Glossary

AB A musical form consisting of two sections, A and B, that contrast with each other (binary form).

ABA A musical form consisting of three sections, A, B, and A. Two are the same, and the middle one is different (ternary form).

accent A stress or emphasis given to certain tones. An accent sign is >.

accidental A sign introduced before a note of a composition that changes the pitch for one measure only: ♯ (sharp), ♭ (flat), ♮ (natural), x (double sharp), ♭♭ (double flat).

accompaniment Music that goes with or provides harmonic or rhythmic support for another musical part (usually a melody).

acoustic A term often used to distinguish instruments from their electronic counterparts, e.g., piano.

aerophone An instrument in which the sound-producing agent is a vibrating column of air, such as flute and trumpet.

anacrusis ("ana-CREW-sis") See upbeat.

arrangement The adaptation of a composition for performance in a medium for which it was not conceived.

articulation The characteristic way in which musical tones are connected, separated, or accented, e.g., legato (smooth, connected tones) and staccato (short, detached tones).

artistic literacy The knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts.

artistic processes The process in which artists engage—creating, performing, and responding—leading to artistic literacy.

atonal Music in which no tonic, or home tone is apparent.

audiate The ability to think music in the mind with understanding.

bar or bar line A vertical line through the staff to indicate a boundary for a measure of music.

bass clef The symbol which determines that the fourth line of the staff is F below Middle C.

beam A line connecting stems of notes in rhythmic groups; flags are used for single notes.

beat The underlying pulse present in most music; the rhythmic unit to which one responds in marching or dancing.

beat groupings See meter and downbeat.

bluegrass A style of country music, often played on stringed instruments, with influences of traditional Appalachian music, blues, and jazz.

blues Music created by Southern African Americans in the late 1800s that influenced the development of jazz. Special characteristics include flatted 3rd and 7th scale tones, the use of groups of 12 measures or "bars"; 7th chords; syncopation; and improvisation.

boogie-woogie A jazz piano style (fast blues) in which the left hand repeats a fast-moving bass while the right hand improvises a melody part. Many boogie-woogie pieces follow the 12-bar blues format.

bordun An accompaniment created by sounding one or more tones (usually two tones, five notes apart) continuously throughout a composition; tones can be performed simultaneously or alternating.

brass instruments Instruments made of brass in which a column of air is the sound-producing agent, including trumpets, horns, trombones, and tubas. (Also see wind

instruments.) A characteristic shared feature is their cup-shaped mouthpiece.

cadence A point of arrival that punctuates a musical phrase and section; the ending.

call and response form A song form, much like a musical conversation, in which a solo part is answered by a chorus, or two groups exchange in question and answer style.

calypso A kind of music developed in the West Indies, characterized by its rhythms and commentary on contemporary events and personalities.

canon A composition in which all parts have the same melody throughout but start at different times. A round is a type of canon.

chant A term with several meanings. The rhythmic recitation of rhymes or poems without a sung melody is the definition used in this text.

chord A combination of three or more pitches a third apart, sounded simultaneously.

chordophone A musical instrument that produces its sound by setting up vibrations in a stretched string, such as violin, ukulele, and harp.

chord progression A series of chords sounding in succession.

chord root The pitch on which a chord is constructed; the most important pitch in the chord.

chord tones The individual pitches within a chord.

chromatic scale A 12-tone scale consisting entirely of half steps.

classical music A term for art music of Western European civilization, usually created by a trained composer.

clef A symbol placed on a staff to designate a precise pitch that identifies the other pitches in the score.

coda A short section added to the end of a piece; a musical way of saying "the end."

compound meter A grouping of beats (meter) in which the beat is divided into three equal parts.

concept An understanding that remains in the mind following a learning experience.

consonance A relative term used to describe the pleasant, agreeable effect of certain tones sounded simultaneously. Intervals of 3rds, 6ths, and octaves are generally considered to be consonant.

contour The shape of a melody created by the way its pitches repeat, and move up and down in steps and skips.

countermelody A melody that sounds simultaneously with another melody.

create To conceive and develop new musical ideas through improvising, composing, or arranging.

culture The values/beliefs of a group of people, from a specific place or time, expressed through their traditions, social structure, religion, art, and food.

Curwen/Glover hand signs Hand positions for each degree of the scale: do, re, mi, and so on. See Appendix A.

descant A second melody less important than and usually sung above the principal melody.

diatonic A seven-tone scale, consisting of five whole steps and two half steps, utilizing every pitch name. Major and minor scales are diatonic scales.

dissonance A relative term used to describe the disagreeable effect of certain tones sounded simultaneously. Intervals of 2nds and 7ths are considered to be dissonant.

dominant The fifth pitch of the scale; a chord constructed on the fifth pitch of the scale.

downbeat The first beat of a measure (beat grouping), usually accented.

drone See bordun.

duple meter A grouping of beats into two .

dynamics The degree and range of loudness of musical sounds.

electronic music Music made by creating, altering, and imitating sounds electronically.

electrophone An instrument that produces vibrations that must be passed through a loudspeaker before they are heard, as in electric guitar or keyboard.

enharmonic tones Tones sounding the same pitch but written differently, as E♭ and D^♯.

ethnomusicology The study of all the music of people in a specified area, frequently in a cultural context.

expressive qualities Those qualities (dynamics, tempo, articulation, timbre) that, combined with other musical elements, give a composition its unique musical identity.

falsetto A method of singing used by male singers, particularly tenors, to reach tones above the normal range of their voices.

fine ("fee-nay") Italian term meaning "the end."

flat A symbol that indicates that the written pitch is to be lowered a half step:^♭.

folk song A song having no known composer, usually transmitted orally, and reflecting the musical consensus of a cultural group.

form The overall structural organization of a music composition and the interrelationships of musical events within the overall structure.

fugue A composition in which voices or parts follow or "chase" each other; a theme is presented and then is imitated by two or more parts.

genre A category of music characterized by a distinctive style, form, and/or content (e.g., jazz, march, and country).

glissando A very rapid sliding passage up or down the white or black keys.

haiku A form of nature poetry that originated in Japan, ideally consisting of 17 syllables composed in a 5-7-5 arrangement.

half step An interval comprising two adjacent pitches, as D to D^♯.

hand signs See Curwen Glover hand signs.

harmonic minor scale A minor scale in which the pattern of whole steps and half steps is whole-half-whole-whole-half-whole & half-half.

harmony The simultaneous sounding of two or more pitches.

heterophonic A musical texture in which slightly different versions of the same melody are sounded together.

historical periods A period of years during which music that was created and/or performed shared common characteristics, such as the following periods of classical/Western art music: Medieval (ca. 500–ca. 1420), Baroque (ca. 1600–ca. 1750), Classic (ca. 1750–ca. 1820), Romantic (ca. 1820–ca. 1900), and Contemporary (ca. 1900–).

home tone See tonic.

homophonic A musical texture in which all parts move in the same rhythm but use different pitches, as in hymns; also, a melody supported by chords.

iconic notation The representation of sound using, e.g., lines, drawings, and pictures.

idiophone From the Greek, idios, self, and phonos, sound. An instrument in which the sound-producing agent is a solid material capable of producing sound by setting up vibrations in the substance of the instrument, such as wood or metal. The many idiophones include gongs, chimes, xylophones, and sticks.

imitation The restatement of a theme in different voices (parts).

improvisation Music extemporaneously performed, often within a framework determined by the musical style.

interlude A brief section of music inserted between stanzas of a song or sections of a larger work.

interval The distance between two tones, named by counting all pitch names involved:

organology The science of musical instruments and their classification; includes the history of instruments, instruments used in different cultures, technical aspects of how instruments produce sound, and music instrument classification.

ostinato ("ah-stih-NAH-toe") A continuous repetition of a melodic or rhythmic pattern.

partner songs Two or more different melodies that share a similar meter and chord sequence and can be sung simultaneously when they are in the same key and tempo.

patschen or patsch ("PAH-chn") A thigh slap.

pattern See motive.

pentatonic scale A five-tone scale often identified with the pattern of the black keys of the piano. Many other five-tone arrangements are possible.

percussion instruments Generic term for instruments that are sounded by shaking or striking one object with another. Percussion instruments include those of definite pitch (kettledrum, glockenspiel, xylophone, chimes) and those of indefinite pitch (drums, triangle, cymbals). In classifying world-music instruments, percussion is commonly divided into two types,

membranophones and idiophones (see separate entries).

perform To realize musical ideas and work through interpretation and presentation.

phrase A musical segment with a clear beginning and ending, comparable to a simple sentence or a clause in speech.

pitch The identification of a tone with respect to highness or lowness.

polyphonic A musical texture created when two or more melodies sound simultaneously.

polytonal Music that employs two or more tonalities (or keys) simultaneously.

quadruple meter A grouping of beats into four ($ Á K).

range The highest and lowest pitches of a melody, or of an instrument or voice.

ragtime A type of early twentieth-century American popular music, usually for piano, that features a syncopated ("ragged") melody against an oompah bass.

refrain Phrases recurring at the end of each verse of a song; sometimes called the "chorus."

respond To understand and evaluate how music conveys meaning.

resonator bars Individually pitched metal bars fastened to hollow resonator blocks.

rest The notation for silence.

rhythm All the durations of sounds and silences that occur in music.

rhythm of the melody See melodic rhythm.

rhythm pattern Any grouping, generally brief, of long and short sounds and silences.

rondo A musical form consisting of a recurring section with two or more contrasting sections, as ABACA.

root The tone on which a chord is built. A chord using C as its root is labeled a C chord.

round A melody performed by two or more groups entering at stated and different times.

scale A pattern of consecutive pitches arranged in ascending or descending order. Scales are identified by their specific arrangement of whole steps and half steps. See chromatic scale, major scale, minor scale, pentatonic scale, and whole-tone scale.

score A composite of all the written notational parts of a composition.

section A distinct portion of a composition; one of a number of parts that together make a composition. A section consists of several phrases.

sequence The repetition of a melodic pattern on a higher or lower degree of the scale.

seventh chord A four-note chord built in 3rds.

sharp A symbol (^♯) that raises the pitch a half step.

shifting meter The changing of beat groupings in music, as from groups of twos to groups of threes.

skip A melodic interval exceeding a 2nd or whole step.

sol-fa Syllables using a movable do, in which do is the tonic in a major key and la is the tonic in a minor key.

sonata An extended composition in several movements for one to two instruments.

staccato Detached, short sounds often indicated by a dot over or under a note (opposite of legato).

staff Five parallel lines used in traditional music notation.

steady beat See beat.

steel drums Instruments that originated in the West Indies and are constructed from oil drums. The drums, or "pans," come in four basic sizes, each differing in the number of pitches: the "ping-pong" (soprano), alto pan, guitar pan (tenor), and bass pan.

step An interval of a 2nd, such as A to B.

stringed instruments Instruments in which the stretched string is the sound-producing agent. (The sound is initiated by a bow, fingers, or sticks.) Instruments in this large group include violin and harp. (Also see chordophone, the scientific name for stringed instruments.)

style A label for a type of music with distinguishing characteristics often associated with its historical period, cultural context, and/or genre.

subdominant The fourth pitch of the scale; a chord constructed on the fourth pitch of the scale.

suite A group of musical pieces related to one idea.

symphony An extended composition for orchestra in several movements.

syncopation Placement of accents on normally weak beats or weak parts of beats; this shifting of accents creates the effect of the rhythm of the melody not coinciding with the beat.

tempo The rate of speed of the music.

tessitura The range of the majority of pitches in a voice part, not including an occasional high or low note.

texture The distinguishing character of the music resulting from the ways in which the vertical (harmonic) and horizontal (melodic) elements are combined.

theme and variations A composition in which each section is a modified version of the original musical theme.

timbre ("TAM-br") The tone color or tone quality of sound that distinguishes one sound source, instrument, or voice from another.

time Commonly used in place of more precise terms, namely, meter, rhythm, tempo, duration.

time signature See meter signature.

tonal center See tonic.

tonality The relationship of tones in a scale to the tonic.

tonal music Music that is centered on a particular tonal center or tonic.

tone A sound of definite pitch. Tones also have duration, intensity, and timbre.

tone row An ordering of the 12 tones of the chromatic scale as the tonal and structural basis of a composition.

tonic The central tone of the key and the first note of the scale; usually the last note of a composition.

tonic sol-fa Syllables using a movable do, in which do is the tonic in a major key and la is the tonic in a minor key.

transposition Changing a piece of music from one key (scale/tonality) to another.

treble clef The symbol which determines that the second line of the staff is G above Middle C.

triad A three-note chord with pitches a 3rd apart.

triple meter A grouping of beats into threes (a).

12-tone row See tone row.

unison Sung or played on the same pitch.

upbeat An unaccented beat, often the last beat of a beat grouping or measure. In conducting, the upbeat is indicated by an upward motion of the hand. An upbeat before the first downbeat of a musical phrase is called an anacrusis.

verse A group of lines, often four in number; also called a stanza.

vibrato A wavering of the pitch to warm the tone.

vocal register The different parts of the range of a voice that are characterized by their place of production and sound quality, for example, head register, chest register.

whole step An interval made up of two consecutive half steps; as C to D.

whole-tone scale A scale of six different tones, each a whole step apart.

wind instruments Generic name for instruments in which an enclosed column of air is the sound-producing agent. Includes brass instruments and woodwind instruments (see separate entries). Also see aero-phone, the scientific name for this category.

woodwind instruments Instruments in which a column of air is the sound-producing agent, such as clarinets, oboes, and flutes. (Also see wind instruments.) Commonly called the "woodwind family," though not all modern instruments are made of wood. Their timbre depends mainly on the shape of the bore (cylinder), and the mouthpiece: mouth-hole (flute), single reed (clarinet), or double reed (oboe).