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In Western
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 aspe ...
and
music theory Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the " rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (k ...
, diminution (from
Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...
''diminutio'', alteration of Latin ''deminutio'', decrease) has four distinct meanings. Diminution may be a form of
embellishment In sewing and crafts, an embellishment is anything that adds design interest to the piece. Examples in sewing and craft * appliqué can be made by sewing machine of decorative techniques and or * embroidery, done either by machine or by hand * ...
in which a long note is divided into a series of shorter, usually melodic, values (also called " coloration"; Ger. ''Kolorieren''). Diminution may also be the compositional device where a
melody A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combina ...
, theme or motif is presented in shorter note-values than were previously used. Diminution is also the term for the proportional shortening of the
value Value or values may refer to: Ethics and social * Value (ethics) wherein said concept may be construed as treating actions themselves as abstract objects, associating value to them ** Values (Western philosophy) expands the notion of value beyo ...
of individual note-shapes in mensural notation, either by coloration or by a sign of proportion. A minor or perfect interval that is narrowed by a chromatic semitone is a diminished interval, and the process may be referred to as diminution (this, too, was sometimes referred to as " coloration").


Diminution as embellishment

Diminution is a form of
embellishment In sewing and crafts, an embellishment is anything that adds design interest to the piece. Examples in sewing and craft * appliqué can be made by sewing machine of decorative techniques and or * embroidery, done either by machine or by hand * ...
or melodic variation in which a long note or a series of long notes is divided into shorter, usually melodic, values, as in the similar practices of ''breaking'' or '' division'' in England, ''passaggio'' in Italy, ''double'' in France and ''glosas'' or ''diferencias'' in Spain. It is thoroughly documented in written sources of the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and enjoyed a remarkable flowering in Venice from about 1580–1620. It is an integral aspect of modern performance practice; Donington describes the consequences of failing to add "necessary figuration" as "disastrous".


Italian literature of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century

* Silvestro Ganassibr>''Opera Intitulata Fontegara'' (Venice, 1535)
* Diego Ortiz
''Nel qual si tratta delle Glose'' (1553)
* Giovanni Maffei
''Delle lettere del Sr. Gio. Camillo Maffei da Solofra'' (1562)
* Girolamo Dalla Casa
''Il vero modo di diminuir'' (1584)
*
Giovanni Bassano Giovanni Bassano (c. 1561 – 3 September 1617) was an Italian composer associated with the Venetian School of composers and a cornettist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He was a key figure in the development of the instrumental en ...

''Ricercate, Passaggi et Cadentie'' (1585)
* Giovanni Luca Conforti
''Breve et facile maniera d'essercitarsi a far passaggi'' (1593)
* Riccardo Rogniono
''Passaggi per potersi essercitare nel diminuire terminatamente'' (1594)
* Giovanni Battista Bovicelli
''Regole, passaggi di musica'' (1594)
*
Aurelio Virgiliano Aurelio may refer to: People Politicians * Aurelio D. Gonzales Jr. (born 1964), congressman in the Philippines * Aurélio de Lira Tavares (1905–1998), President of Brazil * Aurelio Martínez, Honduran politician * Aurelio Mosquera (1883–1939), ...

Il Dolcimelo (ms, c. 1600; first publication 1979)
* Francesco Rognoni Taeggio
''Selve de varii passaggi'' (1620 )
* Giovanni Battista Spadi
''Libro de passaggi ascendenti et descendenti'' (1624)


Spanish literature

* Diego Ortiz
''Trattado de Glosas'' (1553)


English literature

* Christopher Simpson
''The Division-Violist'' (1659)''The Division-Violin'' (Playford, 1684)''The Division Flute'' (Walsh, c. 1706)


German literature

*
Adrianus Petit Coclico Adrianus Petit Coclico (1499 in Flanders – after September 1562 in Copenhagen) was a Netherlandish composer of the Renaissance. Biography Like many Renaissance composers, very little is known about Coclico's early life. He was raised Catholi ...

''Compendium Musices'' (Nuremberg, 1552)
* Michael Praetorius
''Syntagma Musicum'', book 3 (1618)
*
Johann Andreas Herbst Johann Andreas Herbst (baptized June 9, 1588 – January 24, 1666) was a German composer and music theorist of the early Baroque era. He was a contemporary of Michael Praetorius and Heinrich Schütz, and like them, assisted in importing the gran ...

''Musica practica'' (1642)


Dutch literature

*
Jacob van Eyck Jacob van Eyck ( , ; 26 March 1657) was a Dutch nobleman and blind musician. He was one of the best-known musicians of the Dutch Golden Age, working as a carillon player and technician, an organist, a recorder virtuoso, and a composer. He was ...

''Der Fluyten Lust-hof'' (Amsterdam, 1646)
is a huge collection of diminutions. For Heinrich Schenker, "all foreground is diminution". "All diminution must be secured firmly to the total work by means which are precisely demonstrable and organically verified by the inner necessities of the voice-leading". This conception has been essential to Schenker's theory from some of his earliest writings. In
Schenkerian analysis Schenkerian analysis is a method of analyzing tonal music based on the theories of Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935). The goal is to demonstrate the organic coherence of the work by showing how it relates to an abstracted deep structure, the ''Urs ...
a diminution is an elaboration by which an event formed of notes of longer value is expressed in notes of smaller value. See
nonchord tone 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 ...
.


Diminution in composition

A
melody A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combina ...
or series of notes is diminished if the lengths of the notes are shortened; diminution is thus the opposite of augmentation, where the notes are lengthened. A melody originally consisting of four crotchets ( quarter-notes) for example, is diminished if it later appears with four quavers ( eighth-notes) instead. In the following theme from Beethoven’s Leonora no. 3 Overture, the melodic ideas in bars 3 and 5 recur at twice the speed in bars 7-8: This technique is often used in
contrapuntal In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...
music, as in the " canon by diminution" ("''per diminutionem''"), in which the notes in the following voice or voices are shorter than those in the leading voice, usually half the length.Jeppesen, Knud. ''Counterpoint: The Polyphonic Vocal Style of the Sixteenth Century''. trans. Glen Haydon. New York: Dover Publications. 1992. p. 235 In
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
,
Thelonious Monk Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including " 'Round Midnight", ...
’s composition “
Brilliant Corners ''Brilliant Corners'' is a studio album by American jazz musician Thelonious Monk. It was his third album for Riverside Records, and the first, for this label, to include his own compositions. The complex title track required over a dozen takes ...
” consists of
theme
that is repeated at twice the speed, an effect known as “
double time In popular music, half-time is a type of meter and tempo that alters the rhythmic feel by essentially ''doubling the tempo resolution'' or metric division/level in comparison to common-time. Thus, two measures of approximate a single measure o ...
.”


Diminution of note values

In mensural notation, diminution of the duration of note shapes is the most common function of coloration. Diminution is most often by one-third of the note-value, so that three colored notes fit into the time of two uncolored notes of the same shape; it is thus often found in notation of triplet or hemiola figures. Diminution may also be achieved by a sign of proportion. Thus a sign such as is in proportional notation not a modern
time signature The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note va ...
, but a proportional signature indicating ''diminutio sesquialtera'', that is, that after the sign each three notes of the basic note value '' integer valor'' occupy the time of two such notes elsewhere in the piece, either previously in the same voice, or simultaneously in another voice.


Diminution of intervals

A diminished interval is an interval obtained from a minor interval or perfect interval by narrowing it by a chromatic semitone, meaning that the interval is narrowed by a semitone, but the staff positions are not changed (only an accidental is changed); the process may occasionally be referred to as diminution For example, an
diminished fifth Diminished may refer to: *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 whic ...
is a chromatic semitone narrower than the
perfect fifth In music theory, a perfect fifth is the musical interval corresponding to a pair of pitches with a frequency ratio of 3:2, or very nearly so. In classical music from Western culture, a fifth is the interval from the first to the last of five ...
: starting with the interval from C to G, which is a perfect fifth, seven semitones wide, both the intervals from C to G, and from C to G are diminished fifths, spanning six semitones, but the same staff lines. By contrast, the interval from D to G is not an diminished fifth (it is an augmented fourth): even though it is six semitones wide, it spans four staff positions, and is thus a fourth, not a fifth; it is a diatonic semitone narrower than a perfect fifth. The standard abbreviations for diminished intervals are dX, such that a diminished third = d3. The diminished fifth (d5) is the only diminished interval that appears in diatonic scales (in C major it occurs between B and F).


Diminished chords

A
diminished triad In music theory, a diminished triad (also known as the minor flatted fifth) is a triad consisting of two minor thirds above the root. It is a minor triad with a lowered ( flattened) fifth. When using chord symbols, it may be indicated by the s ...
consists of two superposed minor thirds, and thus contains a
diminished fifth Diminished may refer to: *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 whic ...
. In classical repertoire the usual symbol is the degree, °, as in vii°. In lead sheets and popular music books it is usually written Cdim or C°. A
diminished seventh chord The diminished seventh chord is a four-note chord (a seventh chord) composed of a root note, together with a minor third, a diminished fifth, and a diminished seventh above the root: (1, 3, 5, 7). For example, the diminished seve ...
consists of three superposed minor thirds, and thus has all successive notes a minor third apart; it contains two diminished fifths. In jazz theory, a diminished seventh chord has four available tensions, each a major ninth above the chord tones, and thus forming a diminished seventh chord a whole tone (or major ninth) above the root chord. Because any chord tone of the diminished seventh can be heard as the root, the tensions are not numbered as ninth, eleventh and so on. The usual notation is Cdim7 or C°7, but some lead sheets or popular music books may omit the 7. A diminished triad with a minor seventh is a half-diminished chord, usually notated either Cm7(5) or Cø7. A diminished triad played over a root a major third away creates a Dominant 7th chord, notated C7, with a C Major triad on the bottom, and an E° from the chord third of C (C E G B). A minor third below would give a fully diminished 7th chord which is made entirely of minor thirds that evenly divide an octave. This even division of the octave leaves us with only three unique diminished 7th chords: C E G B, C E G B, and D F A C, as all other diminished 7th chords are inversions of one of those three.


Diminished scales

Several scales may be referred to as diminished. One of the more common is the Octatonic scale constructed from C°7 and its tensions (transposed into the same octave), which has alternating tone and semitone intervals.


See also

* Augmentation (music)


References

{{reflist, 35em, refs= Roger Bowers (2001)
Proportional notation
''Grove Music Online''. Oxford Music Online. Accessed August 2011. {{doi, 10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.22424. {{subscription required.
Robert Donington, Peter Wright (2001)
Coloration
''Grove Music Online''. Oxford Music Online. Accessed August 2011. {{doi, 10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.06153. {{subscription required.
Robert Donington (1989)
''The Interpretation of Early Music''
(new revised edition). London: Faber and Faber. pp. 152–188. {{isbn, 0571150403.
Greer Garden, Robert Donington (2001)
Diminution
''Grove Music Online''. Oxford Music Online. Accessed August 2011. {{doi, 10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.42071. {{subscription required.
Giovanni Luca Conforto, Giancarlo Rostirolla (editor) (1986). ''Breve et facile maniera d'essercitarsi a far passaggi, Roma 1593'' (in Italian). Roma: Società Italiana del Flauto Dolce. Music theory Ornamentation