Music

Listening positionality

thinking about our position, sometimes privilege, in relation to what we are hearing. Also requires us to be aware of how WAM functions

pitch

a particular note

range

different pitches from highest to lowest that a particular instrument can play or a singer can sing

sting instruments

from highest to lowest, violin, viola, cello(violoncello), and double bass

woodwind instruments

flute, clarinet, oboe, basson

brass

trumpet, french horn, trombone, and tuba

percussion

drums, xylophone, marimba and more

other group

keyboards such as piano, organ or harpsichord or guitars and lute

timbre

quality of a sound, can be hard to define

Theodore W. Adorno related timbre to color and sonority

orchestration

art of combining the different timbres of instruments sounds into new sounds

what makes up a string quartet

two violins, one viola and one cello

chamber music

music or ensemble for a small space consisting of only a few musicians

Vocal ranges

highest to lowest - soprano, alto, tenor, bass

also mezzo = middle, countertenor - men who have trained their falsetto voices to be higher then speaking voice, contralto contra = lower

castrato

men who were castrated at a young age to keep their voice high before puberty hit

rhythm

sensation of beat (or pulse) in music, often the part in music we tap our foot to. Rhythm also includes the subdivision of the beat

it is felt and temporal

Metre

the way rhythm and the beat are organized, groupings of two, three or multiples of these

count beats to find metre

compound metre

blending of duple and triple metres - usually two or three groups of two or three

melody

series of pitches arranged in a distinctive sequence that played or sung over time - singable, horizontal dimension of music

key

collection or family of pitches that organized in terms of the relationships between them, major and minor

what makes a good melody

progress in stepwise motion, narrative arc (move away from home pitch towards climax and back to home

motives

smaller units or building blocks that a melody is made up of

theme

chunk of melody that we recognize and that repeats in the music

made of scalable parts, smaller units creating bigger ones

harmony

simultaneous sounding of two or more pitches, not singable

rule of resolution of dissonance

dissonances always resolve to consonances

dissonance - instability, incomplete

consonance - opposite, stability ,complete

tonality

the system of relationships between chords in a piece of music defined by a central pitch or harmony and the other chords relationship to it

all harmonies or chords orient to tonic(home) and goes between it and the 4 and 5 chords