Academic Decathlon Music Fundamentals

a cappella

translated literally, it means "in the church (chapel) style"; for musicians, it has come to mean vocal music without instruments

absolute music

a term to describe non-programmatic music

aleatory/chance music/indeterminancy

music in which elements of the compositional plan or the performance are determined by some random process (ie throwing dice)

antiphonal

during the Baroque, the term describes the effect of polychoral writing

aria

a tuneful, rhythmic portion of an opera; the soloist usually expresses a particular emotional state and uses extreme virtuosity to show off his or her voice

arpeggio

a technique in which the individual pitches of a chord are played in rapid succession rather than simultaneously, in the manner that one would strum a guitar or harp

Ars Antiqua

a designation for music of the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as techniques of pitch and rhythmic notation were devised and early polyphony was developing

Ars Nova

a designation for music of the fourteenth century, when composers employed highly sophisticated techniques of pitch and rhythmic notation to create dense polyphonic pieces

Ars perfecta

the technique of using pervading imitation "perfected" by the Renaissance composer Josquin des Prez

atonality

an approach to composition in which there is no tonal center or tonic note

augenmusik

German for "eye music"; a compositional device in which a composer notates the music so that it visually resembles whatever the poetry is addressing, such as double whole-notes during a reference to someone's eyes

avant-garde

a French term for "military vanguard"; it has been adapted as a description of cutting-edge artistry that seems ahead of its time

Bach Revival

the nineteenth-century revitalization of public interest in the music of J.S. Bach

backbeat

an emphasis on beats two and four in 4/4 meter, characteristic of most rock music

Baroque era

a designation for the period of music history spanning the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century

basso continuo/throroughbass

the Baroque method of realizing the figured-bass numbers, involving two players: a single-line bass instrument (bassoon, cello, etc.) and a chord-playing instrument (harpsichord, lute, etc.); the term thoroughbass is an English synonym

block chord

a chord in which all the pitches are sounded simultaneously, in contrast to an arpeggio

blue note

a pitch that is deliberately sung "out of tune"; it is a device commonly used by jazz and blues musicians, especially on steps 3 and 7 of the scale

cadenza

a section during a solo concerto in which the unaccompanied soloist is featured while the orchestra stops playing; he or she often improvises the virtuosic material that is performed

call-and-response

a performance technique in which a soloist or small group presents a short motif and a larger group echoes or answers with contrasting material

canon

(1) a technique in which a single melody is performed by multiple musicians, but at staggered, overlapping intervals of time, thus producing imitative polyphony; a synonym is "round," and an example is the customary performance technique of the childhood tune "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"; (2) a body of works that have achieved longstanding admiration or popularity

cantus firmus

literally "fixed song," this is a term for a melody that is borrowed from some earlier source - often plainchant - and is imbedded within a new polyphonic piece

castrato

a male singer who was castrated before puberty to preserve his ability to sing in the soprano and alto ranges; the fad for castrati died out with the end of the Baroque

chamber music

in the simplest sense, music suitable for smaller chambers (not large concert halls)

chanson

a French word for song

character piece

a piano genre that grew in popularity in the Romantic era; the small-scale work is a portrayal of a particular image or mood, usually suggested by the title

chorale

a sacred hymn for use in Protestant churches, especially the Lutheran denomination, a chorale melody would be simple and strophic, allowing the congregation to participate easily

classical era

a designation for the period of music history spanning from the mid-eighteenth century through the first two or three decades of the nineteenth century

collage

a compositional technique that combines snippets from older pieces and interweaves them in a new texture

combo

a small jazz or blues ensemble

conmedia dell'arte

an Italian entertainment of the sixteenth century featuring stock (Harlequin, Colombine, etc.) characters who would act in improvised comic skits

complete works

in music, an anthology publication that contains all the compositions by a particular composer

computer music

music that has been generated, transformed, fully composed, or performed by a computer program

concertino

the small group of soloists featured in a concerto grosso

concerto

an instrumental genre that juxtaposes an orchestra against (most often) a soloist, or possibly a small group of soloists

concerto grosso

an instrumental genre of the Baroque era in which a small group of instruments is showcased in alternation with an orchestra

conservatory

a specialized educational institution devoted to instruction in a specific art, such as music

consort

an ensemble of related instruments in contrasting sizes, enabling them to play in different ranges

cori spezzati

"split choirs"; an Italian term for a compositional style that divides music between two ensembles; see polychoral

Counter-Reformation

the changes that took place within the sixteenth-century Catholic Church in response to the criticisms that had launched the Protestant Reformation

crooner

a pop singer whose specialty was to vocalize with a warm, resonant tone and very clear diction

cyclic

describes a multi-movement work in which similar musical material is employed in each movement, to create a sense of unity

dodecaphony

a synonym for Schoenberg's twelve-tone method of composition

electro-acoustic music

music that uses electronic technology to record, generate, and manipulate sounds, with the final product being transmitted via loudspeaker

episode

contrasting melodic material that occurs in between statements of the refrain of a rondo form

ethnomusicologist

a scholar in the field of study (ethnomusicology) that focuses on music and its cultural aspects within local and global contexts

Etude

a piece for an instrument that focuses on a particular technical challenge in order to improve the player's facility with that difficulty

falsetto

a term for a "head voice," which is a high-register singing most often associated with men (but can be achieved by women as well)

figured bass

a bass line containing numbers above or below the bass pitches to indicate what types of triads would harmonize with each pitch

Florentine Camerata

the nickname for the group of people who met in Florence in the early Baroque era and developed the singing style of monody (which they initially called "stile rappresentativo")

free organum

a type of early polyphonic music in which a second melody is added to a plainchant; the added melody moves in different (faster) rhythms that the original chant; it is sometimes called "florid" organum

glissando

a rapid sweeping motion up or down a scale

Gregorian chant

the colloquial for the thousands of melodies sung in the Catholic Church as apart of the liturgy (the Mass and Office services); named for Pope Gregory I; also called plainchant

harmonic

an amplified partial of the overtone series, produced in different ways by different types of instruments (for example, string instruments use a light touch at certain points on a string; flute players generate harmonics by overblowing)

harpsichord

a keyboard instrument that emerged during the Renaissance and flourished during the Baroque era; its exterior resembles a piano, but its keys produce a plucked sound (in contrast to the piano's hammering mechanism)

head

the main melody of a jazz tune, usually heard at the beginning and end of a piece as a "frame" for the improvisatory middle section

hexachord

a set of six pitches; medieval music focused on hexachords rather than full scales

Humanism

a system of thought or worldview that attaches primary importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters

Idee fixe

literally, an obsession; this was Berlioz's term for the recurring melody (representing his "Beloved") that unified the movements of his programmatic cyclic work Symphonie fantastique

imitation mass/parody mass

a mass that is based on a preexistent polyphonic piece (sometimes known as a parody mass)

inversion

in the twelve-tone method, it is a row that is attained by taking the intervals of the primary row and reversing their direction (an upward major third would become a downward major third, and so forth)

leitmotif

a melody representing a particular person, object, or idea

libretto

the poetry that serves as the script for an opera

lied

a German art-song genre for voice and piano that enjoyed enormous popularity in the Romantic period

liturgy

the cycle of worship services observed in the Catholic Church

lute

a plucked string instrument that enjoyed great popularity during the Renaissance; it is related to the guitar but with a more rounded body, a neck that bends away from the fingerboard, and paired strings

Lutherans

a Protestant religious denomination that follows the teachings and beliefs of Martin Luther

Madrigal

a secular voice genre especially popular in the Renaissance; its chief ambition was to express and intensify the poetry by all means available

madrigalism/word-painting

a compositional technique in which a composer tries to illustrate the meaning of a particular word or phrase with musical elements such as tempo, range dynamics and so forth; word-painting was common in the Italian madrigal, so examples of word-painting are often called madrigalisms

maestro di cappella

Italian for "chapel master," the person responsible for all the music in a sacred institution

manuscript music

sheet music that has been hand-written

march

an instrumental genre, usually intended for bands, that features repetitive music patterns and a steady beat (since it originated as a way to keep military groups in step)

matrix

a chart showing the primary row in twelve-tone composition, along with all its possible permutations (transposition to higher pitches, reversed order, inverted order, and retrograde-inversion)

Medieval period/Middle Ages

the earliest style era in Western music history; many summaries of the period begin with the year 800 CE, as notation began to develop and a lasting record of music could be kept; the medieval period (also called the Middle Ages) yielded to the Renaissance era around the year 1400

Melismatic text-setting

a type of vocal music in which there is a long string of notes that correspond to a single syllable of poetry

miniature

a small-scale piece, usually for voice and piano or piano alone, focused on expressing one main mood or concept

Modernism

an artistic trend of the twentieth century that prized novelty above anything else

monody

a homophonic singing style of the early Baroque in which a solo vocalist sings expressively while accompanied by a basso continuo

monster concert

a performance featuring a very large ensemble

movement

a subsection of a large-scale work, such as a symphony or mass, which ends (usually)with a slight pause before proceeding to the next subsection

musique concret

a style in which recorded sounds from the real world are electronically manipulated

nationalism

reflecting the culture or characteristics of a country in art or music

Neume

an early notational symbol, typically used in plainchant, first used to illustrate the general contour of a musical phrase, and later to indicate specific pitches in relation to one another

notation

the written symbols that convey the pitches and rhythm of musical sounds; notation might also indicate expressive nuances such as dynamic levels, tempo, and so forth

oblique organum

a type of early polyphonic music in which a second melody is added to a plainchant; the second melody usually starts on a unison pitch with the plainchant, but the two melodies move apart through successively larger intervals until a perfect interval is achieved; the melodies will then move back to a unison at various points

opera

a genre originating in the Baroque that resembles a play but which requires characters to sing their roles

orchestration

the distribution of musical materials among the various members of an instrumental ensemble so that their sounds are balanced

ordinary

in the context of the Catholic liturgy, ordinary items employ the same words throughout the church year

organum

the first type of polyphonic music to develop in the Middle Ages; see parallel organum, oblique organum, and free organum

ornamentation

improvised details that embellish a written melody

parallel organum

the earliest type of polyphonic music, in which a second melody is added to a plainchant; the second melody maintains a set distance from the original melody, usually a perfect fifth below

paraphrase mass

a mass that employs a borrowed melody, but elaborates the melody and allows different performers to sing the embellished tune at various times

period instruments

instruments that are built in accordance with the technology of an earlier time period, so that their tone replicates the sound quality of that particular era

pervading imitation

a polyphonic technique that sets each phrase of a text to a new point of imitation, meaning that it presents a melodic line that is then imitated by the other performers in the work

piano

a keyboard instrument that first rose to popularity during the Classical period and has held its position to the present day; it derives its full name (pianoforte) from its ability to vary dynamic levels

plainchant

a single-line (monophonic) melody typically used for singing text from the Latin liturgy (see Gregorian chant)

point of imitation

a passage of imitative polyphony in which a melody is introduced that is subsequently imitated by the other performers, similar to the opening section of a canon or round (however, in imitative polyphony, small details of the melodic line may vary from performer to performer)

polychoral

a word describing music that divides vocalists and/or instrumentalists into two balanced ensembles to produce a stereophonic effect for listeners

polytonality

the use of two or more distinct keys simultaneously

practical theorist

an educator who gives instruction on how to notate or perform music