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Quartal Harmony
In music, quartal harmony is the building of harmonic structures built from the intervals of the perfect fourth, the augmented fourth and the diminished fourth. For instance, a three-note quartal chord on C can be built by stacking perfect fourths, C–F–B. : Quintal harmony is harmonic structure preferring the perfect fifth, the augmented fifth and the diminished fifth. For instance, a three-note quintal chord on C can be built by stacking perfect fifths, C–G–D. : Properties Use of the terms ''quartal'' and ''quintal'' arises from a contrast, compositional or perceptual, with traditional tertian harmonic constructions. Listeners familiar with music of the European common practice period perceive tonal music as that which uses major and minor chords and scales, wherein both the major third and minor third constitute the basic ''structural elements'' of the harmony. Regarding chords built from perfect fourths alone, composer Vincent Persichetti writes that: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect of all human societies, a cultural universal. While scholars agree that music is defined by a few specific elements, there is no consensus on their precise definitions. The creation of music is commonly divided into musical composition, musical improvisation, and musical performance, though the topic itself extends into academic disciplines, criticism, philosophy, and psychology. Music may be performed or improvised using a vast range of instruments, including the human voice. In some musical contexts, a performance or composition may be to some extent improvised. For instance, in Hindustani classical music, the performer plays spontaneously while following a partially defined structure and using characteristic motifs. In modal jazz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minor Third
In music theory, a minor third is a musical interval that encompasses three half steps, or semitones. Staff notation represents the minor third as encompassing three staff positions (see: interval number). The minor third is one of two commonly occurring thirds. It is called ''minor'' because it is the smaller of the two: the major third spans an additional semitone. For example, the interval from A to C is a minor third, as the note C lies three semitones above A. Coincidentally, there are three staff positions from A to C. Diminished and augmented thirds span the same number of staff positions, but consist of a different number of semitones (two and five). The minor third is a skip melodically. Notable examples of ascending minor thirds include the opening two notes of " Greensleeves" and of " Light My Fire". The minor third may be derived from the harmonic series as the interval between the fifth and sixth harmonics, or from the 19th harmonic. The minor third is co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voice Leading
Voice leading (or part writing) is the linear progression of individual melodic lines ( voices or parts) and their interaction with one another to create harmonies, typically in accordance with the principles of common-practice harmony and counterpoint. Rigorous concern for voice leading is of greatest importance in common-practice music, although jazz and pop music also demonstrate attention to voice leading to varying degrees. In ''Jazz Theory'', Gabriel Sakuma writes that " the surface level, jazz voice-leading conventions seem more relaxed than they are in common-practice music."Terefenko, Dariusz (2014). ''Jazz Theory: From Basic to Advanced Study'', p. 33. Routledge. . Marc Schonbrun also states that while it is untrue that "popular music has no voice leading in it, ..the largest amount of popular music is simply conceived with chords as blocks of information, and melodies are layered on top of the chords."Schonbrun, Marc (2011). ''The Everything Music Theory Book'', pp. 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suspension (music)
A nonchord tone (NCT), nonharmonic tone, or embellishing tone is a note in a piece of music or song that is not part of the implied or expressed chord set out by the harmonic framework. In contrast, a chord tone is a note that is a part of the functional chord (see: factor (chord)). Non-chord tones are most often discussed in the context of the common practice period of classical music, but they can be used in the analysis of other types of tonal music as well, such as Western popular music. Nonchord tones are often categorized as ''accented non-chord tones'' and ''unaccented non-chord tones'' depending on whether the dissonance occurs on an accented or unaccented beat (or part of a beat). Over time, some musical styles assimilated chord types outside of the common-practice style. In these chords, tones that might normally be considered nonchord tones are viewed as chord tones, such as the seventh of a minor seventh chord. For example, in 1940s-era bebop jazz, an F played with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consonance And Dissonance
In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive Sound, sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness, unpleasantness, or unacceptability, although there is broad acknowledgement that this depends also on familiarity and musical expertise. The terms form a structural dichotomy in which they define each other by mutual exclusion: a consonance is what is not dissonant, and a dissonance is what is not consonant. However, a finer consideration shows that the distinction forms a gradation, from the most consonant to the most dissonant. In casual discourse, as German composer and music theorist Paul Hindemith stressed, "The two concepts have never been completely explained, and for a thousand years the definitions have varied". The term ''sonance'' has been proposed to encompass or refer indistinctly to the terms ''consonance'' and ''dissonance' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medieval Music
Medieval music encompasses the sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the first and longest major era of Western classical music and followed by the Renaissance music; the two eras comprise what musicologists generally term as early music, preceding the common practice period. Following the traditional division of the Middle Ages, medieval music can be divided into Early (500–1150), High (1000–1300), and Late (1300–1400) medieval music. Medieval music includes liturgical music used for the church, and secular music, non-religious music; solely vocal music, such as Gregorian chant and choral music (music for a group of singers), solely instrumental music, and music that uses both voices and instruments (typically with the instruments accompanying the voices). Gregorian chant was sung by monks during Catholic Mass. The Mass is a reenactment of Christ's Last Supper, intended to provide a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voicing (music)
In music theory, voicing refers to two closely related concepts: # How a musician or group distributes, or spaces, notes and chords on one or more instruments # The simultaneous vertical placement of notes in relation to each other; this relates to the concepts of spacing and doubling It includes the instrumentation and vertical spacing and ordering of the musical notes in a chord: which notes are on the top or in the middle, which ones are doubled, which octave each is in, and which instruments or voices perform each note. Vertical placement The following three chords are all C-major triads in root position with different voicings. The first is in close position (the most compact voicing), while the second and third are in open position (that is, with wider spacing). Notice also that the G is doubled at the octave in the third chord; that is, it appears in two different octaves. : Examples Many composers, as they developed and gained experience, became more enter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Complement (music)
In music theory, ''complement'' refers to either traditional interval complementation, or the aggregate complementation of twelve-tone and serialism. In interval complementation a complement is the interval which, when added to the original interval, spans an octave in total. For example, a major 3rd is the complement of a minor 6th. The complement of any interval is also known as its ''inverse'' or ''inversion''. Note that the octave and the unison are each other's complements and that the tritone is its own complement (though the latter is "re-spelt" as either an augmented fourth or a diminished fifth, depending on the context). In the aggregate complementation of twelve-tone music and serialism the complement of one set of notes from the chromatic scale contains all the ''other'' notes of the scale. For example, A-B-C-D-E-F-G is ''complemented'' by B-C-E-F-A. Note that ''musical set theory'' broadens the definition of both senses somewhat. Interval complementation Rule of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inversion (interval)
In music theory, an inversion is a type of change to intervals, chords, voices (in counterpoint), and melodies. In each of these cases, "inversion" has a distinct but related meaning. The concept of inversion also plays an important role in musical set theory. Intervals An interval is inverted by raising or lowering either of the notes by one or more octaves so that the positions of the notes reverse (i.e. the higher note becomes the lower note and vice versa). For example, the inversion of an interval consisting of a C with an E above it (the third measure below) is an E with a C above it – to work this out, the C may be moved up, the E may be lowered, or both may be moved. : The tables to the right show the changes in interval quality and interval number under inversion. Thus, perfect intervals remain perfect, major intervals become minor and vice versa, and augmented intervals become diminished and vice versa. (Doubly diminished intervals become doubly augmented ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Part (music)
A part (or voice) generally refers to a single strand or melody or harmony of music within a larger ensemble or a polyphonic musical composition. There are several senses in which the word is often used: * the physical copy of printed or written sheet music given to any individual instrument or voice (as opposed to the full score which shows all parts in the same document). A musician's part usually does not contain instructions for the other players in the ensemble, only instructions for that individual. * the music played by any group of musicians who all perform in unison for a given piece; in a symphony orchestra, a dozen or more cello players may all play "the same part" even if they each have their own physical copy of the music. This sense of "part" does not require a written copy of the music; a bass player in a rock band "plays the bass part" even if there is no written version of the song. * any individual melody that can be abstracted as continuous and independent fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Key (music)
In music theory, the key of a piece is the group of pitches, or scale, that forms the basis of a musical composition in classical, Western art, and Western pop music. The group features a '' tonic note'' and its corresponding ''chords'', also called a ''tonic'' or ''tonic chord'', which provides a subjective sense of arrival and rest, and also has a unique relationship to the other pitches of the same group, their corresponding chords, and pitches and chords outside the group. Notes and chords other than the tonic in a piece create varying degrees of tension, resolved when the tonic note or chord returns. The key may be in the major or minor mode, though musicians assume major when this is not specified, e.g., "This piece is in C" implies that the key of the song is C major. Popular songs are usually in a key, and so is classical music during the common practice period, around 1650–1900. Longer pieces in the classical repertoire may have sections in contrasting keys. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Root (chord)
In music theory, the concept of root is the idea that a chord (music), chord can be represented and named by one of its Musical note, notes. It is linked to Harmony (music), harmonic thinking—the idea that vertical aggregates of notes can form a single unit, a chord. It is in this sense that one speaks of a "C chord" or a "chord on C"—a chord built from C and of which the note (or pitch) C is the root. When a chord is referred to in Classical music or popular music without a reference to what type of chord it is (either major or minor, in most cases), it is assumed a major triad, which for C contains the notes C, E and G. The root need not be the bass note, the lowest note of the chord: the concept of root is linked to that of the Inverted chord, inversion of chords, which is derived from the notion of Invertible Counterpoint, invertible counterpoint. In this concept, chords can be inverted while still retaining their root. In tertian harmonic theory, wherein chords can be con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
