Music Midterm

how high or low the note is. Property or sounds that allows their ordering on a frequency-related scale. Can be determined only in sounds that is clear and stable enough to distinguish from noise.

pitch

He was the most famous member of the Notre Dame school of polyphony and the ars antiqua style.

perotin

gives direction, pieces things together when you're not quite there yet

sub dominant

each syllable of text is matched to a single note

syllabic

the musical technique of composing music that reflects the literal meaning of a song's lyrics

word painting

attention towards

dominant

ornament

(or embellishment) - are musical flourishes—typically, added notes—that are not essential to carry the overall line of the melody (or harmony), but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line (or harmony), provide added interest and variety, and give the performer the opportunity to add expressiveness to a song or piece. In the Baroque period, it was common for performers to improvise ornamentation on a given melodic line. A singer performing a da capo aria, for instance, would sing the melody relatively unornamented the first time, but decorate it with additional flourishes and trills the second time Adding notes - can still hear original

a sixteenth note or semiquaver is a note played for half the duration of an eighth note.

16th note

thirty-second note is a note played for ​¹⁄₃₂ of the duration of a whole note. It lasts half as long as a sixteenth note and twice as long as a sixty-fourth. Thirty-second notes are notated with an oval, filled-in note head and a straight note stem with three flags or beams.

32nd note

An eighth note or a quaver is a musical note played for one eighth the duration of whole note, hence the name. This amounts to twice the value of the sixteenth note. It is played for half the value of a quarter note

8th note

attribute of a note

amplitude

refers to the medieval music of Europe. Covers the period of Notre Dame school of polyphony. Usually restricted to sacred (church) or polyphonic music, excluding the secular (non-religious) monophonic songs of the troubadours, and trouvères

ars antiqua

how specific notes or passages are played or sung. Conveyed in the form of written notation, symbols placed above or below notes. Indicated whether musicians are to play short or long notes "attack of a sound" Aka diction

articulation

A cadence is a chord progression of at least 2 chords that ends a phrase or section of a piece of music. The easiest way to understand cadences in music is to think of the punctuation you find at pauses and breaks in spoken speech. music is divided up into phrases/sections. When you listen to the end of a phrase in music it either sounds like it is finished or unfinished. Whether it sounds finished or unfinished depends on which cadence is used. Different cadences: conclusion (ending the descent), broken, half (doesn't finish the descent), and final Expressive device - pauses or inflection point in the music

cadence

a newly composed polyphonic section for two or more voices sung in discant style. Clausulae eventually became used as substitutes for passages of original plainchant. They occur as melismatic figures based on a single word or syllable within an organum

clausulae

musical symbol used to indicate the pitch or written notes. Placed on the left hand side of the staff to indicate the name and pitch of the notes on one of the lines Serves as a reference

clef

intervals are usually described as pleasant and agreeable

consonance

a function or curve that tracks the perceived pitch of the sound over time. Pitch contour may include multiple sounds utilizing many pitches, and can relate the frequency function at one point in time to the frequency function at a later point.

contour

a measure of sound level (dB)

decibel

intervals are those that cause tension and desire to be resolved to consonant intervals

dissonance

2 voices within a section of organum

duplum

amount of time or how long or short a note, phrase, section, or composition lasts. "Duration is the length of time a pitch, or tone, is sounded."

duration

dynamics is the variation in loudness between notes or phrases Related to peak and normalize

dynamics

improvisions on top of a plainchant. Notre Dame organum style. polyphonic composition based on plainchant in which a new ornate voice is added above the original voice, moving faster than the original plainchant line. it is melismatic organum

florid organum

a style of notes against note. Voices are independent within the phrases and the phrases end in unison of 8va.

free organum

speed of the vibration which determines the pitch of the sound. Number of vibrations per second of a musical pitch - amount of time

frequency

Gregorian Chant is a variety of plainchant, although the two terms are often incorrectly referred to as synonymous. plainchant, monophonic and unaccompanied song in western churches. Traditionally performed by choirs during mass.

gregorian chant

- a note played for half the duration of a whole note

half note

is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between two adjacent notes in a 12-tone scale. (dissonant = 2nds, 7ths) To go from a C to a C sharp (or D flat) is a semitone. To go from a C sharp (or D flat) to a D is a semitone.

half step / semitone

a melodic idea split into different patterns. For example, the "you say potato, I say potato, you say tomato, I say tomato." Or a group of people saying one line of a song but each saying separate words of that phrase. Why do we have hockets? It is a hiccup - gets audience's attention - something they come up with when they no longer know how to organize their piece

hocket

one part, usually the highest, tends to predominate and there is little rhythmic differentiation between the parts a texture in which a primary part is supported by one or more additional strands that flesh out the harmony and often provide rhythmic contrast texture may be homorhythmic, which means that all parts have the same rhythm. ... The most common type of homophony is melody-dominated homophony, in which one voice, often the highest, plays a distinct melody, and the accompanying voices work together to articulate an underlying harmony.

homophony

the repetition of a melody in a polyphonic texture shortly after its first appearance in a different voice. The melody may vary through transposition, inversion, or otherwise, but retain its original character.

imitation

"volume" how loud or soft the sound is

intensity

distance between two notes, counted from the lower note upwards with the lower note as the first of the interval

interval

pitches change but it has the same rhythmic pattern throughout the whole thing Repeating rhythmic pattern.

isorhythmic motet

he first known significant composer of polyphonic organum.

leonin

subjective perception of sound pressure

loudness

is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, in which each syllable of text is matched to a single note

melismatic

regularly recurring patterns and accents such as bars and beats. Not necessarily sounded. Rhythmic patterns constituted by the grouping of basic temporal units such as beats into regular measures.

meter

any of several ways of ordering notes of a scale according with the intervals they form with the tonic. Type of musical scale coupled with a set of characteristic melodic behaviors. Tonic means stability and dominant means instability scale - half step and whole step relationship The way you play the scale (mode) All of these refer to the pitch dimension to the note.

mode

means music with a single "part" and a "part" typically means a single vocal melody, but it could mean a single melody on an instrument of one kind or another. The principal example of monophony is plainchant, with its single unaccompanied vocal melody. When sung by multiple voices in unison (i.e. the same pitch), this music is still considered monophonic. Hildegard is also monophonic, and of course closely related to plainchant.

monophony

A sacred choral piece, usually unaccompanied, in several parts Polyphonic form of Renaissance music Evolution towards motet: discant -> discant clausulae -> motet (discant clausulae with layering of made up words)

motet

A motif is a short musical idea—shorter than a phrase—that occurs often in a piece of music. A short melodic idea may also be called a motif, a motive, a cell, or a figure. These small pieces of melody will appear again and again in a piece of music, sometimes exactly the same and sometimes changed. When a motif returns, it can be slower or faster, or in a different key. It may return "upside down" (with the notes going up instead of down, for example), or with the pitches or rhythms altered. Short musical idea Equivalent to a short musical word Doesn't mean anything

motif

the pitch, duration, loudness, articulation and intensity of a sound what is it? a musical sound, a notation on the staff... Attributes of a this: It has timbre (quality of the sound, color, the source - it is what differentiates the violin and trumpet playing a C4) Articulation (the "attack", the direction of the sound)

note

a slant that comes into a parallel organum Form of early organum Very close to polyphony One part stays another part slants up. Notre dame organum comes after early organum.

oblique organum

Always has a plainchant underneath

organum

a plainchant melody with at least one added voice to enhance the harmony, developed in the Middle Ages

organum

16th century italian composer, God of Renaissance Polyphony

palestrina

homophony with parallel 4ths, 5ths, and 8vas. It is syllabic, meaning that there is only one note per syllable chant with almost strictly parallel progression

parallel organum

set of all pitches that share the same chroma. The pitch class C stands for all possible Cs in whatever octave possible Chroma - a quality of a pitch class which refers to the "color" of a musical pitch, which can be decomposed in into an octave-invariant value called "chroma" and a "pitch height" that indicates the octave the pitch is in.

pitch classes

models relationships between pitches. These models typically use distance to model the degree of relatedness, with closely related pitches placed near one another, and less closely related pitches placed farther from each other

pitch space

most ancient kind of Church music in the Western church. Characterized by being unaccompanied by instruments and sung in unison according to the accentuation of words is a form of medieval church music that involves chanting or words that are sung, without any instrumental accompaniment

plainchant

two or more sounds - two or more simultaneous lines of independent harmonies. Music with more than one part, and so this indicates simultaneous notes.

polyphony

the beat of a song

pulse

A quarter note or crotchet is a note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note.

quarter note

distance from the lowest to the highest pitch/note it can play

range

a type of emphasis placed on a particular note or set of notes

stress

the "height" or range of a note, set of pitches or pitch classes, melody, part, instrument, or group of instruments. A higher register indicates higher pitch. Particular region of the instrument Physical thing

register

time period of rebirth In reference to the Renaissance musical style, it is the: characteristic of ideal sound in the 16th century being of four or more voice lines of similar character in homogeneous tone color instead of three more or less dissimilar lines in contrasting timbres as in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. The lines were of equal importance in that all shared equally in presenting the musical motives in a texture of imitative counterpart. The Renaissance gradually extended to all cultural manifestations from the period 1450 to 1600 including music. Many writers and artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries hailed the achievements of their own time as a revival of the glories of Greece and Rome. Descriptions of the marvelous effects of ancient music led to some attempts in the sixteenth century to discover the lost secret of its power hoping to revive it and harness its power into new music. The rival of chromatic and enharmonic genera of Greek music are examples of solid consequences of the eager Renaissance, rebirthing, interest in music. The view of the world takes a drastic shift as it revives the standards of culture.

renaissance

ordered alternation of contrasting elements. Placement of sounds in time

rhythm

any graduated sequence of notes, tones, or intervals dividing an octave. An octave is the distance between two musical notes that have the same letter name. An octave is divided into twelve semitones. These semitones are exactly equal in size. Ordered in ascending order by steps

scale

musical notation that informs the musician to play a sequence of two or more notes without pausing in between notes (like slurring all the notes together). It means you should play the notes in legato

slur

Syllables are assigned to the notes of the scale and enable the musician to audiate, or mentally hear, the pitches of a piece of music which he or she is seeing for the first time and then to sing them aloud.

solfège

displays the different frequencies present in a sound

spectrum

set of five horizontal lines with four spaces that each represent a different musical pitch

staff

pace of speed music is played. Helps composer convey a feeling of intensity or relaxation. Speedometer of music measured in beats per minute.

tempo

standard high male voice a voice that has sustained notes

tenor

is the most aesthetically acceptable and comfortable vocal range for a given singer OR for a musical instrument it is the range in which a given type of voice presents its best-sounding (or characteristic) timbre Tessitura, range, and register are equivalent Registers refer to "height" or range of a note, set of pitches or pitch classes, melody, part, instrument, or group of instruments. A higher register indicates higher pitch. Refer to a particular region of an instrument Example 1: Violins are in a higher register than cellos.

tessitura

the tone or unique quality of a sound

timbre

center, resolution

tonic

starts as tonic, dominant, and then tonic ( in a music piece, once it goes down, it must come back up)

tonic, dominant, tonic

3 voices within a section of organum

triplum

is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied.

vibrato

the loudness of a sound measured in decibels - sound pressure level

volume

a note represented by a hollow oval note head and no note stem. Its length is equal to four beats in 4/4 time. Most other notes are fractions of the whole note

whole notes

means a distance of two semitones, i.e. the distance between two notes which are separated by one other note in pitch. For example, to go from a C to a D is a tone.

whole step