Music Theory Final

Trichord

Any unordered 3-pitch or pitch-class collection

Triad

A triad is an initially-ordered, 3-element pitch or pitch-class collection that is a subset of the diatonic collection and can be spelled in thirds

Triad type

Major

Triad type

Minor

Triad type

Diminished

Triad type

Augmented

Seventh chord type

MM7

Seventh chord type

Mm7

Seventh chord type

mm7

Seventh chord type

half-diminished 7th

Seventh chord type

diminished 7th

Seventh chord type

mM7

Seventh chord type

Augmented 7th

Spatial relationship measured up from lowest to highest pitch class in semitones; assume enharmonic equivalency and octave equivalency

pitch-class interval

Spatial relationship between two pitches measured in semitones; assume enharmonic, octave, inversional, & transpositional equivalencies; identify by smallest cardinality (only goes up to six)

interval class

Figured bass symbol for:

First inversion, third in base

Figured bass symbol for:

Second inversion, fifth in base

scale with alternating whole and half steps, eight notes (excluding final note, which is an octave up from the first)

octatonic scale

scale with only whole tones, six notes (excluding final note, which is an octave up from the first)

whole tone scale

Tonality

Musical system where one and only one consonant triad is projected in time by means of linear and harmonic elaborations

Consonance

Pitch or pitch collection that is contextually stable and predominant

Aggregate

One instance of the 12 chromatic tones without regard to order

Maximal diversity

Greatest possible variety. Compositional principle based on the intervallic resources of the aggregate.

Atonality/aggregate music

Music that does not display the array of linguistic relations or functions that characterize tonality

Pulse

More-or-less regularly recurring series of timepoints inferred at the onset of musical events or patterns. Organized hierarchically in groups of 2 or 3. Once established, pulse will persist.

Beat

The level of pulse that corresponds to your foot tapping

Meter

The hierarchical organization of pulse into groups of twos and threes

Simple meter

Meter where the beat is divided into two pulsations

Accent of rhythm

An event marked for consciousness because it is higher, longer, more dissonant than, or timbrally distinct from other related events

Rhythm

The pattern of durations of related events called rhythmic groups/modules

phrase

Completes one phase of motion (spatial/linguistic/rhythmic)

Module

Any identifiable time feature that repeats

Chaconne

Baroque dance in triple meter that generally used variation techniques and built up of arbitrarily short units (4 or 8 measures)

Compound meter

Meter where the beat is divided in threes

Isorhythm

Long repeating rhythmic pattern with varied pitch content

Line

A string of adjacent pitches

Melody

A recognizable section of organized pitches built from one or more lines. Main focus of the piece.

Cell

A small repeated collection of pitches and/or intervals

Music

A mental construct involving imagining qualitative or quantitative relations between collections of pitches

Pitch

The percieved quality of sound, fixing its position in the collection of frequencies used in music