Music in world cultures 2

Musical pathways

Everyday musical activities pursued by amateur musicians.

Glissando

A musical gesture that entails sliding from one pitch to another.

Ternary form

Three-part form.

Tonic

Central pitch and, in Western music, the chord based on it.

Affinity Community

People who come together by choice to participate in particular activities or forms of music making.

Folk Music

Music transmitted by oral tradition, maintained in collective memory, associated with nonprofessionals, and regarded as the cultural property of a group.

Highlife

West African popular music combining indigenous melodies and instruments with Western rock and jazz.

Agbadza

An Ewe dance performed at social gatherings and funerals.

Atumpan

Large drums, central instruments in ensembles for Asante ceremonies.

Talking Drums

Membranophones or idiophones that produce pitched tones and can replicate patterns of a tonal language.

Bhajan

Hindu devotional songs.

Aarati

Traditional Hindu hymn of praise.

Sitar

North Indian plucked lute with both played and sympathetic strings.

Ghazal

A strophic song sung in Urdu, traditionally performed for elite audiences.

Buskers

Public street performers who collect donations from passerby.

Panpipes (Sikus)

Aerophone constructed of three or more small pipes fastened together.

Ballad

A song genre commemorating important events and individuals, usually in strophic form.

Uilleann Pipes

Irish smallpipes with three drones and a bellows to fill the bag.

Fado

Song genre closely associated with Lisbon and popular in Portuguese expatriate communities.

Circular breathing

Technique for maintaining an unbroken tone on a wind instrument by breathing in through the nose.

Interlocking parts (kotekan)

Instrumental parts where silences occur simultaneously with sound in another, creating the sense of a single line.

Folk music revival

Interest in traditional music and dance associated with American counterculture in the 1950s.

Tremolo

Regular fluctuation or trembling of a sound produced by varying intensity.

Blue note

Lowered third (and sometimes seventh) scale degree in blues and jazz.

Lullaby

Song used to lull a baby to sleep.

Strophic form

Form where all verses of text are set to the same melody.

Raga

The Indian system for organizing melodies according to distinctive pitch content.

Tanpura

Plucked lute that sounds a constant drone in South Indian music.

Mariachi

Mexican instrumental ensemble including guitarron, vihuela, violin, and trumpets.

Bagpipe

Aerophone with drones and a chanter allowing for uninterrupted sound production.

Dydeling

Traditional Irish mouth music.

Pibroch

A genre of solo bagpipe music consisting of elaborate variations on a theme.

Diaspora

People living outside their historic homeland who maintain memories of their place of origin.

Oral Transmission

Music transmitted without writing.

Mawwal

Traditional Arab song alternating sections in free and regular rhythm.

Spiritual

Genre of songs emerged from African American slave musical expression.

Tan Nhac

Vietnamese popular song tradition using Western instruments and Vietnamese lyrics.