| Impressionism | A term originally applied to a style of painting that sprang up in France in the nineteenth century, the concept was reflected in music by a turning away from more orderly formal procedures of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and a fascination with color, as expressed through harmony, instrumentation, and the use of rhythm.
|
 |
|
|
| Pentatonic | Five note scale which has played a significant role in music, particularly non-Western music.
|
|
|
|
| Whole-Tone Chords | Vertical sonorities that may result from whole-tone simultaneities.
|
|
|
|
| Half-Step/Minor Third Scale | A six-note collection derived from the juxtaposition of two augmented triads at the interval of a half step.
|
|
|
|
| Dodecaphonic Music | Music composed using the twelve-tone method.
|
|
|
|
| Alteration Symbols | Indicate that a given chord member is to be lowered (flatted) or raised (sharped) by a semitone.
|
|
|
|
| Split-Third Chord | The sonority in which both the major and minor quality are built on the same root.
|
|
|
|
| Bitonality, Bimodality or Polytonality | When two or more key centers are heard at the same time.
|
|
|
|
| Quartal Harmony | A sonority derived from stacked 4ths.
|
|
|
|
| Quintal Harmony | A sonority derived from stacked 5ths.
|
|
|
|
| Tone Cluster | Any collection of three or more adjacent pitches in secundal relationship.
|
|
|
|
| Planing | The use of chords in parallel motion.
|
|
|
|
| Diatonic Planing | Involves parallel movement of vertical sonorities whose structures are identical.
|
|
|
|
| Pandiatonicism | The attempt to equalize the seven tones of the diatonic scale so that no single pitch is heard as a tone center.
|
|
|
|
| Mixed Meter | The use of rapidly changing meter signatures.
|
|
|
|
| Displaced Accent | A technique whereby the composer intentionally violates the normal metric accent pattern implied by the meter, shifting the accent to a relatively weak beat.
|
|
|
|
| Additive Rhythm | When the effect on the listener is one of unequal groupings of subdivisions being added together.
|
|
|
|
| Polyrhythm | Denotes a musical texture in which the listener is made aware of two or more contrasting rhythmic streams.
|
|
|
|
| Polymeter | Refers to the use of two or more meters at once, whether explicitly notated or not.
|
|
|
|
| Metric Modulation | Term used by Elliott Carter to describe a method of changing tempo by equating a particular note value to another note value, or proportional note value, usually in the next bar.
|
|
|
|
| Added Value | A process by which rhythmic irregularity is created through the addition of a note value or rest to a rhythmic figure.
|
|
|
|
| Atonal | A term that refers to music that avoids reference to a tone center or centers.
|
|
|
|
| Normal Order (or Normal Form) | To arrange members of a pc set into an arbitrary ordering that is most compact.
|
|
|
|
| Outside Interval | The interval between the first and last note of an ordering.
|
|
|
|
| Pentachord | A set of five pitch classes.
|
|
|
|
| Inversional Equivalence | A pc set and its mirror inversion (or inversion followed by transposition) are considered to be equivalent.
|
|
|
|
| Pointillism | The atomization of the melodic line.
|
|
|
|
| Klangfarbenmelodie | The deliberate juxtaposition of minute melodic fragments of contrasting timbre and register.
|
|
|
|
| Serialization | The process whereby such aspects of music as the subdivisions of the beat, dynamic level of individual pitches, and, in the case of instrumental music, choice of timbre were decided on by means of a predetermined rhythmic, dynamic, and/or timbral series.
|
|
|
|
| Aleatory | Refers to music in which various elements of a composition are, in varying degrees, determined by chance.
|
|
|
|
| Sprechstimme | A vocal effect which is a cross between singing and dramatic declamation.
|
|
|
|
| Musique Concrète | A technique wherein natural sounds - such as a voice, an instrument, or the ticking of a clock - are recorded and then subjected to modification by means of altered playback speed, reversed tape direction, fragmentation and splicing of the tape, creation of a tape loop, echo effect, and other timbral manipulations.
|
|
|
|
| Sequencer | A digital recorder that stores "sequences" of MIDI information rather than actual sounds.
|