In medieval music theory, the terms color and coloration are used in four distinct senses, two of which relate to the notation and structuring of note durations, the third to florid ornamentation, and the fourth to the quality of

chromatic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, ...

music.

Coloration (mensural notation device)

As a notation device in

mensural notation Mensural notation is the musical notation system used for European vocal polyphonic music from the later part of the 13th century until about 1600. The term "mensural" refers to the ability of this system to describe precisely measured rhythm ...

, the 14th–16th century system of notating musical meters and rhythms, ''coloration'' refers to the technique of marking notes as having a change in durational value—most commonly a reduction to two thirds of their normal value. It is indicated by literally coloring the note-heads in the written music differently than their normal appearance. In the 14th and early 15th century, colored notes were typically marked in red while normal notes were black; in the 16th century, the same effect was achieved by filling the note-heads in black while normal notes were hollow. Sequences of colored notes can be used to notate triplet rhythms or

hemiola In music, hemiola (also hemiolia) is the ratio 3:2. The equivalent Latin term is sesquialtera. In rhythm, ''hemiola'' refers to three beats of equal value in the time normally occupied by two beats. In pitch, ''hemiola'' refers to the interval of ...

effects.

Color (isorhythm)

isorhythm Isorhythm (from the Greek for "the same rhythm") is a musical technique using a repeating rhythmic pattern, called a ''talea'', in at least one voice part throughout a composition. ''Taleae'' are typically applied to one or more melodic patterns o ...

ic compositions, a composition technique characteristic of

motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margar ...

s in the 14th and early 15th centuries, the term ''color'' refers to a sequence of repeated notes in the

cantus firmus In music, a ''cantus firmus'' ("fixed melody") is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition. The plural of this Latin term is , although the corrupt form ''canti firmi'' (resulting from the grammatically incorrect tr ...

tenor A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...

of a composition. The ''color'' is typically divided into several ''taleae'', sequences that have the same rhythmic sequence.

Coloration (ornamentation)

In the 16th to the 18th centuries, coloration refers to florid ornamentation, written or improvised, also called

diminution In Western music and music theory, diminution (from Medieval Latin ''diminutio'', alteration of Latin ''deminutio'', decrease) has four distinct meanings. Diminution may be a form of embellishment in which a long note is divided into a series of ...

, as well as to passages of free ornamentation called

coloratura Coloratura is an elaborate melody with runs, trills, wide leaps, or similar virtuoso-like material,''Oxford American Dictionaries''.Apel (1969), p. 184. or a passage of such music. Operatic roles in which such music plays a prominent part, an ...

in the 19th century.

Color (chromaticism)

In the 14th and 15th centuries, used the word "color" to refer to the beauty of the

chromatic 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 tetrach ...

, for the effects of

musica ficta ''Musica ficta'' (from Latin, "false", "feigned", or "fictitious" music) was a term used in European music theory from the late 12th century to about 1600 to describe pitches, whether notated or added at the time of performance, that lie outside ...

, and the division of the whole tone into unequal parts, by which such "imperfect" intervals are "colored".

References

{{reflist, refs= {{harvnb, Grove Dict. M&M, 2001, loc="Coloration" by Robert Donington and Peter Wright. {{harvnb, Grove Dict. M&M, 2001, loc="Color" by

Ernest H. Sanders Ernest Helmut Sanders (4 December 1918 – 13 January 2018) was a German-born American musicologist. Born Ernst Helmut Salomon in Hamburg to banker Paul Salomon and his wife on 4 December 1918, Sanders was educated at the Gelehrtenschule des Johan ...

and Mark Lindley. Medieval music theory