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13 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Pitch |
The frequency (speed of vibration) of a tone. In Western terminology, pitches with many vibrations per second are called "high," pitches with fewer vibrations per second are called "low." |
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Indeterminate pitch |
A sound made up of so many pitches that listeners do not perceive it as made up of a any particular pitch, |
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Melody |
A musically memorable set of pitches presented one after another with a definite rhythm (The tune). |
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Scale |
A series of notes played sequentially in ascending or descending pitch order |
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Melodic range |
The distance in pitch from a melody's lowest note to highest note. |
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Melodic contour |
the visual shape produced by an imaginary line traced through note-heads of a notated melody. |
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The Octave |
When one tone's pitch is twice the frequency of another, the two pitches are an octave apart. In western music, notes one or more octaves apart are often used interchangeably. For example: -Western musicians use the same letter names for pitches one or more octaves apart -Changing the octave of one note in a chord(group of notes played simultaneously) does not radically affect the sound or musical use of the chord. |
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Western European Concepts of Pitch |
-Western musicians give notes letter names (A,B,C,D, etc) based on their pitches. The letter names are sometimes modified with sharps(#) or flats (b) - Western music uses 12 separate pitches in an octave. Pitches that fall between these twelve pitches are considered "out of tune" - All 12 pitches in the Western system played in pitch order make up a "chromatic" scale. It is customary to add one more note so the sequence ends an octave higher than its start. -Music that uses only these 12 pitches and their octave equivalents (the notes available on a piano) is often said to be in a "Western pitch system" |
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Scales commonly used in Western Music |
The two scales commonly used in Western music are called "major" and "minor." These two scales leave out several notes on the chromatic scale Melodies and pieces built from the major scale are often associated in Western music with happiness, triumph, and energy. Melodies and pieces built from the minor scale are often associated in Western music with sadness, tragedy, and melancholy. |
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Non-Western Pitch Systems |
Not all cultures use the pitch systems, scales, and musical conventions of Western music. Music that uses significantly different fromt he 12 pitches used in Western music are based on a non-Western pitch system." "Such music may sound "out-of-tune" to Western listeners. |
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Mircrotones |
Some cultures use all the notes in the Western pitch system and also add notes "in between" those 12 pitches. Western musicians call these pitches "microtones" |
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Chords and Harmony |
Two terms often used interchangeably are "chord" and "harmony" A series of notes on different pitch presented one at a time in a definite rhythm produces a melody Two or more notes of different pitch played or sung simultaneously produce harmony or chords. |
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Non-Western Harmony |
Non-Western systems of harmony may sound odd to Western ears, but they are still harmony Japanese "gagaku" Bosnian ganga singers 20th century avante garde piece played on Chinese zheng |
