Music in world cultures 2

MUS 250 Test 2 Vocab

General:

Musical pathways: Ruth Finnegan’s term for everyday musical activities pursued by amateur musicians

Glissando: A musical gesture that entails sliding from one pitch to another

Ternary form: Three-part form

Tonic: Central pitch and, in Western music, the chord based on it

Affinity Community: People who come together by choice to participate in particular activities or forms of music making

Folk Music: A category conventionally applied to styles of music transmitted by oral tradition, maintained in collective memory by a group of people, associated with nonprofessionals, and regarded as the cultural property of a group of people bounded by national, social, or ethnic identity, often called traditional music or vernacular music

Early Music: Music of the European past or its twentieth-century revival

Performance Practice: The manner in which music is interpreted and performed

Accra, Ghana:

Highlife: West African popular music combining indigenous melodies and instruments with the influence of Western rock and jazz

Agbadza: An Ewe dance performed at social gatherings and funerals

Atumpan: Large drums, the central instruments in ensembles used in Asante ceremonies and state occasions

Talking Drums: Membranophones or idiophones that produce pitched tones and can replicate patterns of a tonal language

Mumbai, India:

Bhajan: Hindu devotional songs

Aarati: Traditional Hindu hymn of praise

Sitar: North Indian plucked lute with both played and sympathetic strings

Swaramandal: North Indian zither

Shankh: Indian conch shell

Tanpura: Plucked lute that sounds like a constant drone in South Indian music

Filmi Git: Indian film songs

Playback song/singer: A singer who is prerecorded for use in Indian films

Ghazal: A strophic song sung in Urdu, traditionally performed for elite audiences in Northern India, that has exerted a strong influence on Contemporary Indian film music.

Boston, Massachusetts:

Buskers: Public street performer who collects donations from passerby

Panpipes (Sikus): Aerophone constructed of three or more small pipes fastened together

Ballad: A song genre commemorating important events and individuals, usually in strophic form

Uilleann Pipes: Irish smallpipes with three drones, a keyed chanter, and a bellows to fill the bag

Bodhran: Irish frame drum

Penny whistle: Small Irish aerophone with six finger holes

Fado: Literally, “fate”; a song genre closely associated with Lisbon and popular within Portuguese expatriate communities

Fadista: Singer of the fado

Arpeggio: Technique in Western music when a chord is played one pitch at a time, usually from bottom to top

Rubato: Expressive change through subtle change of tempo

Coladeira: Cape Verdean traditional vocal form with verses and refrain

Cavaquinho: A high pitched strummed and plucked chordophone

Gamelan: A large Indonesian ensemble consisting mainly of metallophones

Colotomic functions: Time-keeping function of gongs in the Indonesian gamelan

Gamelan gong kebyar: See gong kebyar

Circular breathing: Technique for maintaining an unbroken tone on a wind instrument by breathing in through the nose and constantly forcing air out through the mouth

Beating Tones: Acoustical PHenomenon perceived as a shimmering quality when two slightly different pitches are played at the same time

Rhythmic cycle: A repeating rhythmic sequence that may be subdivided in complex and constantly changing ways

Interlocking parts (kotekan): Instrumental or vocal parts in which silences on one part occur simultaneously with sound in another, creating the sense of a single musical line

Polos: First part in Balinese Interlocking parts (koketna)

Angsel: Sudden break following a unison sound in gamelan kebyar music

Folk music revival: Interest in traditional music and dance associated with American counterculture in the 1950s

Tremolo: A regular fluctuation or trembling of a sound, produced by varying the intensity of the sound

Blue note: Lowered third (and sometimes seventh) scale degree in blues and jazz

Broadsides: English or American narrative poem of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, printed on one side of a page, generally addressing contemporary events and personalities

Viols: Bowed chordophone used in fifteenth to eighteenth century Europe

General:

Lullaby: Song to lull a baby to sleep

Strophic form: A form in which all verses of text are set to the same melody. Strophic form can include a refrain that is sung between versus

Musical entrainment: Alignment of body motion to music heard

Indian Lullaby:

Raga: The Indian system for organizing melodies according to their distinctive pitch content, ornaments, and range of associations

Raga Nilambari: Indian category of melody associated with lullabies and sleep

Rasa: Emotion associated with a particular Indian Raga

Karnatak Music: Music of South India

Sargam: Indian notation that names the seven main pitches in ascending or descending order

Svara: individual pitch within a raga, identified by position and associated ornaments

Gamaka: Ornament in South Indian music

Vocable: An alternative word for nonsense syllables

Kriti (kirtanam): South INdian devotional song

Tala: An Indian rhythmic framework consisting of time cycles that contain a fixed number of counts

Tanpura: Plucked lute that sounds a constant drone in South Indian music

Mrdangam: South Indian double headed drum

Quinceanera: A traditional Latino celebration marking the passage of fifteen year old girls into adulthood

Mariachi: A Mexican instrumental ensembles that includes the guitarron, vihuela, violin, and trumpets; the musicians in the group

Charro: Mexican cowboy whose fancy dress, associated with the mariachi identity, consists of a sombrero (wide-brimmed hat), a short jacked, a large bow tie, and tight trousers with rows of botonaduras (shiny buttons).

Vihuela: A small, strummed folk guitar, a key instrument in the mariachi ensemble

Guitarron: A plucked lute that has a hollow resonating body with waisted sides, such as the guitarron, Hawaiian steel guitar, ukelele, and vihuela

Bagpipe: An aerophone with one or more drones and a chanter, all attached to an air reservoir, or bag, allowing for uninterrupted sound production

Piob mhor bagpipe: Literally, “great pipes”; the Gaelic name for the great Highland bagpipes

Uilleann pipes: Irish smallpipes with three drones, a keyed chanter, and a bellows to fill the bag

Chanter: Pipe with finger holes on which bagpiper plays melody

Blowpipe: The pipe through which a bagpiper blows to fill the air reservoir, or bag

Drone pipes: Pipes that sound a constant tone but are not fingered

Reeds: A thin stripe of wood, metal, or plastic, that is fixed at one end and free at the other and that produces sound when set into vibration by moving air

Gracings, Grace notes: The practice of inserting grace notes into bagpipe melodies

Doubling: Group of several grace notes in bagpipe music, one of which has the same pitch as the note ornamented

Birl: A quick ornamental figure of two adjacent pitches in bagpipe music

Grip: A quick ornamental figure of two nonadjacent pitches that serves as a set of grace notes in bagpipe music

Canntaireachd: See mouth music

Dydeling: (also spelled diddling) Traditional Irish mouth music

Clip: Ornamented, quick note preceding the main pitch in Irish bagpipe music

Pibroch: A genre of solo bagpipe music that consists of a set of elaborate variations on a theme

Jig: A lively dance tune popular in Ireland and among Irish Americans

Ceilidh: A social or musical event dating back to the eighteenth century and associated with Celtic traditions

Reel: A genre of Scottish and Irish dance music, typically played on a bagpipe

General:
Diaspora: People living outside their historic homeland who maintain memories of, and attachments to, their place of origin

Oral Transmission: Music transmitted without writing

Written Transmission: The use of a system of music writing

Chinese Migration: A process of migration in which immigrants follow extended personal and familial networks to a particular community

Muyu: A genre of traditional Chinese vocal music whose texts deal with the concerns of everyday life, performed by men or women in public or private. Also spelled as mu’yu or muk’yu

Cadence: A melodic or harmonic figure, typically at the end of a phrase or piece, that creates a sense of repose or resolution

Fixed Form: A musical form in which aspects of its content are predetermined

Syllabic Text-Setting: Vocal music in which each syllable of text is sung to one pitch

Melismatic text-setting: Vocal music in which each syllable of the text is sung to many pitches

Arab migration from the Middle East:

Mawwal: Traditional Arab song that alternates sections in free and regular rhythm

Maqam: The system governing pitch and melody in Arab music

‘Ud: Plucked five-stringed Middle Eastern lute with a short neck and a large body with a rounded back

Qanun: A Middle Eastern trapezoidal zither with twenty-six sets of three strings, played polyphonically with plectra attached to the index fingers of both hands

Plectrum: A small piece of hard material such as horn, shell, or plastic, used to pluck a stringed instrument

Offbeat: A pitch that occurs after a metrically strong beat

Duple Meter: A grouping, or measure of two beats

African American Migration

Spiritual: A genre of songs, usually with verses and a refrain, that emerged from the musical expression of African American slaves converted to New World Christianity

Call-and-Response: A performance practice in which a leader makes a musical statement and another performer (or group of performers) responds with a musical answer

Quadruple meter: Rhythmic organization based on groupings, or measures, or four beats

Vietnamese Migration

Dan bau: A vietnamese zither with a pitch-bending bar

Dan Tranh: A Vietnamese sixteen-stringed zither

Dan Nhi: A Vietnamese two-stringed lute

Phach: Vietnamese time period of one beat marked by striking a bamboo block

Song Cycle: A group of songs that are composed as a set, sometimes because they have texts by the same poet or are connected thematically in some other way

Tan Nhac: A Vietnamese popular song tradition of the French colonial period that used Western instruments and Vietnamese lyrics, and occasionally drew on Vietnamese folk melodies

Ho: A Vietnamese work song

Modulation: The process by which music moves from one key or scale type to another

Countermelody: A melody that contrasts with a main melody, or tune, played at the same time