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In 2017, Scott Saewitz brought attention to this concept by highlighting the occurrence in Anton Webern's Op.16 No.2. Compositions that do not follow a fixed structure and rely more on improvisation are considered free-form. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_form |
A fantasia is an example of this. Composer Debussy in 1907 wrote that, "I am more and more convinced that music is not, in essence, a thing that can be cast into a traditional and fixed form. It is made up of colors and rhythms." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_form |
In music, function (also referred to as harmonic function) is a term used to denote the relationship of a chord or a scale degree to a tonal centre. Two main theories of tonal functions exist today: The German theory created by Hugo Riemann in his Vereinfachte Harmonielehre of 1893, which soon became an international success (English and Russian translations in 1896, French translation in 1899), and which is the theory of functions properly speaking. Riemann described three abstract tonal "functions", tonic, dominant and subdominant, denoted by the letters T, D and S respectively, each of which could take on a more or less modified appearance in any chord of the scale. This theory, in several revised forms, remains much in use for the pedagogy of harmony and analysis in German-speaking countries and in North- and East-European countries. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatonic_function |
The Viennese theory, characterized by the use of Roman numerals to denote the chords of the tonal scale, as developed by Simon Sechter, Arnold Schoenberg, Heinrich Schenker and others, practiced today in Western Europe and the United States. This theory in origin was not explicitly about tonal functions. It considers the relation of the chords to their tonic in the context of harmonic progressions, often following the cycle of fifths. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatonic_function |
That this actually describes what could be termed the "function" of the chords becomes quite evident in Schoenberg's Structural Functions of Harmony of 1954, a short treatise dealing mainly with harmonic progressions in the context of a general "monotonality".Both theories find part of their inspiration in the theories of Jean-Philippe Rameau, starting with his Traité d'harmonie of 1722. Even if the concept of harmonic function was not so named before 1893, it could be shown to exist, explicitly or implicitly, in many theories of harmony before that date. Early usages of the term in music (not necessarily in the sense implied here, or only vaguely so) include those by Fétis (Traité complet de la théorie et de la pratique de l'harmonie, 1844), Durutte (Esthétique musicale, 1855), Loquin (Notions élémentaires d'harmonie moderne, 1862), etc.The idea of function has been extended further and is sometimes used to translate Antique concepts, such as dynamis in Ancient Greece, or qualitas in medieval Latin. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatonic_function |
In music, gesture is any movement, either physical (bodily) or mental (imaginary). As such "gesture" includes both categories of movements required to produce sound and categories of perceptual moves associated with those gestures. The concept of musical gestures has received much attention in various musicological disciplines (e.g. music analysis, music therapy, music psychology, NIME) in recent years. For example, the "musical" movement from a close-position tonic C major chord to a close-position dominant G major chord requires on the piano the physical movement from each white key of the first chord to the right (in space, upwards in pitch) four white keys or steps. Thus gesture includes both characteristic physical movements by performers and characteristic melodies, phrases, chord progressions, and arpeggiations produced by (or producing) those movements. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_gesture |
In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds together in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harmonic objects such as chords, textures and tonalities are identified, defined, and categorized in the development of these theories. Harmony is broadly understood to involve both a "vertical" dimension (frequency-space) and a "horizontal" dimension (time-space), and often overlaps with related musical concepts such as melody, timbre, and form.A particular emphasis on harmony is one of the core concepts underlying the theory and practice of Western music. The study of harmony involves the juxtaposition of individual pitches to create chords, and in turn the juxtaposition of chords to create larger chord progressions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_vocal |
The principles of connection that govern these structures have been the subject of centuries worth of theoretical work and vernacular practice alike.Drawing both from music theoretical traditions and the field of psychoacoustics, its perception in large part consists of recognizing and processing consonance, a concept whose precise definition has varied throughout history, but is often associated with simple mathematical ratios between coincident pitch frequencies. In the physiological approach, consonance is viewed as a continuous variable measuring the human brain's ability to 'decode' aural sensory input. Culturally, consonant pitch relationships are often described as sounding more pleasant, euphonious, and beautiful than dissonant pitch relationships, which can be conversely characterized as unpleasant, discordant, or rough.In popular and jazz harmony, chords are named by their root plus various terms and characters indicating their qualities. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_vocal |
In many types of music, notably baroque, romantic, modern, and jazz, chords are often augmented with "tensions". A tension is an additional chord member that creates a relatively dissonant interval in relation to the bass. The notion of counterpoint seeks to understand and describe the relationships between melodic lines, often in the context of a polyphonic texture of several simultaneous but independent voices. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_vocal |
Therefore, it is sometimes seen as a type of harmonic understanding, and sometimes distinguished from harmony.Typically, in the classical common practice period a dissonant chord (chord with tension) "resolves" to a consonant chord. Harmonization usually sounds pleasant to the ear when there is a balance between consonance and dissonance. Simply put, this occurs when there is a balance between "tense" and "relaxed" moments. Dissonance is an important part of harmony when dissonance can be resolved and contribute to the composition of music as a whole. A misplayed note or any sound that is judged to detract from the whole composition can be described as disharmonious rather than dissonant. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_vocal |
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches (tones, notes), or chords. : p. 15 The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Theory |
Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic line, or the "horizontal" aspect. Counterpoint, which refers to the interweaving of melodic lines, and polyphony, which refers to the relationship of separate independent voices, is thus sometimes distinguished from harmony.In popular and jazz harmony, chords are named by their root plus various terms and characters indicating their qualities. For example, a lead sheet may indicate chords such as C major, D minor, and G dominant seventh. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Theory |
In many types of music, notably Baroque, Romantic, modern, and jazz, chords are often augmented with "tensions". A tension is an additional chord member that creates a relatively dissonant interval in relation to the bass. It is part of a chord, but is not one of the chord tones (1 3 5 7). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Theory |
Typically, in the classical common practice period a dissonant chord (chord with tension) "resolves" to a consonant chord. Harmonization usually sounds pleasant to the ear when there is a balance between the consonant and dissonant sounds. In simple words, that occurs when there is a balance between "tense" and "relaxed" moments. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Theory |
In music, inharmonicity is the degree to which the frequencies of overtones (also known as partials or partial tones) depart from whole multiples of the fundamental frequency (harmonic series). Acoustically, a note perceived to have a single distinct pitch in fact contains a variety of additional overtones. Many percussion instruments, such as cymbals, tam-tams, and chimes, create complex and inharmonic sounds. Music harmony and intonation depends strongly on the harmonicity of tones. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inharmonicity |
An ideal, homogeneous, infinitesimally thin or infinitely flexible string or column of air has exact harmonic modes of vibration. In any real musical instrument, the resonant body that produces the music tone—typically a string, wire, or column of air—deviates from this ideal and has some small or large amount of inharmonicity. For instance, a very thick string behaves less as an ideal string and more like a cylinder (a tube of mass), which has natural resonances that are not whole number multiples of the fundamental frequency. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inharmonicity |
However, in stringed instruments such as the piano, violin, and guitar, or in some Indian drums such as tabla, the overtones are close to—or in some cases, quite exactly—whole number multiples of the fundamental frequency. Any departure from this ideal harmonic series is known as inharmonicity. The less elastic the strings are (that is, the shorter, thicker, smaller tension or stiffer they are), the more inharmonicity they exhibit. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inharmonicity |
When a string is bowed or tone in a wind instrument initiated by vibrating reed or lips, a phenomenon called mode-locking counteracts the natural inharmonicity of the string or air column and causes the overtones to lock precisely onto integer multiples of the fundamental pitch, even though these are slightly different from the natural resonance points of the instrument. For this reason, a single tone played by a bowed string instrument, brass instrument, or reed instrument does not necessarily exhibit inharmonicity.However, when a string is struck or plucked, as with a piano string that is struck by a hammer, a violin string played pizzicato, or a guitar string that is plucked by a finger or plectrum, the string will exhibit inharmonicity. The inharmonicity of a string depends on its physical characteristics, such as tension, stiffness, and length. For instance, a stiff string under low tension (such as those found in the bass notes of small upright pianos) exhibits a high degree of inharmonicity, while a thinner string under higher tension (such as a treble string in a piano) or a more flexible string (such as a gut or nylon string used on a guitar or harp) will exhibit less inharmonicity. A wound string generally exhibits less inharmonicity than the equivalent solid string, and for that reason wound strings are often preferred. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inharmonicity |
In music, intonation is the pitch accuracy of a musician or musical instrument. Intonation may be flat, sharp, or both, successively or simultaneously. In vocal music, intonation also signifies the singing of an opening phrase. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_intonation |
In music, just intonation or pure intonation is the tuning of musical intervals as whole number ratios (such as 3:2 or 4:3) of frequencies. An interval tuned in this way is said to be pure, and is called a just interval. Just intervals (and chords created by combining them) consist of tones from a single harmonic series of an implied fundamental. For example, in the diagram, if the notes G3 and C4 (labelled 3 and 4) are tuned as members of the harmonic series of the lowest C, their frequencies will be 3 and 4 times the fundamental frequency. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmholtz-Ellis_notation |
The interval ratio between C4 and G3 is therefore 4:3, a just fourth. In Western musical practice, bowed instruments such as violins, violas, cellos, and double basses are tuned using pure fifths or fourths. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmholtz-Ellis_notation |
In contrast, keyboard instruments are rarely tuned using only pure intervals—the desire for different keys to have identical intervals in Western music makes this impractical. Some instruments of fixed pitch, such as electric pianos, are commonly tuned using equal temperament, in which all intervals other than octaves consist of irrational-number frequency ratios. Acoustic pianos are usually tuned with the octaves slightly widened, and thus with no pure intervals at all. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmholtz-Ellis_notation |
The phrase "just intonation" is used both to refer to one specific version of a 5-limit diatonic intonation, that is, Ptolemy's Intense Diatonic, as well to a whole class of tunings which use whole number intervals derived from the harmonic series. In this sense, "just intonation" is differentiated from equal temperaments and the "tempered" tunings of the early renaissance and baroque, such as Well temperament, or Meantone temperament. Since 5-limit has been the most prevalent just intonation used in western music, western musicians have subsequently tended to considered this scale to be the only version of just intonation. In principle, there are an infinite number of possible "just intonations," since the harmonic series is infinite. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmholtz-Ellis_notation |
In music, klang (also "clang") is a term sometimes used to translate the German Klang, a highly polysemic word. Technically, the term denotes any periodic sound, especially as opposed to simple periodic sounds (sine tones). In the German lay usage, it may mean "sound" or "tone" (as synonymous to Ton), "musical tone" (as opposed to noise), "note", or "timbre"; a chord of three notes is called a Dreiklang, etc. Klang has been used among others by Hugo Riemann and by Heinrich Schenker. In translations of their writings, it has erroneously been rendered as "chord" and more specifically as "chord of nature". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klang_(music) |
The idea of the chord of nature connects with earlier ideas that can be found especially in French music theory. Both Hugo Riemann and Heinrich Schenker implicitly or explicitly refer to the theory of the chord of nature (which they recognize as a triad, a Dreiklang), but both reject the theory as a foundation of music because it fails to explain the minor triad. The theory of the chord of nature goes back to the discovery and the description of the harmonic partials (harmonic overtones) in the 17th century. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klang_(music) |
In music, letter notation is a system of representing a set of pitches, for example, the notes of a scale, by letters. For the complete Western diatonic scale, for example, these would be the letters A-G, possibly with a trailing symbol to indicate a half-step raise (sharp, ♯) or a half-step lowering (flat, ♭). This is the most common way of specifying a note in speech or in written text in English or German. In Germany, Scandinavia, and parts of Central and Eastern Europe, H is used instead of B, and B is used instead of B♭. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_notation |
In traditional Irish music, where almost all tunes are restricted to two octaves, for notes in the lower octave to written in lower case while those in the upper octave to be written in upper case. If we consider the chromatic scale, new sounds are obtained by lowering or raising the 7 diatonic notes by a semitone by means of flats (♭) and sharps (♯). Use of solfege or letter names depends on language. For a more complete table and explanation, see Musical note. Western letter pitch notation has the virtue of identifying discrete pitches, but among its disadvantages are its occasional inability to represent pitches or inflections lying outside those theoretically derived, or (leaving aside chordal and tablature notations) representing the relationship between pitches—e.g., it does not indicate the difference between a whole step and a half step, knowledge of which was so critical to Medieval and Renaissance performers and theorists. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_notation |
In music, major fourth and minor fifth are intervals from the quarter-tone scale, named by Ivan Wyschnegradsky to describe the tones surrounding the tritone (F♯/G♭) found in the more familiar twelve-tone scale, as shown in the table below: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_fourth_and_minor_fifth |
In music, mathematical processes based on probability can generate stochastic elements. Stochastic processes may be used in music to compose a fixed piece or may be produced in performance. Stochastic music was pioneered by Iannis Xenakis, who coined the term stochastic music. Specific examples of mathematics, statistics, and physics applied to music composition are the use of the statistical mechanics of gases in Pithoprakta, statistical distribution of points on a plane in Diamorphoses, minimal constraints in Achorripsis, the normal distribution in ST/10 and Atrées, Markov chains in Analogiques, game theory in Duel and Stratégie, group theory in Nomos Alpha (for Siegfried Palm), set theory in Herma and Eonta, and Brownian motion in N'Shima. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic |
Xenakis frequently used computers to produce his scores, such as the ST series including Morsima-Amorsima and Atrées, and founded CEMAMu. Earlier, John Cage and others had composed aleatoric or indeterminate music, which is created by chance processes but does not have the strict mathematical basis (Cage's Music of Changes, for example, uses a system of charts based on the I-Ching). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic |
Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Issacson used generative grammars and Markov chains in their 1957 Illiac Suite. Modern electronic music production techniques make these processes relatively simple to implement, and many hardware devices such as synthesizers and drum machines incorporate randomization features. Generative music techniques are therefore readily accessible to composers, performers, and producers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic |
In music, metre (Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American spelling) refers to regularly recurring patterns and accents such as bars and beats. Unlike rhythm, metric onsets are not necessarily sounded, but are nevertheless implied by the performer (or performers) and expected by the listener.A variety of systems exist throughout the world for organising and playing metrical music, such as the Indian system of tala and similar systems in Arabic and African music. Western music inherited the concept of metre from poetry, where it denotes the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line, and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented. The first coherent system of rhythmic notation in modern Western music was based on rhythmic modes derived from the basic types of metrical unit in the quantitative metre of classical ancient Greek and Latin poetry.Later music for dances such as the pavane and galliard consisted of musical phrases to accompany a fixed sequence of basic steps with a defined tempo and time signature. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_hierarchy |
The English word "measure", originally an exact or just amount of time, came to denote either a poetic rhythm, a bar of music, or else an entire melodic verse or dance involving sequences of notes, words, or movements that may last four, eight or sixteen bars.Metre is related to and distinguished from pulse, rhythm (grouping), and beats: Meter is the measurement of the number of pulses between more or less regularly recurring accents. Therefore, in order for meter to exist, some of the pulses in a series must be accented—marked for consciousness—relative to others. When pulses are thus counted within a metric context, they are referred to as beats. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_hierarchy |
In music, metric modulation is a change in pulse rate (tempo) and/or pulse grouping (subdivision) which is derived from a note value or grouping heard before the change. Examples of metric modulation may include changes in time signature across an unchanging tempo, but the concept applies more specifically to shifts from one time signature/tempo (metre) to another, wherein a note value from the first is made equivalent to a note value in the second, like a pivot or bridge. The term "modulation" invokes the analogous and more familiar term in analyses of tonal harmony, wherein a pitch or pitch interval serves as a bridge between two keys. In both terms, the pivoting value functions differently before and after the change, but sounds the same, and acts as an audible common element between them. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_modulation |
Metric modulation was first described by Richard Franko Goldman while reviewing the Cello Sonata of Elliott Carter, who prefers to call it tempo modulation. Another synonymous term is proportional tempi. A technique in which a rhythmic pattern is superposed on another, heterometrically, and then supersedes it and becomes the basic metre. Usually, such time signatures are mutually prime, e.g., 44 and 38, and so have no common divisors. Thus the change of the basic metre decisively alters the numerical content of the beat, but the minimal denominator (18 when 44 changes to 38; 116 when, e.g., 58 changes to 716, etc.) remains constant in duration. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_modulation |
In music, miracle temperament is a regular temperament discovered by George Secor in 1974 which has the eponymous secor as a generator, serving as both the 15:14 and 16:15 semitones. Because 15:14 and 16:15 are equated, their ratio 225:224 ( 15 14 ÷ 16 15 = 225 224 ) \left({\tfrac {15}{14}}\div {\tfrac {16}{15}}={\tfrac {225}{224}}\right) is tempered out, and two secors give an 8:7 interval, a septimal whole tone. Three of these 8:7 intervals, or six secors, make up a fifth, so that 1029:1024 ( 3 2 ÷ ( 8 7 ) 3 = 1029 1024 ) \left({\tfrac {3}{2}}\div \left({\tfrac {8}{7}}\right)^{3}={\tfrac {1029}{1024}}\right) is also tempered out. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_temperament |
This gives the seven-limit version of miracle. A septimal whole tone of 8:7 as we have seen is approximated by two secors, and a neutral third of 11:9 by three secors. In miracle, a minor third plus a septimal whole tone is also equated with the 11th harmonic. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_temperament |
This means that the gap between a minor third plus a septimal whole tone ( 8 7 × 6 5 = 48 35 ) \left({\tfrac {8}{7}}\times {\tfrac {6}{5}}={\tfrac {48}{35}}\right) and the 11th harmonic (an 11:8 ratio), 385:384 ( 11 8 ÷ 48 35 = 385 384 ) \left({\tfrac {11}{8}}\div {\tfrac {48}{35}}={\tfrac {385}{384}}\right) , is also tempered out. Miracle, therefore, is the temperament tempering out 225:224, 1029:1024 and 385:384 at the same time. For tuning purposes, a secor of seven steps of 72 equal temperament can be used. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_temperament |
While this also tempers out 4375:4374 (the ragisma), doing this is not regarded as a part of the definition of miracle temperament. Miracle temperament, particularly in the ten note Miracle scale () and the distributionally even scale known as Blackjack (). The twenty-one note Blackjack scale is derived from twenty successive secors and has been used by several composers, including New York composer Joseph Pehrson. s is a secor, q is the difference between 10 secors and 1 octave, and r is the difference between s and q. If the Miracle scale is 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0' s s s s s s s s s s +q q +r q +r q +r q +r q +r q +r q +r q +r q +r q +r +q then the Blackjack scale is 0 >0 1 >1 2 >2 3 >3 4 >4 5 >5 6 >6 7 >7 8 >8 9 >9 <0 0' q r q r q r q r q r q r q r q r q r q r q this may also be viewed as a chain of 20 secors: >0 >1 >2 >3 >4 >5 >6 >7 >8 >9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 <0 s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_temperament |
In music, modulation is the change from one tonality (tonic, or tonal center) to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in key signature (a key change). Modulations articulate or create the structure or form of many pieces, as well as add interest. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-tone_modulation |
Treatment of a chord as the tonic for less than a phrase is considered tonicization. Modulation is the essential part of the art. Without it there is little music, for a piece derives its true beauty not from the large number of fixed modes which it embraces but rather from the subtle fabric of its modulation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-tone_modulation |
In music, moment form is defined as "a mosaic of moments", and, in turn, a moment is defined as a "self-contained (quasi-)independent section, set off from other sections by discontinuities". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_form |
In music, monody refers to a solo vocal style distinguished by having a single melodic line and instrumental accompaniment. Although such music is found in various cultures throughout history, the term is specifically applied to Italian song of the early 17th century, particularly the period from about 1600 to 1640. The term is used both for the style and for individual songs (so one can speak both of monody as a whole as well as a particular monody). The term itself is a recent invention of scholars. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monody |
No composer of the 17th century ever called a piece a monody. Compositions in monodic form might be called madrigals, motets, or even concertos (in the earlier sense of "concertato", meaning "with instruments"). In poetry, the term monody has become specialized to refer to a poem in which one person laments another's death. (In the context of ancient Greek literature, monody, μονῳδία, could simply refer to lyric poetry sung by a single performer, rather than by a chorus.) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monody |
In music, monophony is the simplest of musical textures, consisting of a melody (or "tune"), typically sung by a single singer or played by a single instrument player (e.g., a flute player) without accompanying harmony or chords. Many folk songs and traditional songs are monophonic. A melody is also considered to be monophonic if a group of singers (e.g., a choir) sings the same melody together at the unison (exactly the same pitch) or with the same melody notes duplicated at the octave (such as when men and women sing together). If an entire melody is played by two or more instruments or sung by a choir with a fixed interval, such as a perfect fifth, it is also said to be monophony (or "monophonic"). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monophonic_music |
The musical texture of a song or musical piece is determined by assessing whether varying components are used, such as an accompaniment part or polyphonic melody lines (two or more independent lines). In the Early Middle Ages, the earliest Christian songs, called plainchant (a well-known example is Gregorian chant), were monophonic. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monophonic_music |
Even into the twenty-first century, songwriters still often write songs that intersperse sections using monophony, heterophony (two singers or instrumentalists doing varied versions of the same melody together), polyphony (two or more singers or instrumentalists playing independent melodic lines at the same time), homophony (a melody accompanied by chords), or monody (a single melodic line with instrumental accompaniment) elements throughout the melody to create different atmospheres and styles. Monophony may not have underlying rhythmic textures, and must consist of only a single melodic line. According to Ardis Butterfield (1997), monophony "is the dominant mode of the European vernacular genres as well as of Latin song ... in polyphonic works, it remains a central compositional principle." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monophonic_music |
In music, montage (literally "putting together") or sound collage ("gluing together") is a technique where newly branded sound objects or compositions, including songs, are created from collage, also known as montage. This is often done through the use of sampling, while some playable sound collages were produced by gluing together sectors of different vinyl records. In any case, it may be achieved through the use of previous sound recordings or musical scores. Like its visual cousin, the collage work may have a completely different effect than that of the component parts, even if the original parts are completely recognizable or from only one source. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_collage |
In music, notably in jazz, a ghost note (or a dead, muted, silenced or false note) is a musical note with a rhythmic value, but no discernible pitch when played. In musical notation, this is represented by an "X" for a note head instead of an oval, or parentheses around the note head. It should not be confused with the X-shaped notation () that raises a note to a double sharp. On stringed instruments, this is played by sounding a muted string. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_note |
"Muted to the point where it is more percussive sounding than obvious and clear in pitch. There is a pitch, to be sure, but its musical value is more rhythmic than melodic or harmonic...they add momentum and drive to any bass line." Occurring in a rhythmic figure, they are purposely deemphasized, often to the point of near silence. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_note |
In popular music drumming, ghost notes are ones played "very softly between the 'main' notes," (off the beat on the sixteenth notes) most often on the snare drum in a drum kit. Ghost notes are often used by electric bass players and double bass players in a range of popular music and traditional music styles. In vocal music, this style of notation represents words that are spoken in rhythm rather than sung. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_note |
In music, notes inégales is a performance practice, mainly from the Baroque and Classical music eras, in which some notes with equal written time values are performed with unequal durations, usually as alternating long and short. The practice was especially prevalent in France in the 17th and 18th centuries, with appearances in other European countries at the same time. It reappeared as the standard performance practice in the 20th century in jazz. The phrase notes inégales means "unequal notes" in French. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_inégales |
In music, number refers to an individual song, dance, or instrumental piece which is part of a larger work of musical theatre, opera, or oratorio. It can also refer either to an individual song in a published collection or an individual song or dance in a performance of several unrelated musical pieces as in concerts and revues. Both meanings of the term have been used in American English since the second half of the 19th century. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_numbers |
In music, paradigmatic analysis was a method of musical analysis developed by Nicolas Ruwet during the 1960s but later named by others. It is "based on the concept of 'equivalence'. Ruwet argued that the most striking characteristic of musical syntax was the central role of repetition – and, by extension, of varied repetition or transformation (Ruwet 1987)" (Middleton 1990/2002, p. 183). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigmatic_analysis |
Paradigmatic analysis assumes that Roman Jakobson's description of the poetic system (1960, p. 358) applies to music and that in both a "projection of the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection on to the axis of combination" occurs. Thus paradigmatic analyses are able to base the assignment of units entirely on repetition so that "anything repeated (straight or varied) is defined as a unit, and this is true on all levels," from sections to phrases and individual sounds (Middleton, ibid). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigmatic_analysis |
In music, parallel harmony, also known as harmonic parallelism, harmonic planing or parallel voice leading, is the parallel movement of two or more melodies (see voice leading). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_harmony |
In music, particularly Western popular music, a post-chorus (or postchorus) is a section that appears after the chorus. The term can be used generically for any section that comes after a chorus, but more often refers to a section that has similar character to the chorus, but is distinguishable in close analysis. The concept of a post-chorus has been particularly popularized and analyzed by music theorist Asaf Peres, who is followed in this article. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-chorus |
In music, pieces or sections which confound expectations and may be or are interpreted simultaneously in different ways are ambiguous, such as some polytonality, polymeter, other ambiguous meters or rhythms, and ambiguous phrasing, or (Stein 2005, p. 79) any aspect of music. The music of Africa is often purposely ambiguous. To quote Sir Donald Francis Tovey (1935, p. 195), "Theorists are apt to vex themselves with vain efforts to remove uncertainty just where it has a high aesthetic value." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_ambiguity |
In music, polymodal chromaticism is the use of any and all musical modes sharing the same tonic simultaneously or in succession and thus creating a texture involving all twelve notes of the chromatic scale (total chromatic). Alternately it is the free alteration of the other notes in a mode once its tonic has been established.The term was coined by composer, ethnomusicologist, and pianist Béla Bartók. The technique became a means in Bartók's composition to avoid, expand, or develop major-minor tonality (i.e. common practice harmony). This approach differed from that used by Arnold Schoenberg and his followers in the Second Viennese School and later serialists. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymodal_chromaticism |
The concept was indicated by Bartók's folk-music-derived view of each note of the chromatic scale as being "of equal value" and thus to be used "freely and independently" (autobiography) and supported by references to the conception below in his Harvard Lectures (1943). The concept may be extended to the construction of non-diatonic modes from the pitches of more than one diatonic mode such as distance models including 1:3, the alternation of semitones and minor thirds, for example C–E♭–E–G–A♭–B–C which includes both the tonic and dominant as well as "'two of the most typical degrees from both major and minor' (E and B, E♭ and A♭, respectively) p. 132)".Bartók had realised that both melodic minor scales gave rise to four chromatic steps between the two scales' fifths and the rising melodic minor scale's seventh degrees when superimposed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymodal_chromaticism |
Consequently, he started investigating if the same pattern could be established in some way in the beginning of any scales and came to realise that superimposing a Phrygian and a Lydian scale with the same tonic resulted in what looked like a chromatic scale. Bartók's twelve-tone Phrygian/Lydian polymode, however, differed from the chromatic scale as used by, for example, late-Romantic composers like Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner. During the late 19th century the chromatic altering of a chord or melody was a change in strict relation to its functional non-altered version. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymodal_chromaticism |
Alterations in the twelve-tone Phrygian/Lydian polymode, the other hand, were "diatonic ingredients of a diatonic modal scale." Melodies could be developed and transformed in novel ways through diatonic extension and chromatic compression, while still having coherent links to their original forms. Bartók described this as a new means to develop a melody. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymodal_chromaticism |
Bartók started to superimpose all possible diatonic modes on each other in order to extend and compress melodies in ways that suited him, unrestricted by Baroque-Romantic tonality as well as strict serial methods such as the twelve-tone technique. In 1941, Bartók's ethnomusicological studies brought him into contact with the music of Dalmatia and he realised that the Dalmatian folk-music used techniques that resembled polymodal chromaticism. Bartók had defined and used polymodal chromaticism in his own music before this. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymodal_chromaticism |
The discovery inspired him to continue to develop the technique. Examples of Bartók's use of the technique include No. 80 ("Hommage à R. Sch.") | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymodal_chromaticism |
from Mikrokosmos featuring C Phrygian/Lydian (C–D♭–E♭–F–G–A♭–B♭–C/C–D–E–F♯–G–A–B–C). Lendvai identifies the technique in the late works of Modest Mussorgsky, Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, and Giuseppe Verdi. == References == | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymodal_chromaticism |
In music, portamento (plural: portamenti, from old Italian: portamento, meaning "carriage" or "carrying") is a pitch sliding from one note to another. The term originated from the Italian expression "portamento della voce" ("carriage of the voice"), denoting from the beginning of the 17th century its use in vocal performances and emulation by members of the violin family and certain wind instruments, and is sometimes used interchangeably with anticipation. It is also applied to one type of glissando on, e.g., slide trombones, as well as to the "glide" function of steel guitars and synthesizers; in the latter it is often used to add a melancholic effect to the overall melody. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_bending |
In music, prosody is the way the composer sets the text of a vocal composition in the assignment of syllables to notes in the melody to which the text is sung, or to set the music with regard to the ambiance of the lyrics. However, the relationship between syllables and melodic notes is just one dimension of musical prosody. According to Pat Pattison, prosody is "The appropriate relationship between elements, whatever they may be." In this sense, every element in a song can and should create prosody, because prosody is "support for what is being said." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosody_(music) |
In this sense, even the number of lines in a verse or a verse's rhyme scheme can be used to create or enhance prosody.For example, a songwriter might align downbeats or accents with stressed syllables or important words, or create musical accompaniment to the meter of the lyrics. Also, prosody can mean how the music supports the connotation, or emotive nature, of a song. Any musical work with a singer, regardless of the genre, requires its composer or songwriter to examine the interplay between the music and the words. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosody_(music) |
For example, the mood of the music typically matches that of the lyrical content: for example, when the lyrics address a sad topic, the music would sound sad, perhaps using minor chords. Of course, composers might work differently, setting a textual mood against a contrasting musical mood. However, the term "prosody" tends to refer not to the matching of music with content, but with the matching of a melody with the language itself, so that the words being sung come across as naturally as possible. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosody_(music) |
According to Mark Altrogge: "Generally when writing songs and poetry, we want to accent a phrase like we'd speak it." Melodies that do not come relatively close to approximating speech make the words hard to understand; melodies that go beyond the point of clarity and come even closer to approximating speech make the singer sound more human and therefore have a stronger emotional impact on the listener. A melody with good prosody will not assign long notes to relatively insignificant syllables, nor will it put them on the beat or give them any sort of accentuation. The musical phrases will match the grammatical phrases, so that musical pauses happen in places that would be natural for a speaker. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosody_(music) |
In music, quartal harmony is the building of harmonic structures built from the intervals of the perfect fourth, the augmented fourth and the diminished fourth. For instance, a three-note quartal chord on C can be built by stacking perfect fourths, C–F–B♭. Quintal harmony is harmonic structure preferring the perfect fifth, the augmented fifth and the diminished fifth. For instance, a three-note quintal chord on C can be built by stacking perfect fifths, C–G–D. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartal_and_quintal_harmony |
In music, relative keys are the major and minor scales that have the same key signatures (enharmonically equivalent), meaning that they share all the same notes but are arranged in a different order of whole steps and half steps. A pair of major and minor scales sharing the same key signature are said to be in a relative relationship. The relative minor of a particular major key, or the relative major of a minor key, is the key which has the same key signature but a different tonic. (This is as opposed to parallel minor or major, which shares the same tonic.) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_triad |
For example, F major and D minor both have one flat in their key signature at B♭; therefore, D minor is the relative minor of F major, and conversely F major is the relative major of D minor. The tonic of the relative minor is the sixth scale degree of the major scale, while the tonic of the relative major is the third degree of the minor scale. The minor key starts three semitones below its relative major; for example, A minor is three semitones below its relative, C major. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_triad |
The relative relationship may be visualized through the circle of fifths. Relative keys are a type of closely related keys, the keys between which most modulations occur, because they differ by no more than one accidental. Relative keys are the most closely related, as they share exactly the same notes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_triad |
The major key and the minor key also share the same set of chords. In every major key, the triad built on the first degree (note) of the scale is major, the second and third are minor, the fourth and fifth are major, the sixth minor and the seventh is diminished. In the relative minor, the same triads pertain. Because of this, it can occasionally be difficult to determine whether a particular piece of music is in a major key or its relative minor. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_triad |
In music, segue is a direction to the performer. It means continue (the next section) without a pause. The term attacca is used synonymously. For written music, it implies a transition from one section to the next without any break. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segue |
In improvisation, it is often used for transitions created as a part of the performance, leading from one section to another. In live performance, a segue can occur during a jam session, where the improvisation of the end of one song progresses into a new song. Segues can even occur between groups of musicians during live performance. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segue |
For example, as one band finishes its set, members of the following act replace members of the first band one by one, until a complete band swap occurs. In recorded music, a segue sometimes means a seamless change between one song and another, sometimes achieved through beatmatching, especially on dance and disco recordings. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segue |
However, as noted by composer John Williams in the liner notes for his Star Wars soundtrack album, a series of musical ideas can be juxtaposed with no transitions whatsoever. Arrangements that involve or create the effect of a classical musical suite, may be used in many pieces or progressive rock recordings, but by definition, a segue does not involve a bridging transition--it is an abrupt change of musical idea (completely contradicting a widespread assumption by non-musicians who believe that a segue actually means a musical bridge and thus ignorantly say things in conversation such as "that makes a perfect segue to...."). With breakless joins of the elements in his albums Frank Zappa made extensive use of the segue technique. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segue |
This was first used in 1966 on Zappa's Freak Out!, and a year later on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.In some Brazilian musical styles, where it is called "emendar" ("to splice"), in particular in Samba and Forró Pé de Serra, it is very commonly used in live performances, creating sets that usually last around 20 minutes but can sometimes take more than an hour, switching seamlessly between different songs. The larger rhythm groups of bands, with up to ten percussionists in Samba for example, facilitate the switching of one song to another, as the percussionists keep the rhythm or beat going while the pitch instruments prepare the harmonical transition to the next song, often with just one pitch instrument leading this transition. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segue |
In Forró trios, where the only pitch instrument (apart from the voice) is the accordion (which plays together with two percussionists), the accordionist usually "puxa" ("pulls") the next song as soon as the previous has finished. Some album notations distinguish track listings through the use of symbols, such as a >, →, or / to indicate songs that flow seamlessly. The alternative rock band Failure separates these musical transitions into individual tracks, which are simply given numerical distinctions such as Segue 1. This system began with their 1996 album Fantastic Planet. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segue |
In music, septimal diesis (or slendro diesis) is an interval with the ratio of 49:48 , which is the difference between the septimal whole tone and the septimal minor third. It is about 35.7 cents wide, which is narrower than a quarter-tone but wider than the septimal comma. It may also be the ratio 36:35, or 48.77 cents. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimal_diesis |
In music, septimal meantone temperament, also called standard septimal meantone or simply septimal meantone, refers to the tempering of 7-limit musical intervals by a meantone temperament tuning in the range from fifths flattened by the amount of fifths for 12 equal temperament to those as flat as 19 equal temperament, with 31 equal temperament being a more or less optimal tuning for both the 5- and 7-limits. Meantone temperament represents a frequency ratio of approximately 5 by means of four fifths, so that the major third, for instance C–E, is obtained from two tones in succession. Septimal meantone represents the frequency ratio of 56 (7 × 23) by ten fifths, so that the interval 7:4 is reached by five successive tones. Hence C–A♯, not C–B♭, represents a 7:4 interval in septimal meantone. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimal_meantone_temperament |
A♯+++ ≈ B♭C — G — D — A+ — E+ — B+ — F♯++ — C♯++ — G♯++ — D♯++ — A♯+++ C — ≈G — ≈D — ≈A+ — ≈E+ — ≈B+ — ≈F♯++ — ≈C♯++ — ≈G♯++ — ≈D♯++ — =B♭The meantone tuning with pure 5:4 intervals (quarter-comma meantone) has a fifth of size 696.58 cents . Similarly, the tuning with pure 7:4 intervals has a fifth of size 696.88 cents . 31 equal temperament has a fifth of size 696.77 cents , which does excellently for both of them, having the harmonic seventh only 1.1 cent lower, and the major third 1.2 cent higher than pure (while the fifth is 5.2 cents lower than pure). However, the difference is so small that it is mainly academic. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimal_meantone_temperament |
In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as a form of post-tonal thinking. Twelve-tone technique orders the twelve notes of the chromatic scale, forming a row or series and providing a unifying basis for a composition's melody, harmony, structural progressions, and variations. Other types of serialism also work with sets, collections of objects, but not necessarily with fixed-order series, and extend the technique to other musical dimensions (often called "parameters"), such as duration, dynamics, and timbre. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_serialism |
The idea of serialism is also applied in various ways in the visual arts, design, and architecture, and the musical concept has also been adapted in literature.Integral serialism or total serialism is the use of series for aspects such as duration, dynamics, and register as well as pitch. Other terms, used especially in Europe to distinguish post-World War II serial music from twelve-tone music and its American extensions, are general serialism and multiple serialism.Composers such as Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono, Milton Babbitt, Elisabeth Lutyens, Henri Pousseur, Charles Wuorinen and Jean Barraqué used serial techniques of one sort or another in most of their music. Other composers such as Tadeusz Baird, Béla Bartók, Luciano Berio, Benjamin Britten, John Cage, Aaron Copland, Ernst Krenek, György Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, Arvo Pärt, Walter Piston, Ned Rorem, Alfred Schnittke, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Igor Stravinsky used serialism only in some of their compositions or only in some sections of pieces, as did some jazz composers, such as Bill Evans, Yusef Lateef, Bill Smith, and even rock musicians like Frank Zappa. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_serialism |
In music, sharp, dièse (from French), or diesis (from Greek)means, "higher in pitch". More specifically, in musical notation, sharp means "higher in pitch by one semitone (half step)". A sharp is the opposite of a flat, a lowering of pitch. The ♯ symbol itself is conjectured to be a condensed form of German ligature ſch (for scharf) or the symbol ƀ (for "cancelled flat"). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_sharp |
In music, sight-reading, also called a prima vista (Italian meaning "at first sight"), is the practice of reading and performing of a piece in a music notation that the performer has not seen or learned before. Sight-singing is used to describe a singer who is sight-reading. Both activities require the musician to play or sing the notated rhythms and pitches. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sight_singing |
In music, soundscape compositions are often a form of electronic music, or electroacoustic music. Composers who use soundscapes include real-time granular synthesis pioneer Barry Truax, Hildegard Westerkamp, and Luc Ferrari, whose Presque rien, numéro 1 (1970) is an early soundscape composition. Soundscape composer Petri Kuljuntausta has created soundscape compositions from the sounds of sky dome and Aurora Borealis and deep sea underwater recordings, and a work entitled "Charm of Sound" to be performed at the extreme environment of Saturn's moon Titan. The work landed on the ground of Titan in 2005 after traveling inside the spacecraft Huygens over seven years and four billion kilometres through space. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundscape |
Irv Teibel's Environments series (1969–79) consisted of 30-minute, uninterrupted environmental soundscapes and synthesized or processed versions of natural sound.Music soundscapes can also be generated by automated software methods, such as the experimental TAPESTREA application, a framework for sound design and soundscape composition, and others.The soundscape is often the subject of mimicry in timbre-centered music such as Tuvan throat singing. The process of Timbral Listening is used to interpret the timbre of the soundscape. This timbre is mimicked and reproduced using the voice or rich harmonic producing instruments. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundscape |
In music, standard tuning refers to the typical tuning of a string instrument. This notion is contrary to that of scordatura, i.e. an alternate tuning designated to modify either the timbre or technical capabilities of the desired instrument. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_tuning |
In music, subjective constancy is the identification of a musical instrument as constant under changing timbre or "conditions of changing pitch and loudness, in different environments and with different players." In speech perception this means that vowels or consonants are perceived as constant categories even if acoustically, they vary greatly due to phonetic environment (coarticulation), speech tempo, speaker's age and sex, speaker's dialect, etc. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptual_constancy |
In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "placement of rhythmic stresses or accents where they wouldn't normally occur". It is the correlation of at least two sets of time intervals.Syncopation is used in many musical styles, especially dance music. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncopation |
According to music producer Rick Snoman, "All dance music makes use of syncopation, and it's often a vital element that helps tie the whole track together".Syncopation can also occur when a strong harmony is simultaneous with a weak beat, for instance, when a 7th-chord is played on the second beat of 34 measure or a dominant chord is played at the fourth beat of a 44 measure. The latter occurs frequently in tonal cadences for 18th- and early-19th-century music and is the usual conclusion of any section. A hemiola (the equivalent Latin term is sesquialtera) can also be considered as one straight measure in three with one long chord and one short chord and a syncope in the measure thereafter, with one short chord and one long chord. Usually, the last chord in a hemiola is a (bi-)dominant, and as such a strong harmony on a weak beat, hence a syncope. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncopation |
In music, tape loops are loops of magnetic tape used to create repetitive, rhythmic musical patterns or dense layers of sound when played on a tape recorder. Originating in the 1940s with the work of Pierre Schaeffer, they were used among contemporary composers of 1950s and 1960s, such as Éliane Radigue, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, who used them to create phase patterns, rhythms, textures, and timbres. Popular music authors of 1960s and 1970s, particularly in psychedelic, progressive and ambient genres, used tape loops to accompany their music with innovative sound effects. In the 1980s, analog audio and tape loops with it gave way to digital audio and application of computers to generate and process sound. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape_loop |
In music, texture is how the melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic materials are combined in a composition, thus determining the overall quality of the sound in a piece. Texture is often described in regard to the density, or thickness, and range, or width, between lowest and highest pitches, in relative terms as well as more specifically distinguished according to the number of voices, or parts, and the relationship between these voices. For example, a thick texture contains many "layers" of instruments. One of these layers could be a string section, or another brass. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_theory |
The thickness also is affected by the number and the richness of the instruments playing the piece. The thickness varies from light to thick. A lightly textured piece will have light, sparse scoring. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_theory |
A thickly or heavily textured piece will be scored for many instruments. A piece's texture may be affected by the number and character of parts playing at once, the timbre of the instruments or voices playing these parts and the harmony, tempo, and rhythms used. The types categorized by number and relationship of parts are analyzed and determined through the labeling of primary textural elements: primary melody, secondary melody, parallel supporting melody, static support, harmonic support, rhythmic support, and harmonic and rhythmic support.Common types included monophonic texture (a single melodic voice, such as a piece for solo soprano or solo flute), biphonic texture (two melodic voices, such as a duo for bassoon and flute in which the bassoon plays a drone note and the flute plays the melody), polyphonic texture and homophonic texture (chords accompanying a melody). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_theory |
In music, texture is how the tempo, melodic, and harmonic materials are combined in a musical composition, determining the overall quality of the sound in a piece. The texture is often described in regard to the density, or thickness, and range, or width, between lowest and highest pitches, in relative terms as well as more specifically distinguished according to the number of voices, or parts, and the relationship between these voices (see Common types below). For example, a thick texture contains many 'layers' of instruments. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_texture |
One of these layers could be a string section or another brass. The thickness also is changed by the amount and the richness of the instruments playing the piece. The thickness varies from light to thick. A piece's texture may be changed by the number and character of parts playing at once, the timbre of the instruments or voices playing these parts and the harmony, tempo, and rhythms used. The types categorized by number and relationship of parts are analyzed and determined through the labeling of primary textural elements: primary melody (PM), secondary melody (SM), parallel supporting melody (PSM), static support (SS), harmonic support (HS), rhythmic support (RS), and harmonic and rhythmic support (HRS). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_texture |
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