bach's death at mid-century, the Classical style had already taken center stage. In the second half of the eighteenth century the Classical style would be brought to artistic maturity--and near perfection--in the works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. It is a style of elegance and simplicity that exhibits clarity, balance, symmetry, proportion.
Ancient Greece
It's something of a paradox that we cite the civilization and art of the ancient Greeks as the foundation for our music in Western history—since no one truly knows what the music of the Greeks sounded like. What we do know is they were passionate about their music and believed in music's power to influence human behavior—for good or for ill. We know there were fabled performances on such instruments as the kithara and the aulos. Yet it would seem that the music of ancient Greece was principally vocal, with their instruments most often serving to accompany their singers. Be it music or dance—the two went together—telling a story was central to Greek art. The great literary works of the classical Greek dramatists, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, as well as the music and choreography woven into the dramatic performances, were considered sacred. Within these dramas, the Chorus served a function of commentary not unlike that of music within narrative film. We can only imagine the grand effect of all these artistic elements coming together in performance, but—as we'll see—that imagination has fueled similar artistic endeavors through our history.
"the pickup"
Not all melodies begin on the downbeat--that is, on the first beat of the first measure. Often there is a note or group of notes leading to the downbeat The "pickup" is also known as the "upbeat" or "anacrusis". (Note that what we call the first measure is the first complete measure).
chromatic pitches
Notes that are in addition to the seven diatonic pitches (because they add "color" to the essential diatonic framework of our music).
Blue notes cont.
On the keyboard, we can only approximate blue notes. So in standard music notation, the blue notes are represented by lowering the third, fifth, and seventh notes of the major scale by one-half step. The lowered third note of the scale is the most distinctive blue note. The lowered seventh is an important blue note because of harmony, as we will see in the next section. The lowered fifth, the third-most important.
Syncopation
Ordinarily, most rhythms reinforce the meter. That is, prominent notes occur on the beats. Syncopation occurs when the accent on a note is placed somewhere unexpected. The musician plays "off the beat."
The Medieval Era
Our earliest extant music comes from the medieval Church and the clergy in its monasteries. Western musical notation was the collective invention of the monks, having developed over the centuries to record the sacred chants that constituted their ritual daily worship. Named after Pope Gregory I, who presided over the Church from 590 to 604, Gregorian chant consists of a single melodic line, sung in unison to a Latin text, in a rhythmically free manner without any pronounced meter. The texture of a single melodic line is known as monophony, or monophonic--literally, "one sound." Even to this day, there are monasteries where Gregorian chant is sung. In a real sense, this is the oldest music we have. It predates the invention of tonality, and as such, is referred to as modal. That is to say, the diatonic melodies of these chants are neither major nor minor in a tonal sense. The effect of this music, while understated, can be striking. Let's listen to a Gregorian chant, this one performed by the Benedictine monks of Santo Domingo de Silos ("Puer natus est nobis," Chant, ANGEL records, 1994).
Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner is one of the most revered and despised figures in all of Western music history. But if music can redeem the man, then he is due our appreciation for his contribution to the art. Wagner not only established a truly German Romantic opera--no slight achievement in itself--but his conception of opera as "music drama," and the compositional means by which he realized this vision, have had a profound influence on film composers. Wagner's emphasis on an expanded orchestra and its importance in underscoring the drama unfolding on stage, in a real sense, presage the role of music in narrative film. Most significantly, Wagner established the dramatic musical technique of the leitmotif--that is, creating a distinct musical theme or motive to represent a person, a thing, or an idea within the drama. The association between the leitmotif and what it represents is accomplished by introducing the leitmotif with the first appearance or mention on stage of the person, thing, or idea. Repeated pairings of sight and sound reinforce the identity of each leitmotif. Wagner's music is heavily chromatic, which is to say that he uses all twelve pitches, not just the seven pitches of the diatonic scale. Austro-German Romanticism, in fact, is characterized by chromaticism. The intensely expressive, emotional nature of Romantic idioms springs largely from these additional melodic and harmonic resources.
Standard Forms
The 32-bar song form tends to divide into four 8-bar phrases or sections, creating a form that can be represented as AABA. (The harmonies in song form tend to be more complex than those in the blues, so we'll simply track progress by measures without chords.) That is, there is an original 8-bar section (the A section); which is repeated, possibly with slight variation (A); followed by a contrasting section (the B section), also known as the "bridge"; and closing with a return to the original section (A).
The Romantic Era cont.
The French composer Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was the first, though, to create a complete program symphony, Symphonie fantastique (1830). This five-movement work chronicles the experience of a young artist smitten with a woman who spurns his amorous overtures. He tries to poison himself with opium, but the dose is not fatal. Instead, he falls into a hallucinatory stupor, dreaming that he has killed the woman he loves, is sentenced to death and executed by the guillotine, after which his incorporeal being is transported to hell. Berlioz' symphony was an astonishing, extraordinary innovation for its time. His orchestration is masterful, and his narrative "program" holds together the form, both of the individual movements and the symphony in its entirety. What was especially influential, though, was Berlioz' establishment of an idée fixe (a "fixed idea"), a recurring theme that the composer uses, in this case, to represent the artist's beloved. It is a theme that appears in all five movements, but it is subject to thematic transformation in response to the changing situations of the narrative. Thematic transformation is a process of altering a theme or motive, not unlike the process of creating a theme and variations. With thematic transformation, though, the process is more distilled, and it can lead further afield because it is not necessarily tied back to the original theme. In the fifth movement, "Dream of the Witches' Sabbath," the program tells us the artist is on his way to hell. A clarinet enters with the idée fixe (1:28). "The beloved melody appears once more, but has now lost its noble and shy character; it is now no more than a vulgar dance tune, trivial and grotesque: it is she who is coming to the sabbath... Roar of delight at her arrival... She joins the diabolical orgy." (Translation by Michael Austin.)
Swing eighths
The first component of the Swing Feeling is the swing eighth-note. Swing eighth-notes create a rhythmic lilt that possesses a forward momentum. They swing! A quarter-note is ordinarily divided into two equal eighth-notes, what jazz musicians refer to as "straight eighth-notes," or "straight eighths." With "swing eighth-notes," though, the quarter-note is divided into two unequal eighth-notes. The first eighth-note receives slightly more than half of the beat; the second eighth-note, the remainder.
In our musical language, there are two principal types of diatonic scales:
The major scale (for example, C to C on the white keys) and The minor scale (for example, A to A on the white keys)
syncopation
The second component of the Swing Feeling is an abundance of syncopations. is an accent on a note somewhere unexpected or off the beat; for example, somewhere other than on beat 1 or beat 3 in 4/4 meter. Syncopations using swing eighth-notes provide still more rhythmic drive forward.
Harmony
The sounding of two or more pitches together For example, harmony is created when an instrument, such as a guitar or piano, is played along with (or, accompanies) a singer. Guitar and piano are both instruments capable of sounding more than one pitch at a time—producing harmony. Not surprisingly, they have remained important instruments in both blues and jazz.
The location of a note on the staff indicates its pitch. The higher a note is on the staff, the higher its pitch will be; the lower a note is on the staff, the lower its pitch will be.
The staff corresponds directly to the keys on the keyboard.
The Baroque Era
The stylistic era of the Baroque began as a reaction against the restrained yet complex, "classical" sound of Renaissance polyphony. In the 1590s a group of artists and intellectuals in Florence, known as the Florentine Camerata, sought to revive the glories of ancient Greek music drama and, in the process, invented opera. The great Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi brought opera to life in 1607 with L'Orfeo. For the next 300 years, opera was in many respects "the best show in town." And, as we'll see, late-nineteenth-century opera would have a significant influence on film music. Let's turn briefly to England, though, to get a sense of the power of seventeenth-century opera, as well as to appreciate the language of tonality, which by the late 1600s was the musical language of all of Western Europe. England's greatest composer at that time was Henry Purcell. His most well known work is the opera, Dido and Aeneas (1689). And the most famous aria, or song, from the opera is "Dido's Lament," which the queen sings when she is left desolate and heart-broken by her lover Aeneas, who must sail away to fulfill his destiny of founding Rome. "Dido's Lament" is a song built over a recurring bass line--what is referred to as a basso ostinato, or a "stubborn" bass. The bass line is notable for its chromatic descent from tonic to dominant. A chromatic descent is one that moves downward by successive half-steps, or semitones. ----For example, in the key of G minor, the chromatic descent would start on the tonic G, and descend to F-sharp, then to F, to E, to E-flat, and then reach the dominant D. Recall from the first part of the lesson that the relationship between the tonic and the dominant is the defining characteristic of tonality. Before Dido begins to sing, we hear the bass line by itself. Notice how compelling the descent from tonic to dominant is, and then how the bass line moves inevitably from the dominant pitch back to the tonic. "Dido's Lament" is in a minor key, which is a mode that listeners universally identify with sadness and seriousness. The musical meaning of the language of tonality begins, then, with our distinctly different responses to the major and minor keys.
Polyrhythms
The third component of the Swing Feeling is frequent polyrhythms. a combination of two or more rhythms sounding simultaneously Polyrhythms increase the tension in the music. With one instrument sounding one rhythm, and another instrument another, and yet another sounding another, the rhythmic complexity can produce excitement and intensity.
Time signature
The type of meter is indicated in the Time Signature, which appears at the beginning of the staff, next to the clef. In simple meters (which we will limit ourselves to), the top number of the time signature indicates how many beats are in each measure, and the bottom number indicates the type of note that carries the beat. For our purposes, the quarter note--signified by the number 4--will be the type of note that gets one beat.
Bluesy flavor
There is a third element cited by many jazz musicians as essential to jazz: a "bluesy" flavor. The historic connection between jazz and the blues is significant. Some would say it is hard to overstate the importance of the blues to jazz. Just as the blues led to the development of "rhythm and blues" and, along a similar vein, to "rock and roll," blues contributed significantly and substantially to the development of jazz.
Measure
Typically, a group of beats fills one measure. A measure is indicated by a vertical line on the staff that divides one group of notes from the next.
tonality vs other musical languages
What distinguishes tonality from other musical languages is that the tonic is reinforced as the tonal center by its harmonic relationship to the 5th note of the scale, the dominant. This tonic-dominant relationship (the I and V chords) is the hallmark of tonality (refer back to the I, IV, V, I progressions on the "Chord Progressions" screen).
diatonic scale or seven-note scale
Whenever individuals begin learning a musical instrument, they generally start with the C major scale, beginning on the note C and continuing with each successive letter-name note up to the note B. These notes correspond to the solfege syllables with which you may already be familiar: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do. The eighth note of the scale--the second "do," or the second note C--is an octave above the starting pitch.
Every minor scale is built of a specific pattern of ascending whole and half steps:
Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole
Every major scale is built from a specific pattern of ascending whole and half steps:
Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half
chord progressions
You may very well recognize the sound of the chord progression, I IV V I, because it is common to much of our music. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and many others all wrote music using this chord progression. It's also a conspicuous feature of much country and rock music.
Pitch blending
a gradual change of pitch, like sliding between notes as you've probably heard a trombone do, or a slight raising and lowering of a note as you've probably heard a guitar do In addition to bending the strings with their fingers, many Mississippi delta blues singers and guitarists would also use a bottleneck on the pinky finger to slide along the strings—what we call "bottleneck slide guitar."
phrase
a length of music that can be recognized by a point of repose at the end of it The use of the term "phrase" implies a correlation to language that is fitting
Music composed using the major scale is in
a major key
Music composed using the minor scale is in
a minor key
Pedal Point
a repeated or sustained note, usually in the bass, over which the melody and harmonies move. In tonal music, when pedal points are used, they are heard on the tonic and dominant pitches. The effect is to ground the musical activity above the bass note, so that we hear it as belonging either to the tonic or the dominant harmony. In jazz, the effect of a pedal point is much like a drone; it grounds the activity above it and helps to unify the musical fabric. In some respects, it is a modal style of jazz, since the tonal relationship between tonic and dominant is not necessarily present. Whether tonal or modal, though, pedal points share a similar character.
Sequence
a repetition of a motive or passage at a higher or lower pitch level than the initial statement
staff
a set of five horizontal lines used in music notation At the beginning of each staff is a clef, which indicates the range of pitches to be played. For instance, here's an ascending C major scale, starting on middle C (C4): C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C
Jazz
a uniquely American art, a marvelous blending of African Americans' musical heritage with that of European Americans. It is an intercultural exchange resulting in a new art form. It is the invention of African Americans. Throughout the history of jazz African Americans have been the major innovators, furthering its evolution by creating new jazz styles. Jazz tends to breathe, much like inhaling and exhaling (though with longer "breaths"). This alternation of tension and relaxation in a jazz piece can often be attributed to its variously increasing and decreasing rhythmic complexity.
note
actual musical sound
Parallel major and minor
built from different diatonic pitches, starting on the same pitch. Ex. C major and C minor
Relative major and minor
built from the same diatonic pitches, starting on different pitches. Ex. C major and A minor
chromatic scale
chromatic scale, which is the complete succession of semitones along the span of an octave. For example, the ascending chromatic scale starting on C would be: C - C# - D - D# - E - F - F# - G - G# - A - A# - B - C
grand staff
combines the treble and bass clefs, and is typically how piano music is notated
quadruple meter
combines two duple groups, where there is a greater accent, or emphasis, on the first beat, and a slightly lesser accent on the third beat. 4/4 is the most common quadruple meter
Rhythm
created by the notes we hear Think of a tune, for example. It is a succession of notes, each of which has pitch and also duration. The rhythm is the succession of articulated durations from one note to the next, to the next, and so on.
meter
grouping of beats each group of beats is recognized because the first beat of each group is accented Groupings of beats can be in 2s, 3s, and 4s, called duple, triple and quadruple meters, respectively.
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
he earliest of the great classical triumvirate More than anyone else, he created the mature classical style. His impressive output includes 104 symphonies, nearly 70 string quartets, 52 piano sonatas, and two monumental oratorios. A string quartet is a type of chamber music for four string players: first and second violin, viola, and cello. Because he largely created the genre, Haydn is known as "the father of the string quartet." Haydn was also the first composer to use a theme and variations as a movement in a symphony or a string quartet.
duple meter
heard as alternating strong and weak beats. 2/4 is the most common duple meter
triple meter
heard as strong-weak-weak. 3/4 is the most common triple meter
treble clef
indicates a higher range of note
bass clef
indicates a lower range of notes
cadence
it is like a pause in speaking, whether to take a breath or to punctuate a sentence. There are even two types of cadences, inconclusive and conclusive, that correspond rather nicely to the comma and the period.
Swing Feeling
often achieved as a result of three components: 1."Swing eighth-notes" 2. An abundance of syncopations 3. Frequent polyrhythms
interval
the distance between two notes For example, the interval C to E: that's a third. We call it a third because we count the notes of the scale in the interval, C-D-E, one-two-three. Similarly, E to G is the interval of a third.
Tonality
the language of the blues and of rock-and-roll, and almost all pop music. It is a language as simple as "shave and a haircut, two bits" and as profound as Beethoven's fifth symphony. And it is the language of most film music.
tonality
the musical language that is the invention of Western art music. It is the language of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. It is a musical language that we can easily take for granted because it is so familiar to most of us, and it sounds so "natural."
beat
the pulse we feel in music
tempo
the speed at which the beats pass
dominant
the tonic is reinforced as the tonal center by its harmonic relationship to the 5th note of the scale, the dominant
chord
three or more notes sounded together For example, the C-major chord consists of three notes: C-E-G. It is the result of stacking thirds on top of the note C. Because the chord is built on C, we call it the root of the chord. The E is the third of the chord; and we call G the fifth of the chord, because we can count five notes from C to G.
Seventh chords
triads with one extra third stacked on top, which adds a seventh above the root.
