Music 70 Final Key Terms

Gesamkunstwerk

Wagner’s notion of “total work of art,” where music, poetry, and drama are merged into one

Leitmotif

A musical idea with extramusical/programmatic associations (e.g. a character, an object, an emotion, a particular conflict, a place); helps create overarching structure and connections; e.g. Wagner’s Das Rheingold interlude between Scene I and II

Musical dramas

Reference to Wagner’s operas; conceived as program music that finally begins to sing

Bayreuth Festspielhaus

Opera house which embodied Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk; orchestra pit hidden from view to be the “voice” and the actual storyteller of the drama

Primivitism

A belief in the value of what is simple and unsophisticated; in Russian context, Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” evoked prehistoric spectacle; Josephine Baker’s “Charleston” dance

Polytonality

Technique of using two or more distinct keys or tonal centers simultaneously; e.g. the polychord used in Rite of Spring where two tonal centers clash, creating violent dissonance but each chord is perfectly tonal on its own

Polyrhythm

The simultaneous combination of two or more contrasting rhythms that divide a single beat

Octatonic scale

Any eight-note musical scale; four overlapping tone-semitone-tone units as seen in Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring

Ostinato

Repeated groove, rhythm, or musical idea

Heterophony

singing in unison except everyone varies it slightly

Ballets Russes

Parisian-based ballet company, transformed Western dance through collaborations between Russian dancers, composers, and choreographers

Klangfarbenmelodie

“Sound-color:” a melody that is not a succession of different notes, but a succession of different timbres, different colors of sounds; Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra Mvmt. III “Farben;” how timbre, in addition to or in place of pitch can freely be explored in composition, without the control of tonality

Atonality

No distinct tonal center or key; no distinction, no tension

Emancipation of the dissonance

Schoenberg’s argument not just for the expansion of more dissonances, but for the abolition of consonance/dissonance distribution

Twelve-tone technique

Developed by Schoenberg, compositional system that governs how a tone row is used throughout a piece; embodies his notion of music being the evolution of a core idea

Tone row

12 notes of the chromatic scale used in succession only once to prevent musical hierarchy

Second Viennese School

Modernist atonal instrumental music; pioneered by Schoenberg and his students, Berg and Webern; in succession to the “First Viennese School,” w/ canonic tonal instrumental music of Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn

Culture industry

mass production and standardization of cultural products like movies, music, and tv

Diegetic

what the characters in a film/any type of story can hear, we can hear too; “inside” the story/film’s world

Non-diegetic

what the characters in a film/story cannot hear, but only we can hear; in the audience’s world

Phonograph

A device used to record/reproduce sound invented by Thomas Edison; early ads for the technology with similar relations of women and domestic-music-making inscribed; also ultimately challenging the uniqueness of being human, when “authenticity” is something that can be copied and sold

Music concretè

recorded sound samples of musical instruments, human sounds, sounds of nature, synthesized sounds, any sound or “noise” used as raw materials to further processing tapes

Electronic music (electronische Musik)

Pioneered by Karl Stockhausen; electronic music produced solely from electronic generators; development of purely electronic instruments

Sound object (objet sonore)

raw and electronic materials that will be transformed and processed

Organized sound

Definition of music by Edgard Varese in The Liberation of Sound; exemplified the shift among 20th century composers toward the idea that music should be equal to sound, or a universal definition of music

Tape looping

Hallmark technique of American minimalism demonstrating the repetition of a very short motive (Steve Reich’s Come Out)

Phase shifting

left and right channels start by playing the same sample in unison until gradually they come out of sync and split into two, then four, then eight…

Process music

where the music arises from a gradual process that can often be experienced directly by the listener; repetition with small change; emotion emerges from the process itself

Acoustimatic sound

sound heard without its visible source, creating mystery and focusing attention on the intrinsic qualities of the sound itself

Minimalism (American minimalism/minimal)

Style of music that is hallmarked by repetitive short motives or phrases, non-teleological direction

Non-teleological

Term used to describe the lack of any apparent “goals”; in relation to minimal music it does not prime the listener as for where to expect the music to go; no tension or resolution

Postmodernism

Also referred to as relativism or nihilism, postmodern refers to a broad variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical trends, that, at its core, renounce metanarratives; aims to denounce the overarching frameworks of “who we are” and “where we are heading”

Indeterminancy/aleatoric or chance music

Music is controlled indeterminacy, it deliberately incorporates randomness into the compositional process; uses systems to avoid preference; in relation to John Cage’s music, he identifies chance with nature; you can control the performer and composition, but you can’t control the environment; given up to chance

Prepared piano

Technique invented by John Cage in which a standard piano is modified by placing objects (screws, bolts, erasers, or plastic) between its strings to drastically change its sound, creative percussive, metallic, or gamelan-like timbres

Non-intention

Non-intention is less of a technique and more of an ethical and aesthetic stance; has to do with rejecting the composer’s expressive will altogether, removing symbolism and ego; in relation to Cage, compositions explored ways of deconstruction of ego by not including composer bias

Posthumanism

Idea suggesting that humans aren’t unique or superior but are deeply interconnected with animals, technology, and the environment, questioning traditional conventions of what it means to be “human;” e.g. John Cage’s Child of Tree  

I Ching (aka Book of Change)

Chinese book of divination; improviser pre-plans the structure of the performance, but ultimately not determined on their own, instead a dice is cast to determine structure; Cage experimented with I Ching for indeterminacy, used a coin toss to determine everything (pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and silence)