Music Midterm Review PDF

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Terms 

Dynamic Markings is the level of sound of an instrument. It goes from very soft to very loud. The terms are in Italian. These were Pianissimo (PP), Piano (P), Mezzopiano (MP), Mezzoforte (MF), Forte (F) and Fortissimo (FF).

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Duple, Triple and Compound Meter Syncopation is the regular meter going and then have accented notes/beats or unaccented

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Tempo Markings - The piccolo, the smallest, highest member of the flute family, adds special sparkle to

that are out of the meter. Accented meters are unaccented and backwards.

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band and orchestral. The alto flute and bass flute –larger and deeper flutes –are less frequently employed. The recorder is blown not at the side but through a special mouthpiece at the end. Popular among musical amateurs today. The clarinet is a slightly tube made, usually, of ebony. Compared to the flute, the clarinet sounds richer and more flexible, more like the human voice. It’s capable of warm, mellow tones and strident, shrill ones. Its register is low. Monophony, is the simplest texture, a single unaccompanied melody: Gregorian chant; singing in the shower. Homophony, there is only one melody of real interest and it is combined with other, less prominent sounds. Polyphony, two or more melodies are played or sung simultaneously. The melodies are felt to be independent and of approximately equal interest. Has automatic harmony. Also called counterpoint or contrapuntal.

Imitative vs Non-imitative polyphony In imitative polyphony, one voice does something, and another comes and does the same at different times (like echoes). In non-imitative polyphony, one voice does something, another one comes and does something else (independents). Ex: Beethoven’s 9th symphony (Oath to Joy)/ Major vs Minor In western music theory, keys, chords, and scales are often described as having major or minor tonality, sometimes related to masculine and feminine genders, especially in languages with insistent syntactical gender assignments. By analogy, the major scales are given stereotypically masculine qualities (clear, open, extroverted), while the minor scales are given stereotypically feminine qualities (dark, soft, introverted). German uses the word Tongeschlecht ("Tone gender") for tonality, and the words Dur (from Latindurus, 'hard') for major and moll (from Latin mollis, 'soft') for minor.

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Basso Continuo continuous bass. Ground Bass a short term, usually the bass that is constantly repeated throughout a piece as the other parts vary. Recitative vs Aria the recitative is the technique of declaiming words musically in a heightened, theatrical manner. Dialogue. The aria is an extended piece for solo singer that has much more musical elaboration and coherence than a passage of recitative. Meditation. Fugue Fugue is imitative. The melody of the fugue is based on exposition. It is a polyphonic composition for a fixed number of instrumental lines or voices –usually three of four –built on a single principal theme. The theme, called a fugue subject, appears again and again in each of the instrumental or vocal lines. “Running away.”

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Baroque - Text becomes the most important thing, chorus less important. - Claudio Monteverdi - Is interested in minor keys - Is very ornamental/extravagant - Music written for power - 1600s-1750s - Composers preferred thoroughness and homogeneity - Word painting Concerto vs Concerto grosso the concerto has an orchestra and a soloist. The concerto grosso has a small groups of soloists. The words comes from the Latin “concertare,” which is contest, a contest between solo and orchestra. Ritornello typically starts the movement off. It focuses on contrast between two musical ideas, or groups of ideas –one belonging to the orchestra and the other to the soloist. Its function is to return many times as a stable element of the form. [RIT]. Opera seria vs Opera buffa Opera Seria – baroque opera (gods/goddess, rulers). Very serious. High class form. Opera buffa – comic opera. Made fun of aristocracy. Middle class form. Da capo aria To the head – ABA’ structure (I think this/feeling this, but there is also this, and then come back to I think this). Just one person. After the Baroque period they get rid of the De Capo Aria.

Castrato a grown male who was trained its head voice to perform. Virtuosity virtuoso players played instruments to show them off. These had great skills playing the instruments. Oratorio vs Cantata the cantata –group of short movements all in one religious theme. Tends to be religious but not always. An example is Christ lies in the Bands of Death – The Cantata’s name in English (Bach’s cantata “Christ lag in Todesbanden.”) Homophony. The oratorio tells a story. Is not on a theme but tells a story. Can be secular, not necessarily sacred. Longer than a cantata. - Cantata has text that has a theme. Sacred theme. - Oratorios were often staged but were written for singing performance. They tend to be of biblical stories.

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Chorale simple melodies that people sung all the time. These were vernacular (in the language that was spoken). Classical style –versus the Baroque - While in the Baroque there is a thorough, even rigorous, quality in the ways composers treated music, and there are expressive gestures of grandeur and overstatement, in the Classical music there was natural and pleasing variety. - Rhythm in the Baroque stayed the same, and in the Classical was constantly changing. Dynamics also changed. - On the orchestras, the Classical period the woodwind and brass instruments were regular, unlike the Baroque.

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In the Classical period, people demanded for plainness to provide a relief from the complexity of the Baroque. Baroque is mainly polyphonic, Classical is mainly homophonic

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Viennese classicism –the three composers Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart. Sonata form

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More complex than a fugue and a normal sonata It’s three parts: and exposition, a development and a recapitulation.

Exposition 1st theme 2nd theme Tonic key– home Contrasting Key base - Calm and - Strong and lyrical forceful - ‘’Feminine’’ - ‘’Masculine’’

Development

Flux + Exploration

Recapitulation Recape 1st and 2nd Theme Tonic and 2nd theme is going to be tonic, not the contrasting key.

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More elemental, more organic. Takes simple things and puts more depth in it. One or a group of themes. You often repeat the exposition

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Theme and variations entails the repetition of a clearly defined melodic unit, the theme, with various changes at each repetition. In the baroque era, the theme was usually a bass pattern (ground bass). In the Classical era, the theme is a tune in the upper rgister. Minuet and trio versus scherzo and trio - Minuets were often in pairs. Where there were a number of instruments, all would play

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the first minuet, but only three (often two oboes and a bassoon) would play the second minuet, hence it was called the Trio. At the end of the trio there was a da capo and the first minuet was to be played again. The minuet, generally binary, was played with both of its sections repeated, the trio followed with both sections repeated also, then the minuet returned but this time without repeats. It is overall ternary form. - Haydn in some of his string quartets quickened up the minuet and called it a scherzo (Italian word for 'joke'). The trio was quicker to match. Beethoven developed this idea further, something more boisterous and bustling than the graceful minuet suiting his temperament. String quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – two violin players, a viola player and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group.

Solo sonata a piece for a small number of instruments or a single one. Ensemble A number sung by two or more people (duos, trios…) Romanticism (1820-1900) - Emotional expression became the highest artistic goal - The supernatural was present in both art and music because of the freedom present at the time

Interested in sounding different than anyone else. Melody in the Romantic era was more emotional, effusive, and demonstrative than before. Melodies became more irregular in rhythm and phrase structure, so as to make them sound more spontaneous. - Harmony was greatly used. - Development of miniatures and grandiose compositions (larger symphonies, cantatas, and so on). - Thematic unity. Miniature pieces lasting only a few minutes or even less. Designed to convey a particular emotion, momentary and undeveloped. Character piece a short piano piece. The essential point about them is that each portrays some definite mood or character. Chromaticism a term for a style that liberally employs all twelve notes of the chromatic scale. (Sharps “#”, and Flats b) Program music is a term for instrumental music written in association with a poem, a story, or some other literary source. The music tells or at least traces a story, the story being the “program.” Three forms of Lieder one of the most important “miniature” genres of the Romantic era. Song cycle a group of songs associated by a common poetic theme or an actual story. Etude (study) is an instrumental musical composition, usually short, of considerable -

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difficulty, and designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular musical skill...