Four-part Writing
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Four-part Writing
Four-part harmony is music written for four voices, or for some other musical medium—four musical instruments or a single keyboard instrument, for example—for which the various musical parts can give a different note for each chord of the music. The four main voices are typically labelled as soprano (or treble and countertenor), alto (contralto, countertenor or mezzo), tenor, and bass. Because the human voice has a limited range, different voice types are usually not able to sing pitches that lie outside of their specific range. The effort required to perform four-part harmony varies greatly. Pieces written in such a style can be usually executed by a single keyboard player, a group of 4 instruments (or singers), or even a large choir with multiple singers per part. In European classical music In the baroque era, a set of rules developed for voice leading in four-part harmony. In these rules, the bass voice would be assigned the root of the chord, although it c ...
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Root (chord)
In the music theory of harmony, the root is a specific Note (music), note that names and typifies a given chord (music), chord. Chords are often spoken about in terms of their root, their Chord quality, quality, and their Chord extensions, extensions. When a chord is named without reference to quality, it is assumed to be major chord, major—for example, a "C chord" refers to a C major triad, containing the notes C, E, and G. In a given harmonic context, the root of a chord need not be in bass note, the bass position, as chords may be Inversion (music), inverted while retaining the same name, and therefore the same root. In tertian harmonic theory, wherein chords can be considered stacks of third intervals (e.g. in common practice period, common practice tonality), the root of a chord is the Musical note, note on which the subsequent thirds are stacked. For instance, the root of a triad (music), triad such as E Minor is E, independently of the vertical order in which the three n ...
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SATB
In music, SATB is a scoring of compositions for choirs or consorts of instruments consisting of four voice types: soprano, alto, tenor and bass. Choral music Four-part harmony using soprano, alto, tenor and bass is a common scoring in classical music, including chorales and most Bach cantatas.Shrock, DennisChoral Repertoire''Oxford University Press'', 2009, p. 298, The letters of the abbreviation are also used by publishers to describe different scorings for soloists and choirs other than four-part harmony. For example, the listing "STB solos, SATB choir" of Bach's ''Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme'', BWV 140, indicates that a performance needs three soloists: soprano, tenor and bass, and a four-part choir. "SATB/SATB" is used when a double choir is required, as in Penderecki's '' Polish Requiem''. or SSATB, with divided sopranos, is a typical scoring in English church music. A listing for Bach's '' Mass in B minor'' includes the maximum of SSATB soloists and SSAATTBB eight ...
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Hymn Tune
A hymn tune is the melody of a musical composition to which a hymn text is sung. Musically speaking, a hymn is generally understood to have four-part (or more) harmony, a fast harmonic rhythm (chords change frequently), with or without refrain or chorus. From the late sixteenth century in England and Scotland, when most people were not musically literate and learned melodies by rote, it was a common practice to sing a new text to a hymn tune the singers already knew which had a suitable meter and character. There are many hymn tunes which might fit a particular hymn: a hymn in Long Metre might be sung to any hymn tune in Long Metre, but the tunes might be as different as those tunes that have been used for centuries with hymns such as '' Te lucis ante terminum'', on one hand, and an arrangement of the calypso tune used with '' Jamaica Farewell'', on the other. Hymnal editors Editors bring extensive knowledge of theology, poetry, and music to the process of compiling a new ...
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Harmony
In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harmonic objects such as chords, textures and tonalities are identified, defined, and categorized in the development of these theories. Harmony is broadly understood to involve both a "vertical" dimension (frequency-space) and a "horizontal" dimension (time-space), and often overlaps with related musical concepts such as melody, timbre, and form. A particular emphasis on harmony is one of the core concepts underlying the theory and practice of Western music. The study of harmony involves the juxtaposition of individual pitches to create chords, and in turn the juxtaposition of chords to create larger chord progressions. The principles of connection that govern these structures have been the subject of centuries worth of theoretical work ...
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Chorale
A chorale is the name of several related musical forms originating in the music genre of the Lutheran chorale: * Hymn tune of a Lutheran hymn (e.g. the melody of " Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme"), or a tune in a similar format (e.g. one of the themes in the Finale of Saint-Saëns's Third Symphony) * Such tune with a harmonic accompaniment (e.g. chorale monody, chorales included in '' Schemellis Gesangbuch'') * Such a tune presented in a homophonic or homorhythmic harmonisation, usually four-part harmony (e.g. Bach's four-part chorales, or the chorale included in the second movement of Mahler's Fifth Symphony) * A more complex setting of a hymn(-like) tune (e.g. chorale fantasia form in Bach's '' Schübler Chorales'', or a combination of compositional techniques in César Franck's ') The chorale originated when Martin Luther translated sacred songs into the vernacular language (German), contrary to the established practice of church music near the end of the fi ...
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Tessitura
In music, tessitura ( , , ; ; ) is the most acceptable and comfortable vocal range for a given singer (or, less frequently, musical instrument). It is the range in which a given type of voice presents its best-sounding (or characteristic) timbre. This broad definition is often interpreted to refer specifically to the pitch range that most frequently occurs within a given part of a musical piece. Hence, in musical notation, ''tessitura'' is the ambitus, or a narrower part of it, in which that particular vocal (or less often instrumental) part lies—whether high or low, etc. However, the tessitura of a part or voice is not decided by the extremes of its range, but rather by the share of this total range which is most used. Hence, it is referred to as the "heart" of a range. For example, throughout the entirety of Wagner's '' Ring'', the music written for the tenor role of Siegfried ranges from C to C, but the tessitura is described as high because the phrases are most oft ...
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Dominant Seventh Chord
Domination or dominant may refer to: Society * World domination, structure where one dominant power governs the planet * Colonialism in which one group (usually a nation) invades another region for material gain or to eliminate competition * Chauvinism in which a person or group consider themselves to be superior, and thus entitled to use force to dominate others * Sexual dominance involving individuals in a subset of BDSM behaviour * Hierarchy Music * Dominant (music), a diatonic scale step and diatonic function in tonal music theory Albums * ''Domination'' (Cannonball Adderley album) or the title track, 1965 * ''Domination'' (Morbid Angel album), 1995 * ''Domination'', by Domino, 2004 * ''Domination'', by Morifade, 2004 Songs * "Domination" (song), by Pantera, 1990 * "Domination", by Band-Maid from ''World Domination'', 2018 * "Domination", by Symphony X from ''Paradise Lost'', 2007 * "Domination", by Way Out West from '' Way Out West'', 1996 * "Domination", by Within t ...
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Degree (music)
In music theory, the scale degree is the position of a particular note on a scale relative to the tonic—the first and main note of the scale from which each octave is assumed to begin. Degrees are useful for indicating the size of intervals and chords and whether an interval is major or minor. In the most general sense, the scale degree is the number given to each step of the scale, usually starting with 1 for tonic. Defining it like this implies that a tonic is specified. For instance, the 7-tone diatonic scale may become the major scale once the proper degree has been chosen as tonic (e.g. the C-major scale C–D–E–F–G–A–B, in which C is the tonic). If the scale has no tonic, the starting degree must be chosen arbitrarily. In set theory, for instance, the 12 degrees of the chromatic scale are usually numbered starting from C=0, the twelve pitch classes being numbered from 0 to 11. In a more specific sense, scale degrees are given names that indicate their p ...
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Leading-tone
In music theory, a leading tone (also called subsemitone or leading note in the UK) is a note or pitch which resolves or "leads" to a note one semitone higher or lower, being a lower and upper leading tone, respectively. Typically, leading tone refers to the seventh scale degree of a major scale (), a major seventh above the tonic. In the movable do solfège system, the leading tone is sung as ''si''. A leading-tone triad is a triad built on the seventh scale degree in a major key (vii in Roman numeral analysis), while a leading-tone seventh chord is a seventh chord built on the seventh scale degree (vii7). Walter Piston considers and notates vii as V, an incomplete dominant seventh chord. (For the Roman numeral notation of these chords, see Roman numeral analysis.) Note Seventh scale degree (or lower leading tone) Typically, when people speak of ''the'' leading tone, they mean the seventh scale degree () of the major scale, which has a strong affinity for and leads ...
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Perfect Cadence
In Western musical theory, a cadence () is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards.Don Michael Randel (1999). ''The Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', pp. 105-106. . A harmonic cadence is a progression of two or more chords that concludes a phrase, section, or piece of music. A rhythmic cadence is a characteristic rhythmic pattern that indicates the end of a phrase. A cadence can be labeled "weak" or "strong" depending on the impression of finality it gives. While cadences are usually classified by specific chord or melodic progressions, the use of such progressions does not necessarily constitute a cadence—there must be a sense of closure, as at the end of a phrase. Harmonic rhythm plays an important part in determining where a cadence occurs. The word "cadence" sometimes slightly shifts its meaning depending on the context; for example, it can be ...
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Consecutive Fifths
In music, consecutive fifths or parallel fifths are progressions in which the interval of a perfect fifth is followed by a ''different'' perfect fifth between the same two musical parts (or voices): for example, from C to D in one part along with G to A in a higher part. Octave displacement is irrelevant to this aspect of musical grammar; for example, a parallel twelfth (i.e., an octave plus a fifth) is equivalent to a parallel fifth.Thus, the word "parallel" is not truly synonymous with "consecutive", as a fifth followed by another fifth approached with contrary motion would still count as consecutive fifths. The term ''parallel fifths'' may therefore be misleading because some consecutive fifths occur with contrary motion: from a true uncompounded fifth to a twelfth, for example. If parts move by oblique motion (for example, one part moving from a C to a higher C, and another part repeating a G higher than both of those Cs), the intervals are not considered to differ in t ...
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