Music Appreciation

Galliard

A Renaissance court dance in triple meter.

Meter

A background of stressed and unstressed beats in a simple, regular, repeating pattern.

Gigue/jig

A baroque dance in a lively compound meter.

Fugue

A composition written systematically in imitative polyphony, usually with a single main theme, the fugue subject.

Antiphon

A genre of plainchant usually in a simple melodic style with very few melismas.

Chords

A grouping of pitches played and heard simultaneously.

Recitative

A half-singing, half-reciting style of presenting words in opera, cantata, oratorio, etc., following speech accents and speech rhymes closely. Secco recitative is accompanied by orchestra.

Jongleur

A medieval secular musician.

Duple Meter

A meter consisting of one accented beat alternating with one unaccented beat.

Ostinato

A motive, phrase, or theme repeated over and over again.

Monophony

A musical texture involving a single melodic line.

Homophony

A musical texture that involves only one melody of real interest combined with chords or other subsidiary sounds.

Dance Suites

A piece consisting of a series of dances.

Imitation

A polyphonic musical texture in which the various melodic lines use approximately the same themes.

Phrase

A section of a melody or tune.

Scales

A selection of ordered pitches that provides the pitch material for music.

Basso Continuo

A set of chords continuosly underlying the melody in a piece of Baroque music; the instruments playing the continuo, usually cello plus harpsichord or organ.

Passacaglia

A set of variations on a short theme in the bass.

Motive

A short fragment of melody or rhythm used in constructing a long section of music.

Strophic

A song in several stanzas, with the same music for each stanza.

Aria

A vocal number for solo singer and orchestra, generally in an opera, cantata, or oratorio.

Estampie

An instrumental dance of the Middle Ages.

Timbre

Another term for tone color.

Troubadours; Trouveres

Aristocratic poet-musicians of the Middle Ages.

Opera

Drama presented in music with the characters singing instead of speaking.

Reciting tone

Especially in chant, the single note used for musical "recitation," with brief melodic formulas for beginning and ending.

Chanson

French for a song; a genre of French secular vocal music.

Functionality Harmony

From the Baroque period on, the system whereby all chords have a specific interrelation and function in relation to the tonic.

Sequence

In a melody, a series of fragments identical except for their placement at successively higher or lower pitch levels; in the Middle Ages, a type of plainchant in which successive phrases of text receive nearly identical melodic treatment.

Consonance

Intervals or chords that sound relatively stable and free of tension, as opposed to dissonance.

Dissonance

Intervals or chords that sound relatively tense and unstable.

Forte

Loud

Triple Meter

Meter consisting of one accented beat alternating with tow unaccented beats.

Polyphony

Musical texture in which two or more melodic lines are played or sung simultaneously.

Minor

One of the modes of the diatonic scale, oriented around A as the the tonic; characterized by the interval between the first and third notes containing three semitones.

Major

One of the modes of the diatonic scale, oriented around C as the tonic; characterized by the interval between the first and third notes containing four semitones, as opposed to three in the minor mode.

Minnesingers

Poet-Composers of the Middle Ages in Germany.

Piano

Soft

Rhythm

The aspect of music having to do with the duration of the notes in time.

Melody

The aspect of music having to do with the succession of pitches.

Texture

The blend of the various sounds and melodic lines occurring simultaneously in a piece of music.

Organum

The earliest genre of medieval polyphonic music.

Tonality

The feeling of centrality of one note to a passage of music.

The Mass

The main Roman Catholic service; or the music written for it. The musical mass consists of five large sections: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei.

Madrigal

The main secular vocal genre of the Renaissance.

Pitch

The quality of "highness" or "lowness" of sound.

Beat

The regular pulse underlying most music; the lowest unit of meter.

Chromatic

The set of twelve pitches between one octave.

Tempo

The speed of music,i.e., the rate at which the accented and unaccented beats of the meter follow one another.

Accent

The stressing of a note-for example, by playing it louder than the surrounding notes.

Liturgy

The system of prayers and worship of a particular religion.

Dynamics

The volume of sound, the loudness or softness of a musical passage.

Plainchant

Unaccompanied, monophonic music, without fixed rhythm or meter.

Motet

Usually a sacred vocal composition. Early motets were based on fragments of Gregorian chant.