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Incomposite Interval
An incomposite interval (; ) is a concept in the Ancient Greek theory of music concerning melodic musical intervals () between neighbouring notes in a tetrachord or scale which, for that reason, do not encompass smaller intervals. ( means "uncompounded".) Aristoxenus ( fl. 335 BCE) defines melodically incomposite intervals in the following context: In another place, Aristoxenus clarifies that It is thus not an issue of the voice being physically incapable of singing a note within an incomposite interval. For example, in the enharmonic genus the distance from the neighbouring scale degrees ''lichanos'' () to ''mesē'' () is a ditone—a gap equivalent to the major-third interval between F and A in the modern scale. In such a case the function of the note λιχανός is such that "the 'nature of μελῳδία' somehow requires that it should leap forward at least as far as μέση, without touching down anywhere in between. Any smaller distance is melodically impossible or u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical System Of Ancient Greece
The musical system of ancient Greece evolved over a period of more than 500 years from simple scales of tetrachords, or divisions of the perfect fourth, into several complex systems encompassing tetrachords and octaves, as well as octave scales divided into seven to thirteen intervals. Any discussion of the music of ancient Greece, theoretical, philosophical or aesthetic, is fraught with two problems: there are few examples of written music, and there are many, sometimes fragmentary, theoretical and philosophical accounts. The empirical research of scholars like Richard Crocker, C. André Barbera, and John Chalmers has made it possible to look at the ancient Greek systems as a whole without regard to the tastes of any one ancient theorist. The primary genera they examine are those of Pythagoras and the Pythagorean school, Archytas, Aristoxenos, and Ptolemy (including his versions of the genera of Didymos and Eratosthenes). Overview of the first complete tone system As an init ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver Strunk
William Oliver Strunk (March 22, 1901 – February 24, 1980) was an American musicologist. Charles Rosen called him one of the most influential American musicologists of the 1930s–1960s.Rosen, Charles. "The Discipline of Philology: Oliver Strunk," collected in ''Critical Entertainments''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. He was known for his anthology ''Source Readings in Music History'' (1950) and his work on Byzantine music. He was the son of ''Elements of Style'' coauthor William Strunk, Jr. (1869–1946) Life and career Strunk attended Cornell University from 1917 to 1919 and again in 1927, studying under Otto Kinkeldey. While never earning a university degree, he received honorary degrees from the University of Rochester in 1936 and from the University of Chicago in 1970. He studied at Berlin University from 1927 to 1928 and then worked at the Library of Congress, becoming head of the Music Division in 1934. He began his teaching career as a lecturer at the Cath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Augmented Second
In classical music from Western culture, an augmented second is an interval that, in equal temperament, is sonically equivalent to a minor third, spanning three semitones, and is created by widening a major second by a chromatic semitone.Benward & Saker (2003). ''Music: In Theory and Practice, Vol. I'', p.54. . Specific example of an A2 not given but general example of major intervals described. For instance, the interval from C to D is a major second, two semitones wide, and the interval from C to D is an augmented second, spanning three semitones. Usage Augmented seconds occur in many scales, most importantly the harmonic minor and its various modes. They also occur in the various Gypsy scales (which consist almost entirely of augmented and minor seconds). In harmonic minor scales, the augmented second occurs between the sixth and seventh scale degrees. For example, in the scale of A harmonic minor, the notes F and G form the interval of an augmented second. This distinguish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steps And Skips
In music, a step, or conjunct motion,Bonds, Mark Evan (2006). ''A History of Music in Western Culture'', p.123. 2nd ed. . is the difference in pitch between two consecutive notes of a musical scale. In other words, it is the interval between two consecutive scale degrees. Any larger interval is called a skip (also called a leap), or disjunct motion. In the diatonic scale, a step is either a minor second (sometimes also called ''half step'') or a major second (sometimes also called ''whole step''), with all intervals of a minor third or larger being skips. For example, C to D (major second) is a step, whereas C to E (major third) is a skip. More generally, a step is a smaller or narrower interval in a musical line, and a skip is a wider or larger interval with the categorization of intervals into steps and skips is determined by the tuning system and the pitch space used. Melodic motion in which the interval between any two consecutive pitches is no more than a step, or, less ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Scale
In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch. A scale ordered by increasing pitch is an ascending scale, and a scale ordered by decreasing pitch is a descending scale. Often, especially in the context of the common practice period, most or all of the melody and harmony of a musical work is built using the notes of a single scale, which can be conveniently represented on a staff with a standard key signature. Due to the principle of octave equivalence, scales are generally considered to span a single octave, with higher or lower octaves simply repeating the pattern. A musical scale represents a division of the octave space into a certain number of scale steps, a scale step being the recognizable distance (or interval) between two successive notes of the scale. However, there is no need for scale steps to be equal within any scale and, particularly as demonstrated by microtonal music, there is no limit to how many notes can be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melody
A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of pitch (music), pitch and rhythm, while more figuratively, the term can include other musical elements such as Timbre, tonal color. It is the foreground to the background accompaniment. A line or part (music), part need not be a foreground melody. Melodies often consist of one or more musical Phrase (music), phrases or Motif (music), motifs, and are usually repeated throughout a musical composition, composition in various forms. Melodies may also be described by their melodic motion or the pitches or the interval (music), intervals between pitches (predominantly steps and skips, conjunct or disjunct or with further restrictions), pitch range, tension (music), tension and release, continuity and coheren ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perfect Fourth
A fourth is a musical interval encompassing four staff positions in the music notation of Western culture, and a perfect fourth () is the fourth spanning five semitones (half steps, or half tones). For example, the ascending interval from C to the next F is a perfect fourth, because the note F is the fifth semitone above C, and there are four staff positions between C and F. Diminished and augmented fourths span the same number of staff positions, but consist of a different number of semitones (four and six, respectively). The perfect fourth may be derived from the harmonic series as the interval between the third and fourth harmonics. The term ''perfect'' identifies this interval as belonging to the group of perfect intervals, so called because they are neither major nor minor. A perfect fourth in just intonation corresponds to a pitch ratio of 4:3, or about 498 cents (), while in equal temperament a perfect fourth is equal to five semitones, or 500 cents (see additive s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicola Vicentino
Nicola Vicentino (1511 – 1575 or 1576) was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most progressive musicians of the age, inventing, among other things, a microtonal keyboard. Life Little is known of his early life. Born in Vicenza, he may have studied with Adrian Willaert in Venice, which was close by, and he acquired an early interest in the contemporary humanistic revival, including the study of ancient Greek music theory and performance practice (about which little was known, but was then being uncovered, through the work of scholars such as Girolamo Mei and Giangiorgio Trissino). At some time in the 1530s or early 1540s, he went to Ferrara, which was to become the center for experimental secular music in Italy from the middle to the end of the 16th century. Apparently, he served as a music tutor to the Duke of Ferrara and some of his family members in the House of Este, and some of Vincentino's music was sung at the court of Ferra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quarter Tone
A quarter tone is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval about half as wide (aurally, or logarithmically) as a semitone, which itself is half a whole tone. Quarter tones divide the octave by 50 cents each, and have 24 different pitches. Quarter tone has its roots in the music of the Middle East and more specifically in Persian traditional music. However, the first evidenced proposal of quarter tones, or the quarter-tone scale (24 equal temperament), was made by 19th-century music theorists Heinrich Richter in 1823Julian Rushton, "Quarter-Tone", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001). and Mikhail Mishaqa about 1840. Composers who have written music using this scale include: Pierre Boulez, Julián Carrillo, Mildred Couper, George Enescu, Alberto Ginastera, Gérard Grisey, Alois Hába, Ljubica Marić, Charles Ives, Tristan Murail, Krzysztof Pendere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diatonic Genus
In the musical system of ancient Greece, genus (Greek: γένος 'genos'' pl. γένη 'genē'' Latin: ''genus'', pl. ''genera'' "type, kind") is a term used to describe certain classes of intonations of the two movable notes within a tetrachord. The tetrachordal system was inherited by the Latin medieval theory of scales and by the modal theory of Byzantine music; it may have been one source of the later theory of the jins of Arabic music. In addition, Aristoxenus (in his fragmentary treatise on rhythm) calls some patterns of rhythm "genera". Tetrachords According to the system of Aristoxenus and his followers—Cleonides, Bacchius, Gaudentius, Alypius, Bryennius, and Aristides Quintilianus—the paradigmatic tetrachord was bounded by the fixed tones ''hypate'' and ''mese'', which are a perfect fourth apart and do not vary from one genus to another. Between these are two movable notes, called ''parhypate'' and ''lichanos''. The upper tone, lichanos, can vary over the range ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semitone
A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between two adjacent notes in a 12-tone scale. For example, C is adjacent to C; the interval between them is a semitone. In a 12-note approximately equally divided scale, any interval can be defined in terms of an appropriate number of semitones (e.g. a whole tone or major second is 2 semitones wide, a major third 4 semitones, and a perfect fifth 7 semitones. In music theory, a distinction is made between a diatonic semitone, or minor second (an interval encompassing two different staff positions, e.g. from C to D) and a chromatic semitone or augmented unison (an interval between two notes at the same staff position, e.g. from C to C). These are enharmonically equivalent when twelve-tone equal temperament is used, but are not the same thing in meantone temper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
