Musc 145 Exam 1 UNC Stephen Anderson

Rhythm

mixture of long and short notes

Dynamics

Degrees of loudness or softness in music

Pitch

how fast or slow the sound vibrates; how high/low

Melody

single line of notes

Harmony

chords put together with melody

Chords

usually stacked in thirds and have skips in between them; bottom note called the root and is the foundation of the chord (lower case=minor chords)

Arpeggio

can be played by playing one note of the chord at a time

Timbre

relates to instrumentation; distinctive "color" of the sound; sax vs violins vs piano

Tessitura:

how an instrument sounds in different ranges

Instrumentation (American Instrumental Development)

1) Chord instruments: banjo, piano, guitar, keyboard

2) bass instruments: tuba, string bass, electric bass, synth.)

3) percussion instruments: drum set, conga, etc

Texture

how the music is interwoven; counterpoint and homophonic and layered rhythmic textures

Homophonic Textures

melody with chords underneath that complement the melody; bass and chords work together

rock music

Counterpoint textures

used without percussion really; different melodies moving against each other to add texture.

classical and jazz music

Layered rhythmic textures

...

Form

shape of the music; organization of music over time

Verse-chorus forms

folk, popular music

2 important jazz forms/formats

AABA and ABAB

Tempo

speed of the beat

Surface rhythms

faster rhythms that are emphasized over the basic tempo

Meter

how many beats within a bar

measure/bar

a group of beats delineated by barlines which separate measures.

Riff

short repeated phrase

What are the 3 most important chords in music?

I IV V

What are the 3 most important chords in jazz?

ii V I

1920s music:

foxtrot and two beat feel (half notes)

Backbeat

beats 2 and 4; popular in almost all american music

downbeat

1st and 3rd beats; normally bass instruments

Key

scales are played in a stepwise motion and have no skips between them

Intro

introduction of a tune before the melody begins

head

melody; played at the beginning of a tune and at the end after the solos

solos/solo selection

jazz performers take turns improvising over the chord changes of a tune

coda

an added ending of a tune

gig

playing in a concert, at a jazz club, restaurant, or any venue for money

woodshed/shed

means, "one needs to practice"...in the

old days, young aspiring musicians were sent behind the house into the woodshed until they got their sound together.

Three Main Sources of American Music

1. European heritage (i.e classical music)

2. Anglo-American folksong (i.e. Folk Music, Scotland Ireland England)

3. West African Heritage

Notation

music of extreme specificity and precision

Development of Notation

-staffless "neumes"

-Guidonian Hand

-gradual process and took several centuries to develop

Harmony in Western Music

sophisticated chord system/chord progression; I ii iii IV V vi vii

1) Plainchant (3rd century) (single melody, no chords or harmony)

2) Gregorian Chant (single melody; no chords or harmony)

3) Two Part Organum (12th century) - single melody over a held note or drone

verse chorus form

chunks (AABA, ABAB)

goal-oriented

Form of Western Music:

Form of Western Music: sectionalized

equal groupings (sonata form, minuet, trio form)

Orchestra

establishment of ensemble units, orchestration, etc.

Syllabic melody

one syllable of text per note or chord

Melisma/Melismatic

many notes for one syllable of text

Minstrelsy

Popular theatrical entertainment begun around 1830, in which white actors in blackface presented comic routines that combined racist caricature and social criticism. Connected America in a very sick way because chief form of national entertainment/comedy

False Advertising in Minstrel Music

Ethiopian record thing when no one came from Ethiopia

Usage of Percussion in Western Music

used sparingly for melodies to carry a rhythmic quality

Usage of Percussion in African Music

percussion plays continuously with a vocal line sung or spoken "over the top" of the drums

Stephen Foster

takes the tradition of the opera (aria) and simplifies it for amateurs; composed both minstrel and parlor songs; Old Folks at Home

Pentatonic Scale

a five-note scale found often in folk music and non-Western music; (1, b3, 4, 5, b7, (8))

Folk Tradition was the...

least influential in Jazz; lots of repetition with no variation and little harmonic variety. Verse-chorus form.

Griot vs Kora

Griot= storyteller; Kora= ...q

dondons

drums whose pitch is varied by pulling on a leather strap

gongons

larger drums that produce a rattling sound

Blues

a feeling indicated by the lyrics and a style with various types of inflection

Blues inflections

bent notes, rough voice, cracked notes, etc

Blues form

12-bars or measures; soloists perpetually play riffs over the form using the "blues scale"; blues notes not in major western scale

What are the blues notes in the blues scale

b3, #4, b7

Blues scale

1 - b3 - 4 - #4 - 5 - b7 - 1

Classical Scale

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Cyclical form

urfban blues

I IV V ; add a dominant 7 to them for half steps (????????)

Country Blues

-oldest

- African American in Mississippi Delta

- work songs

- much more free in form and harmonic pacing

eg McTell and Robert Johnson

Urban Blues

- farms and harmonic pacing are much more fixed than the country blues

- cyclical form

- same inflections; often sad topics

eg Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaugn

Lyric form (think BB King)

read, repeat, rhyme

Foxtrot

Vern and Irene Castle

Storyville

Red light district in New Orleans; Sidney Story from 1897-1917

Congo Square

The place in New Orleans where slaves were allowed to play traditional African music and dance.

New Orleans Style Jazz

improvisatory style and collective improvisation

Front Line

row of horn players, cornet (early trumpet) lead, clarinet second, trombone plays tailgate

improvisatory style:

ragging the melody (playing tones above and below the melody)

collective improvisation

horn players improvise melodies simultaneously

"Tailgate" line in jazz?

the rhythmic line underneath the trumpets and cornets (typically by trombones)

Break

musical surprise; textural surprise; band has a big hit together then all drop out for a second

Race Records

Recordings of performances by African American musicians produced mainly for sale to African American listeners (OKeh, Paramount, Vocalion, and Columbia marketed to african americans (think Bessie Smith))

Great Migration

1917 mass movement of ~1.5 million African Americans to the north (Chicago)

How did Louis Armstrong change the sound of jazz in the 1920s?

Shift away from collective improvisation to feature himself

Stride

Left hand jumps; 2 beat (root and 5) and back beat (chords)

4 main individuals of Stride

James P Johnson, Willie "the Lion" Smith, Fats Waller, and Art Tatum

James P Johnson nickname

the "Father"

Willie the Lion Smith nickname

cockiest (think Jelly Roll)

Fats Waller nickname/title

honorary mayor of NOLA

Art Tatum nickname

"God is in the House" - Fats Waller

Boogie Woogie

not stride; sounds like it but the hands are all in the same position (not as much jumping); LH ostinato

German Lieder

singer and instrumental accompaniment

Aria

operatic solo; a song sung by one person in an opera or oratorio

McTell

switched between speech and song and tells a different kind of story

Frederick Douglas

escaped slavery at 20 and wrote 3 autobiographies

Georgia Sea Islands and Congo Square

only places where slaves were allowed to keep their culture through music and dance

Ring Shout

an ecstatic, transcendent religious ritual, first practiced by African slaves in the West Indies and the United States, in which worshipers move in a circle while shuffling and stomping their feet and clapping their hands --> became the creep in jazz because they speed up as they go

Ragtime

16 bar phrases; syncopation, piano rags, sectionalized; 2 beat feel; Scott Joplin

Lead Sheet

an abbreviated musical score, consisting of a melody line with chord names or symbols, and sometimes lyrics

Chord progression

a succession of chords moving forward in a purposeful fashion

Groove

how the diff. instruments. lock in together with individual rhythms

Song

a piece of music that is sung

Tune

a piece of music played by jazz musicians

Piece

general name for a selection of music in classical music... i.e. don't call a symphony a song

3 Main types of popular music after civil war

1) continuation of mistrel (Stephen Foster)

2) Ragtime (Joplin)

3) Marching Military Band (Sousa)

John Philip Sousa

-greatest composer of march music

-band instruments without string (woodwinds brass, and percussion)

-16 bar strains

Bessie Smith

-part of migration to north

- blues on stage, vadeville troupes

- made over 200 records... OKeh

- tragic death 1937

W.C. Handy

"Father of the Blues"; didn't invent it but an early composer of it; lead to 12-bar forms