Music section 1

What is music broadly defined as?

Sound organized in time made by any medium, not just instruments.

The composition and performance of music can happen simultaneously, what is this called?

Improvisation.

Music of the Western world pertains to what?

The musical traditions that arose in Europe in the past 2 millennia and their extensions in America.

Sound is broken down into 2 dimensions, what are these dimensions?

frequency and amplitude.

What does the amplitude of a sound wave influence?

It affects the loudness of a sound.

What does the frequency of a sound wave influence?

It affects the pitch of a sound.

What is the range of frequencies that can be heard by a human ear?

Anything between 20 and 20,000 cycles per second.

What do orchestral musicians in the United States tune to?

A-440

What are the 2 types of musical sounds.

Pitched and non-pitched.

Who are the 2 late 19th century ethnomusicologists who broke instruments down into 4 families.

Curt Sachs and Erich Von Hornbostel.

What is a ethnomusicologists?

scholars who study the music of other cultures, or multiple cultures comparatively.

What are all the names of the Sachs/Hornbostel system?

Membranophone, Aerophone, Idiophone, Electrophone, Chordophone.

What instrument is prominent in the start of “March to the Scaffold” from the Symphonie fantastique?

Timpani

What is used in The Padstow Lifeboat to simulate stormy seas?

Cymbals (Idiophone)

What do electrophones use to make soundwaves?

an oscillator.

What 2 instruments introduce the 1st theme in March to the Scaffold?

Cello and double bass.

What instrument is prominent in the Star Trek (main title) and mimics the foghorn in Padstow Lifeboat?

French horn.

What plays the A theme in "Take the ‘A’ Train?

Saxophone

What is the instrument that plays at the start of “Take the ‘A’ Train” and is the accompanying instrument in “Wanderlied” and “Charlie Rutlage”

Piano

When did the first electronic instruments begin to appear?

early 20th century.

What is the best known early electronic instrument?

Theremin

How do you use a Theremin?

The performer regulates frequencies with one hand and amplitude with the other by disturbing electric fields that surround protruding bars.

When did the next big innovations electronic music come?

Post WW2

Why did the end of WW2 cultivate the incline in electronic music innovations?

state-of-art studios were no longer needed for military use.

Post WW2, electronic sounds and sounds produce by instruments were recorded on what?

Tape.

What is the advantage of using tape to record?

Tape can be manipulated, edited, and recombined to from collages of noise.

What was the collage of tapes first known as?

Musique Concrete.

Why was the collages of tapes first known as Musique Concrete?

The first practitioners were based in Paris.

What are the basic techniques of tape music?

looping and splicing, which cannot be reproduced by a human performer.

What 4 properties does a sound have?

pitch, volume, duration, and timbre.

What is the pitch of a sound?

The lowness or highness of a sound.

When someone refers to the pitch of a note, what are they referring to?

a single note whose highness or lowness does not change.

What happens when you shorten the length of a string?

The original pitch is now played at an octave higher.

why does decreasing the length of a string increase the pitch by a whole octave?

the string vibrates twice as fast.

Where is middle C located on a keyboard?

left of the group of 2 black keys closest to the middle.

What is the distance between 2 adjacent keys called?

Half step or semi tone.

What is the smallest interval in western music?

half step or semi tone.

What is the distance between every other key called?

whole step

what is the name of the white keys on a keyboard?

natural keys

Music notation uses a ___ staff.

five-line

what determines the assignment of a staff?

the clef

What is clef French for?

key

The treble clef is also known as?

G clef

Where is the location of G on a Treble clef?

second line from the bottom.

Bass clef is also known as?

F clef

Where is the location of F on a Bass clef?

fourth line from the bottom

Why does the C clef have multiple names?

It is moveable

When the C of a C clef is in the middle, what is it called?

An alto clef.

When the C of a C clef is on the fourth line from the bottom, what is it called?

Tenor clef

A piano uses 2 bracketed staves, what is this called?

Grand staff.

When a note is written on a staff, where does the sharp or flat symbol go?

before the note

What is a pitch made of?

One dominant frequency and many faint ones.

What is the lowest frequency called?

The fundamental

What are the faint frequencies called?

partials or overtones

in the world of pure sound waves and overtones, pitches follow what type of pattern?

mathematical

when did the equal temperament system of tuning become dominant in western tradition?

around 1750

an octave is divided into how many parts?

12

The twelve parts of an octave played in an increasing fashion is called what?

A chromatic scale

What is the distance between 2 consecutive notes in a chromatic scale?

a half step

In The Little Train of Caipira from Bachianas brasilieras no.2, showcases a ____________ just after the train reaches the crest of the hill.

descending chromatic scale.

Two different labels for the same piano key is called what?

An enharmonic

What is the enharmonic for C?

B#

What is the enharmonic for B?

Cb

In western tradition, most composers choose how many pitches as the basis for a piece of music?

7

When arranged in ascending order, the 7 pitches that a composer use are called a what?

Diatonic scale

What is the most common scale?

C major scale

When writing a scale, what degree is repeated at the top?

The 1st

How would it sound if we ended on the 7th term of major scale?

It would sound unstable.

What is the 7th scale degree called?

The leading tone.

Why is the 7th degree the leading tone?

because it begs to be resolved

What is the 5th scale degree called?

Dominant pitch

Why is the 5th pitch called what it’s called?

because it acts as a second anchor.

What is the term for four half steps?

M3

Any interval can be performed as a what?

Harmony or Melody

The intervals that exceed an octave are what?

m9, M9, m10, M10

What can a scale be described as?

a succession of whole and half steps.

What is the pattern of a major scale?

U U V U U U V

An E to Gb would be called what?

diminished 3rd

What should a major scale only consist of?

Major and minor 2nds.

When a minor interval is made smaller, either by lowering the top note or raising the bottom note by using an accidental, it is said to be?

diminished.

What are the 3 minor scales

Natural, Harmonic, Melodic.

What do all minor scales have in common?

They all have lowered third scale degrees.

Where is the interval pattern in a natural minor?

UVUUVUU

What is present in a major scale that isn’t in a natural minor?

The pull from the 7th scale degree to the 8th.

In order to create an upward pull in a minor scale, what scale would a musician use?

Harmonic minor scale.

What is changed in order to make a harmonic minor?

The 7th scale degree is raised.

What is the alterations to a melodic minor scale?

The 6th and 7th scale degree are raised while ascending, and returned back to a natural minor scale while descending.

What do these alterations encourage?

An upward pull to the higher tonic, and a downward pull to the 5th scale degree.

When a minor and major scale uses the same seven pitches but different tonics, what are they called?

Relative major and minor to each other.

Major and minor scales that start and end on the same tonic are called what?

Parallel.

relative scales are perceived as being more ___ compared to parallel scale because they use the same pitches?

related

What does a blues scale combine

Major and minor scales

What scale degrees can be lowered in a blues scale

3rd and 7th

What is a melody?

a series of successive pitches to form a coherent whole.

All melodies have a profile, also known as?

contour

What melody in The Padstow Lifeboat is conjunct?

B melody

Melodies ascend and descend in what type of manner?

Wavelike manner.

What is a very common contour for a melody?

An arch

Each pitch is numbered on what type of staff?

Grand staff

What is a viola’s range?

C3 to E6