Music 1-4

Music

Sound organized in time.

Common-practice tonality

Widely accepted system for describing the relationships among pitches and harmonies.

Pitch

The highness or lowness of a sound.

Harmony

Occurs when two or more pitches sound simultaneously.

Octave

Occurs naturally in the overtone series and is divided into twelve equal intervals called half steps.

Melody

A coherent succession of pitches perceived as a whole, with a beginning, middle, and end.

Major and minor scales

Sets of seven different pitches arranged in a specific pattern of whole and half steps within a single octave.

Beat

The steady, regular pulse underlying most music.

Tempo

The speed of the beat.

Meter

Groups beats into regular patterns of strong and weak beats.

Rhythm

The series of durations of varying lengths that overlie the beat.

Dominant harmony

The need for dominant harmony to resolve to the tonic, or resting tone.

Key

A hierarchical set of harmonic and melodic pitch relationships organized around a tonic.

Diatonic music

Uses pitches from only a single scale.

Chromatic music

Uses accidentals (sharps and flats) to add pitches from outside the key, or to change keys.

Triad

The most basic type of chord, consisting of two stacked thirds.

Texture

An important feature that can distinguish otherwise similar musical sounds.

Tension and release

Fundamental to the listener's musical experience.

Motives, phrases, cadences, and themes

The smallest building blocks of form.

Common forms

Include strophic, theme and variations, twelve-bar blues, ternary (ABA), rondo, thirty-two-bar form, verse-chorus, fugue, and sonata form.

Music representation

Can be represented by diagrams, with notation, or on sound recordings, each of which has limitations.

Music as an art form

Structures time rather than space, leading some to consider it an activity rather than a fixed object.

What was the blues?

An American style that developed before jazz and influenced its musical approach.

What are the characteristics of the blues?

Call-and-response exchanges, melismatic text-setting, and blue notes.

What is a chorus in blues music?

Each repetition of the twelve-bar-blues pattern.

What is swing rhythm?

A lengthening of the first note's duration and shortening of the second in a pair of notes.

What is the typical poetic structure of a blues song?

Usually follows an a a b rhyme scheme, with the first line sometimes repeated three times.

What characterizes a country blues song?

A male singer in informal settings, playing guitar, harmonica, or accordion, improvising text.

What is a classic blues performance like?

Typically features a female singer accompanied by a piano or combo in a theatrical venue.

Who was Bessie Smith?

A classic blues singer known for her vocal embellishments and significant recordings.

What impact did Bessie Smith's recordings have?

They restored the financial stability of Columbia Records.

Who was W. C. Handy?

One of the first to publish printed music in the classic blues style.

Where did jazz begin to coalesce?

In the Storyville district of New Orleans at the start of the twentieth century.

What is New Orleans jazz?

The oldest subtype of jazz using swing rhythms, band instrumentation, and collective improvisation.

What is Dixieland?

A more polished approach to jazz developed by groups of white musicians.

What happened after the closure of Storyville in 1917?

Many musicians moved to Chicago, where jazz evolved into new sub-styles.

What is Chicago jazz known for?

Featuring talented players for full choruses and rhythmically precise passages.

What is a sock-chorus or out-chorus?

The concluding chorus often employing busy heterophony.

What is a wah-wah mute?

A device used by King Oliver to give distinctive timbre to choruses.

Who was Lillian Hardin Armstrong?

A pianist who joined King Oliver's band and married Louis Armstrong.

What was Louis Armstrong's first quintet called?

The Hot Five.

What is 'Heebie Jeebies' known for?

Featuring Armstrong's scat singing.

What is the structure of 'Hotter Than That'?

Uses the thirty-two-bar structure more often found in popular songs.

Who were the three most influential band leaders in the pre-swing era?

Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Fletcher Henderson.

What did Duke Ellington contribute to swing?

Extended forms with solos, interesting tone colors, and development of Latin jazz.

What did Count Basie standardize in his band?

The rhythm section to consist of piano, bass, drums, and guitar.

What is sectional writing or block voicing?

A technique where families of instruments are treated as groups.

What is Broadway known for?

Broadway is a nickname for the New York theater district, featuring operettas, revues, and musical comedies.

What significant musical comedy debuted on Broadway in 1921?

Shuffle Along, a Black-created musical comedy.

Who wrote the book for Shuffle Along?

Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles.

What musical feature did Shuffle Along include?

Vigorous jazz-style songs and dances.

What was the fictional location in Shuffle Along's story?

Jimtown.

Who produced the sequel Runnin' Wild?

George White.

Which song from Runnin' Wild launched an international dance craze?

The Charleston.

What is the structure of The Charleston?

Show-tune form (A-B-A-C).

What jazz features are present in The Charleston?

Stop-time, heterophony, and muted trumpet passages.

What musical comedy was composed by Vincent Youmans in 1925?

No, No, Nanette.

What song from No, No, Nanette was hurriedly inserted during its tryout?

Tea for Two.

What form does Tea for Two follow?

A-B-A-C show-tune form.

What is Tin Pan Alley?

A nickname for the area in New York where music publishers clustered, known for popular music.

What role did song-pluggers play in Tin Pan Alley?

They promoted music to customers and helped perform songs in public.

What was the first broadcast launched by NBC radio?

Ben Bernie's Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra.

Which song became the Harlem Globetrotters' theme song?

Sweet Georgia Brown.

What jazz features are present in Sweet Georgia Brown?

Heterophony, muted trumpets, extended solos, riffs, and sectional writing.

What technological advancement did Warner Brothers develop for films?

Vitaphone technology, which synchronized audio disks with film projection.

What was significant about The Jazz Singer (1927)?

It was the first 'talkie' feature film with spoken dialogue.

What song did Al Jolson perform in The Jazz Singer?

Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (Goo' Bye).

What musical style is Toot, Toot, Tootsie! designated as?

A 'cute' foxtrot.

What elements are present in Jolson's recording of Toot, Toot, Tootsie!?

Heterophony, trombone glissandos, pitch bends, and scat-like interjections.

What was the impact of Shuffle Along on later Black musical comedies?

Its fictional location, Jimtown, was reused in several later productions.

What did the jazz characteristics in 'Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man' foreshadow?

The character Julie's mixed-race identity.

What is the structure of 'Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man'?

Five-part rondo form (A-B-A-C-A).

What motif in 'Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man' is linked to the Mississippi River?

An upward fourth motif.

What was the public's reaction to the jazzy nature of No, No, Nanette?

A British reviewer called the enthusiastic response 'jazzomania.'

What genre of music found listeners among classical composers during the 1920s?

Jazz

Which infantry regiment band helped introduce jazz to France during World War I?

The 369th Infantry Regiment band, known as the 'Hellfighters'

Who was the French composer that incorporated jazz into his ballet La création du monde?

Darius Milhaud

What year was Milhaud's ballet La création du monde first performed?

1923

What is the scenario depicted in Milhaud's La création du monde?

An African creation myth

What musical technique does Milhaud use in his ballet score to create blue notes?

Polytonality

Which famous American composer is known for blending jazz and classical music in Rhapsody in Blue?

George Gershwin

What was the initial purpose of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue?

To help jazz listeners appreciate classical music

What is the widely recognized opening feature of Rhapsody in Blue?

The clarinet glissando, known as 'the icebreaker'

Who orchestrated the two-piano version of Rhapsody in Blue for the Whiteman band?

Ferde Grofé

What type of musical sections does Rhapsody in Blue contain that feature the piano?

Cadenzas

What is the nickname given to several recurring melodies in Rhapsody in Blue?

Ritornello, Stride, and Tag themes

Who was the influential composition teacher of Aaron Copland?

Nadia Boulanger

What was the title of Copland's work that was commissioned by the League of Composers?

Music for the Theatre

Which movement of Copland's Music for the Theatre is reminiscent of New Orleans jazz?

Movement IV 'Burlesque'

What is the term for the rapid shifts between tempos, dynamics, and instruments in Copland's 'Burlesque'?

Jazz-like characteristics

What style of music did Maurice Ravel explore in his second violin sonata?

Blues

What unique feature does Ravel's Violin Sonata exhibit in its instrumentation?

Contrasts between piano and violin, treating them independently

What type of harmony does Tailleferre's Sicilienne incorporate?

Jazz harmony

What is the structure of Tailleferre's Sicilienne?

Ternary form

What musical elements does Tailleferre mix in her Sicilienne?

Modes, producing the effect of blue notes

What did Tailleferre dedicate her piano piece Sicilienne to?

Her husband

What is a characteristic feature of the melody in Tailleferre's Sicilienne?

A relaxed, conjunct melody in compound-duple meter

Which prominent jazz technique is employed in Milhaud's Tableau I?

Jazz fugue