Music History Exam

Antiphon

A short prose sung sentence inserted before or after a pslam and sometimes between its individual verses, sung in alternation by two halves of the choir

Respond

In liturgical chant, a tripartite call and response structure: a freely composed respond (begun by the cantor and then by the choir), a verse sung to a psalm tone (cantor), and a second respond (choir

Mass

the primary public worship service of Roman Catholic Chruches: also a cycial setting of the mass ordinary

Proper

A group of Mass texts according to a yearly cycle

Ordinary

The set of unchanging Mass tests sung at every service

Name the chants sung in mass ordinary

Kyrie, Sanctus, Credo, Agnus Dei, Gloria

Neumes

In chant notation: neumes tracked the relative rise and fall of pitches and, the aproximate matching and of note to text syllable, and rhythmic relationships

Hexachord

a six-note pitch segment recognized by Guido of Arezzo in the eleventh century, represented by the solomization syllables

Mode

Any scale applied to tone-centered Western music outside the major-minor axis used in non Western classical music and music out of an oral tradition

Solomization

A neumonic device in which intervals were associated with syallables to aidd in teh learning of melody. Derived from the Guidonian hand

Guidonian Hand

A visual teaching aid from the Middle Ages showing the notes of the modes and their solmization syllables at specific points of the human hand

Ligature

A single neume that represents two or more pitches, somtimes rhymicized

Church modes

A scale used in Gregorian an later music, assigned Greek names freely borowed from Boethius by theorists. Each mode has a final, a hierarchy of secondary tones, and characteristic melodic turns

Name the church modes

1 - Dorian 2 - Hypodorian 3 - Phrygian 4 - Hypophrygian 5 - Lydian 6 - Hypolydian 7 - Mixolydian 8 - Hypomixolydian

Reciting tone

In plainchant, a melodic formula of varying complexity used for the recitation by verses of pslams

Pslam tone

The chant formula for singing a pslam in which melody is subservient to a medium for exaltation of a sacred utterance.

Melismatic/Melisma

A group of more than five or six notes sung on a single syllable

sequence

A type of Latin hymn that set non-biblical texts syllabically to newly composed music

Hymn

Storphic church song meant to be sung by the congregation

Trope

New text or music added to pre exisiting chants to heighten drama and amplify original texts

Canon

a procedure in which a melodic part begins alone, then continues while a second part begins the same music on the same pitch (or in transposition), with the potential for more such entrances; the strictest form of imitative music;

Cantillation

The chanting of a text by a soloist

Monophony

unaccompanied singing, solo or in unison

Diatonic

Pitch relationships within a specific arragement of tones and semitones

Gregorian Chant

The monophonic and traditionally unaccompanied music of the Eastern and Western Christian liturgy. Texts predominantly taken from psalm verses

Office

A cycle of 8 daily prayer services in Catholic Orthodox, and Anglican liturgy

Pslam

A sacred song or hymn with texts taken from the biblical book of pslams

Psalter

Literally "book of pslams" a collection of English verse paraphrases of the pslams intended to be sung

Canso

Provencal for song specifcally the love song of the troubadour

Chanson

Provencal song specifcally the love song of the troubariz

fin amour

French for refined love or courtly love

pastorela

Provencal for pastoral; a troubaour courtly love song affecting a mock popular style between a knight and a shepherdess

joglars

A singer-entertainer of a lower class who memorized the work of the noble poets but lacked courtly patronage

vidas

breif troubadour and trobairitz biographies typically contained in their song collections

Minnesang

German for "love song" modeled on troubadour courtly love songs

Tenso

a debate-song in the troubadour and trouvère repertoire, characterized by a discussion about love and other subjects, depicted as an exchange between two or more participants; on occasion a joint composition by two or more poets.

Troubaours

"finder of words" esteemed singer-poet active in southern France from the eleventh through thirteenth century

trouveres

Esteemed singer-poets equvilant to troubadours but writing in Old French in northern France in the 11th through 14th century

rondeau

French medevial song setting (one of three form fixes) Form AB aA ab AB

Ballade

French form fixes form aabC

Virelai

a form of Medieval and early Renaissance song, the music for which is in two clear sections (ABBA); one of three formes fixes

Cantus firmus

Latin for "fixed tune"; refers to the placement of a chant melody in the tenor part of polyphonic piece

Cauda

Long melismatic tail at the end of early 13C Latin strophic song

Conductus

A medieval genre of polyphonic music practiced at the Notre Dame; a syllabic setting of a contemporary Latin poen, freely composed rather than chant-based in a homophonic (note against note) texture.

Triplum

Latin for three parts orginally a Medieval composition for three voices; later a third voice part itself above the duplum.

Quadruplum

Term used in Medieval theoru to denone principally four-voiced polyphony as in "organum quadruplum"

Clausulae

little discant sections inserted into Medevial polyphonic organnum

Contrafactum

a vocal piece in which the original text is replaced by a new one

Duplum

Latin "in two parts" orginally a Medevial composition for two voices; later a second voice itself placed above the tenor

Copula

An intermediate texture in Medieval organum during which the duplum sings usually two phrases in regular modal patterns over sustaining in regular modal patterns over sustained tenor notes.

Counterpoint

The combination of two or more distinct melodic lines (voices) according to specific

discant

a technique of composition in Medieval organum in which one voice is added to a plainchant part usually note against note and mostly in contrary motion

Mensural notation

in late Medevial and Renaissance music, a term referring to evolving systems that expressed rhymic values through ligature intrepretation, chagning, meters and a complex sytem of rhythmic levels

Motet

A genre of Medieval polyphonic vocal music that derived from the texting of upper parts in clausulae. The tenor eventually became slower and polytextual upper parts focused on both religous and secular subjects

Organum

The earlist form of Western polyphony first described in teh eleventh century. initially a second voice over a chant but then a more florid part over a slow moving untexted chant line

Polyphony

A compositional texture involving contrapuntally independent vocies of two or more parts

Tenor

From latin "tenere the fundamental voice or chant-bearing part of organum and later polyphonic music bearing a preexisting melody in long notes while another voice sings in a more florid counterpoint

Ars Nova

Latin for “new art,” the style represented by Guillaume de Machaut and composers of the fourteenth century.

Ars Subilitor

Latin for “subtle art”; a style that flourished from about 1370 to 1390, and employed highly complex rhythmic and metrical relationships, sometimes with obscure notational devices. The term was coined in the 1960s.

ballata

a form of Medieval and early Renaissance song, the music for which is in two clear sections (ABBA); one of three formes fixes

caccia

Italian for “chase”; a thirteenth-century type of madrigal, comprising two sections (terzetti, ritornello); the three-voice texture consisted of a cantus (running against itself in canon) over an untexted tenor; the subject matter often involved the hunt.

cantilena

a short song or, in Medieval times, any secular piece, such as a ballade, virelai, or rondeau.

Cantus

Latin for song or melody

color

a short song or, in Medieval times, any secular piece, such as a ballade, virelai, or rondeau.

Formes fixes

the three chief poetic forms used for late Medieval songs: the ballade, virelai, and rondeau, found in monophonic and polyphonic settings.

isorhythm

term used by modern scholars to denote the use of recurrent nonsynchronous rhythmic and pitch patterns as a main structural component in late Medieval music.

Landini cadence

a late Medieval phrase ending for two voices; while the lower voice moves from the second to the first degree, the upper voice starts on the raised seventh degree, drops down to the sixth degree before leaping up to the eighth degree to form a concluding octave.

musica ficta

Latin for “false music”; refers to any accidentals (or chromatic alterations by the performer) that lie outside the notational system used in Medieval and Renaissance music; often a dilemma for present-day interpreters of this music.

tempus

Latin for time; in mensural notation, the relationship between the note values breve and semibreve, a factor in determining the metric design.

prolation

the number of subdivisions (two or three) per mensural whole-note (semibreve).

talea

Latin for “a cutting”; in Medieval and Renaissance polyphony, the repetition of rhythmic values without regard to pitches used.

Trecento

Italian music in the 14th C spilt into three categories: Madrigals, ballata, caccia

Florid organum

The singing of many organal notes in the upper voice (duplum) against a single, extended note of the bottom voice (tenor)