Music Exam 1

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"World Music"

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category or label of music which exoticizes non-Western music, often through a collaborative effort

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World Music

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Music from around the globe

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Graceland Controversy

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Paul Simon wanted to create collaborative music with South African Styles but was criticized of stealing the South African music and taking it over

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Ethnocentrism

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judging music by its relationship to our own cultural experience

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Musicologist

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those who study the history of music

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Music Theorist

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those who analyze composition and musical systems

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Ethnomusicologist

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those who study music as a part of people’s way of life (or within the context of culture)

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Soundscape

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the characteristic sounds of a particular place, both
human and nonhuman

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Culture

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the way of life of a people, learned and transmitted from one person to another

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Music

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Humanly organized sound

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Folk Music

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“created by amateurs for their own community’s
enjoyment”

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Popular Music

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“created by professionals for mass audiences, usually
with the intention of selling it as a commodity”

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Art Music

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“created by professionals, but selling it to large audiences is less important than depth of expression, which can be very complex and sophisticated”

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Music-culture

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a group’s total involvement with music: ideas, actions, institutions, material objects – everything that has to do with music / culture that shares a music

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Pitch

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Quality of a note that distinguishes a high note from a low one (not always “high” vs. “low”)

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Melody

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One pitch sounding at the same time with rhythm
• Principal tune in a piece of music, consisting of a succession of tones in a particular rhythm over a period of time

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Harmony

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Different pitches simultaneously

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Interval

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Distance in pitch between any two notes

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Unison

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Two notes that are exactly the same in a 1:1 ratio

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Octave

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• Most fundamental interval
• Interval with a 2:1 ratio of frequency (200Hz is one octave higher than 400Hz)
• In Western music, an interval of an 8th (C to C)

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Parallel Octaves

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Identical melodies sounding simultaneously an octave apart

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Tuning System

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Method by which musicians decide which frequencies will be represented on instruments or in a musical system

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Tonal Center / Tonic

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The base pitch from which the melody is centered (not always the most common pitch)

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Tonality

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The feeling that a melody revolves around a tonic or tonal center

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Mode

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Subset of pitches within a tuning system (Possibly a scale)

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Scale

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Notes of a mode within one octave played starting from the tonic and ending on the tonic one octave above

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Pentatonic, Hexatonic, Heptatonic

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Mode with 5 pitches, 6 pitches, 7 pitches

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Melodic Contour

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General direction or shape of a melody over time (see ex on pg 12)

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Conjunct Motion

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Relatively small intervals between adjacent notes

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Disjunct Motion

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Relatively large intervals between adjacent notes

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Range

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Difference between the highest and lowest notes of a melody (wide vs. narrow)

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Cadence

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Momentary rest, arrival, or breath

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Phrase

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Section of the melody from one cadence to another

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Ornament

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Added notes or other small changes in pitch or loudness that do not change the overall character of the melody as much as they enhance or embellish it

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Motive

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Short melodic fragment that is repeated at certain points (differs from cadential motive)

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Theme

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Entire melody recognizable as a discrete entity and may be anywhere from the length of one phrase to over a minute in length

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Structure / Form

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Largest levels of musical architecture
• Guides the listening experience – expectations and surprises that comes from following repetitions and contrasts, sectional changes, and variations

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Strophic

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A song that repeats a group of melodic phrases over
and over but with different words (i.e. Mary Had a Little Lamb)

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Refrain

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Repeat a section with the same words

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Rhythm

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Organization of music in time (either psychological time or clock time)

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Amplitude Plot

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Visual representation of loudness

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Beat

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regular division of time

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Nonpulsatile

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music which does not have a pulse

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Quasipulsatile

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notes of more or less the same length follow eachother, but the rhythm is so free that it is hard to pin down a constant pulse

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Meter

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Organization of beats, division of beats, groupings of beats into distinct levels of the passage of time (see class notes)

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Syncopation

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Rhythm in which the metrical stress of a note is displaced in the meter so that the emphasis occurs on normally unstressed beats

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Accent

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Emphasis on a single note by playing louder and/or with more attack

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Texture

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Musical characteristic that describes
the relative importance and distribution of various instrumental or vocal parts

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Monophony

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Single melody, parallel octaves included

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Homophony

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Single melody accompanied by supporting harmony

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Polyphony

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Several melodies of more or less equal focus at the same time

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Heterophony

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Simultaneous variations and ornamentations on one melody made by different musicians

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Drone

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Long, constant pitch played throughout all or part of a composition

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Timbre

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“Tone color” – The quality of an instrument’s sound that distinguished an oboe from a flute or a voice from a trumpet

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Chordophones

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string instruments - piano included

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Aerophones

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wind instruments

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Membranophones

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Drums

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Idiophones

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entire instrument vibrates - such as a bell

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Electrophones

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use of a loudspeaker

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Glissando

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Sliding pitch effect

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Vibrato

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Continuous wavering of pitch