Humanities CLEP (Part 3)

An ____ melodic minor scale contains half steps between notes 2-3 and 7-8.

ascending

Johannes Brahms was a composer during the ____ period. 

romantic

Baroque composer J. S. Bach is known for composing toccatas, fugues and ____, musical lines that sound different and have different rhythms but sound harmonious when played or sung together.

counterpoint (combines two or more simultaneous melodic lines)

The best known work of Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi is his group of four violin concertos called " ____ ."

The Queen's Cup of Coffee

The Four Lions

The Four Seasons

The Three Seasons

the four seasons

The ____ is the first step (note) in a diatonic musical scale, around which the piece of music is built, such as “in the key of” C major or “in the key of” C minor.

tonic

The ____ was a secular musical genre developed during the Renaissance that was written in the vernacular (the common language-i.e. Italian-instead of in Latin) and generally was more energetic than sacred music.

madrigal

J.S. ____ (1685-1750) was a Baroque composer who wrote many famous cantatas, toccatas, and fugues and works such as The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Brandenburg concertos.

Bach

The interval between one musical note or pitch and another musical note with double or half of its frequency is known as a/an ____.

octave

Franz Joseph ____ (1732-1809) was a composer of the Classical period who instructed Mozart and Beethoven and composed the well known Sunrise Symphony.

Haydn

In music, a ____ is an arrangement of tones within an octave that are played from low to high and high to low.

scale (All music compositions are based on a scale)

In music, the fourth degree of a major scale is known as the ____ .

subdominant

The ____ scale, which is used in Chinese, Japanese, and Indian music, contains only five notes or pitches in each octave. The five black keys on the piano in each octave can demonstrate this type of scale.

pentatonic

In music, a ____ is a pattern formed by variation in duration of pitches (how long a sound or a silence lasts).

rhythm

Slow tempo is described as ____ or largo and has around 40-60 beats per minute.

lento (Moderate tempo is described as moderto)

A ____ was a musical composition that reached its peak in the works of Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and involved different voices singing the melody at different times with a main musical subject being repeated in different keys throughout the entire composition.

fugue

The most common instrument in a typical modern orchestra is a/an ____.

violin

A ____ (#) is a musical notation that raises a tone by a half step; on a piano, this higher pitched note is usually a black key that is located to the immediate right of a white key.

sharp (indicated by # sign)

Different notations and words are given to describe these degrees of loudness or softness.
____ dynamic means loudly
____ dynamic means softly

forte (f), mezo (m)

mezo (m), piano (p)

forte (f ), piano (p)

piano (p), forte (f)

forte (f ), piano (p)

In music, a ____ is found at the beginning of the music right after the key signature and consists of two numbers written vertically with one above the other with the top number representing the number of beats in each measure and the bottom number representing the kind of notes that make up one beat.

time signature

John Phillip Sousa, an American composer, invented the sousaphone, an adaptation of the ____ . The sousaphone has a forward bell and is designed with a coil so that it can rest over the shoulder of the player marching with it. 

guitar

tuba

xylophone

organ

piano

tuba

The ____ diatonic scale in music has half steps between notes 2-3 and 5-6.

minor

A ____ scale is one that is comprised of each of the seven lettered musical notes (A B C D E F G), using each note only once and having seven separate pitches.

diatonic

The ____ family of instruments includes trombones, tubas, cornets, bugles, French horns, and trumpets; with these instruments, sound is produced when the player encloses the cup or funnel-shaped mouthpiece with his or her lips and blows air.

brass

A ____ is a musical instrument that produces sound via vibrating a taut, stretched string or chord; examples of these instruments include violins, guitars, Indian sitars, Japanese kotos, and harps.

chordophone

A(n) ____ is the lowest, deepest female vocal range.

Contralto (The highest female vocal range is the soprano)

A ____ instrument produces sound when it is struck, shaken, or otherwise set into motion and vibrates; examples include drums, timbales, gongs,crash cymbals, and xylophones.

percussion

____ (1756-1791), who is regarded as one of the greatest Classical composers ever, composed famous opera buffa such as The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, and Cosi fan tutte.

Mozart

Gradual changes in dynamics are indicated in music by words such as crescendo, which means to become louder, or ____ , which means to become softer

decrescendo

The ____ family of instruments includes violins, violoncellos, cellos, double basses, and violas.

string

During the ____ period (1750-1820s) of music history, access to musical concerts was extended to the general public, the style emphasized grace, beauty, and naturalness, and the symphony and string quartet (cello, viola, and 2 violins) were developed.

classical

A ____ is a series of pitches that occur in succession over time in a certain rhythmic pattern. It is a succession of single pitches that is coherent.

melody

The ____ diatonic scale in music uses each of the whole notes in an octave and has half steps between notes 3-4 and 7-8.

major

____ refers to a musical tone’s intensity, that is, its loudness or softness. This refers to, in other words, music's volume.

Dynamics

The quality of a musical note that distinguishes it from other instruments or voices is known as ____.

timbre (aka tone color)

One element of Italian opera, ____ , is melodic speech that is heightened, full of emotion, and set to music.

recitative

____ are musical instruments, such as flutes, trumpets, bagpipes, whistles, and harmonicas, that produce sound when air is breathed through a column of air.

aerophones

____ refers to the speed of the pulse, the rate of speed, in a given piece of music. 

Tempo

Clarinets, flutes, piccolos, oboes, English horns, contrabassoons, and bassoons are all examples of the ____ family of instruments.

woodwind

____ is the word used to describe a lively and fast tempo that has around 156 - 176 beats per minute.

vivace

A ____ is a musical notation that carries a lower pitch by a half step; on a piano, this lower pitched note is usually the black key that is located to the immediate left of a white key.

flat

A ____ is the lowest, deepest male voice range.

bass

In music, the third degree of a major diatonic scale is known as the ____.

mediant

In music, the ____ degree of a major scale is known as the leading tone.

seventh

A piano contains what is known as a ____ scale, which contains twelve half steps (twelve pitches each being a half step apart).

chromatic

George Frideric ____ (1685-1759) was a well known German-born British Baroque composer of opera seria and concerto grossi such as Dixit Dominus, Messiah, and Rodrigo.

Handel

In music such as jazz, blues, and ragtime, ____ is the unexpected stressing or accenting of beats or the failure to accent or stress beats that are normally accented or stressed.

syncopation

Beethoven, Schubert, and Liszt were all taught by famous late 18th century Classical opera composer Antonio ____ (1750-1825).

Salieri

Pulitzer-prize winner for the ballet Appalachian Spring (1944), American composer Aaron ____ is known for his use of serialism and also wrote famous ballets Billy the Kid and Rodeo, music for films Of Mice and Men and Our Town, and operas The Second Hurricane and The Tender Land.

Copland

American modernist composer Charles ____ (1874-1954) pioneered influential techniques such as polymetric patterns, atonality, and quarter notes, and wrote pieces such as the Holiday Symphony (incl. The Fourth of July and Decoration Day), Concord, and The Unanswered Question.

Ives

Romantic composer Richard Wagner is associated with using ____, a recurring musical theme that has to do with a certain place, person, or idea, in operas such as Der Ring des Nibelungen.

leitmotif

Russian Romantic composer Pyotr Ilyich ____ (1840-1893) composed the symphonic overture Romeo and Juliet; ballets such as The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, and Swan Lake; opera Eugene Onegin; 1812 Overture; and First Piano Concerto.

Tchaikovsky

____ is a musical form that developed in New Orleans, Louisiana, beginning early in the 20th century and is characterized by the use of blues notes, call and response, syncopation (the use of an accent in an unexpected place), swing (which depends on the rhythm), and improvisation (not memorized or read from a composition).

jazz

African American composer and pianist ____ (1867-1917), the “King of Ragtime,” wrote important ragtime pieces such as The Entertainer and Maple Leaf Rag as well as the opera Treemonisha.

Scott Joplin

Famous Romantic Italian composer ____ (1858-1924) wrote the famous operas Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Turandot, and La bohème.

Puccini

German Romantic composer Richard ____ (1864-1949) wrote the tone poems Don Juan, Don Quixote, Macbeth, and Also sprach Zarathustra.

Strauss

One Famous opera composer during the Romantic period was an Italian named Giuseppe ____ (1813-1901); a few of this composer’s 28 operas include Rigoletto, Otello, Falstaff, La Traviata, and Aida

Verdi

Louis ____ (1901-1971) was a famous American jazz musician who played the trumpet and is known for his scat singing in which he sang syllables or nonsense words instead of whole words.

armstrong

American composer George ____ (1898-1937) wrote the opera Porgy and Bess and composed music for Broadway musicals Funny Face and Strike up the Band.

Gershwin

Emanuel Feuermann, Pablo Casals, and Yo-Yo Ma are famous twentieth century

symphony conductors.

violinists.

pianists.

trumpeters.

cellists.

cellists (cellos are stringed instruments similar to violins but make deeper sounds)

____, an American musical genre of the early 20th century characterized by the use of a syncopated rhythm and the inclusion of African music polyrhythms, is associated with Scott Joplin, James Scott, and Joseph Lamb.

Ragtime (aka ragged rhythm)

Claude ____ (1862-1918) was a French composer who wrote the famous La Mer and is often associated with the Impressionist movement in music that avoided strong emotions and excesses often present in Romantic music and stayed away from the depiction of a certain narrative and from using tonality or the common musical scales.

Debussy

____ (1770-1827) was a hearing-impaired composer who lived between the Classical and Romantic periods and who composed the world famous Fifth Symphony, the opera Fidelio, and a wide variety of genres (symphonies, piano sonatas, concerti, violin sonatas, string quartets, etc.).

Beethoven