Music History 2 Practice Flashcards

These flashcards cover key vocabulary terms related to music history, focusing on important concepts and techniques discussed in class.

Extended Technique

An unconventional method of playing an instrument or singing to produce sounds outside its traditional capabilities.

Tone Clusters

A musical technique involving striking the keyboard with the palms, hands, or forearms to create dissonance.

Microtonal Music

Music that uses pitch differences smaller than a half-step.

Indeterminacy of Composition

Music where the score is fixed but chance methods are used to create it.

Indeterminacy of Performance

Music where the score is not fixed and allows for performers to make choices that change the performance.

Total Serialism

The serialization of musical elements including rhythm and dynamics, not just pitch.

Minimalism

A compositional style characterized by simple repetitive patterns and a focus on the process of music making.

Musique Concrète

Music that uses recorded sounds as raw material for composition.

Third Stream Music

A genre that combines elements of jazz and Western classical music.

New Complexity

A reaction against minimalism and neo-tonal music that emphasizes complex musical structures.

Pastiche

An artistic work that imitates the style of other works, often combining multiple influences.

Twelve-Tone Technique

A method of composition using a series of all twelve pitches of the chromatic scale in a fixed order.

Aggregate

The complete set of all twelve pitch-classes in music.

Aleatoric Music

Music composed using chance or spontaneous decisions.

Phase Music

The contrast between two instruments playing in sync and then gradually phasing out of sync, creating a texture of shifting patterns.

Graphical Notation

A visual representation of music through non-traditional symbols instead of standard musical notation.

Tintinnabuli

A musical style characterized by the use of tones resembling those of bells, often associated with composer Arvo Pärt.