Download music questions section i

MUSIC QUESTIONS
SECTION I
1. What is music?
a. Sound organized in time
2. What is Improvisation?
a. Simultaneous composition and performance
3. What is pitch?
a. Highness or lowness of a sound
4. What is an ethnomusicologist?
a. Modern term for scholars who study the music of other cultures, or who study
other cultures comparatively
5. Who are the two gentlemen who created the term “ethnomusicologists?”
a. Curt Sachs and Erich von Hornbostel
6. Chordophones are instruments………..
a. With vibrating strings that create sound waves
7. Aerophones are instruments with…….
a. Vibrating columns of air
8. Membranophones are instruments with………
a. Vibrating membrane stretched across some frame
9. Idiophones are instruments……..
a. The body of the instrument vibrates itself
10. Electrophones?
a. Sound waves using mechanical device known as an oscillator and are dependent
on electricity {instruments that need electricity to work….}
11. What are the 5 Western instrument families?
a. Strings
b. Brass
c. Woodwind
d. Percussion
e. And sometimes keyboard
12. From what technologies did electronic instruments become plausible?
a. Radios
b. Recording tapes
c. Etc….
13. When did these technologies take the next step for electric instruments
a. End of WWII
14. What is Music concrete?
a. Basic technique of tape music are looping and splicing
15. What were (and still are) the famous postwar centers for electronic music?
a. Rome, Italy
b. Paris, France
c. Cologne, Germany
d. NYC, USA
16. The lowest A on any instrument is called……
a. The fundamental – by far the loudest and strongest
17. How many Hz (hertz) is the fundamental?
a. 440Hz
18. What happens when you halve the length of the string (220Hz)?
a. Naturally vibrates twice as fast
19. What is created from the naturally sped up chord?
a. Becomes an octave
20. What is equal temperament?
a. Generating the twelve pitches by dividing the octave
21. In what kind of a world do pitches follow mathematical patterns?
a. In a world of pure sound waves and overtones
22. When was this dominant in the Western tradition?
a. After 1750
23. How many times can an octave be divided equally?
a. 12 parts
24. What is a chromatic scale?
a. Twelve different pitches in ascending order
25. What is a half-step?
a. Distance between two consecutive pitches in the chromatic scale
26. What is a sharp?
a. (#) when the half-step is raised
27. What is a flat?
a. (b) when the half-step is lowered
28. In Western tradition, most music is based off of how many pitches?
a. Seven
29. When arranged in ascending order what do they fall in as?
a. Scales
30. How many scales can be formed from the seven pitches?
a. Four
31. What are the four scales called?
a. Major, melodic minor, harmonic minor, harmonic minor, and natural minor
32. What is the tonic pitch called?
a. “resting tone” or “do”
33. What is the seventh scale degree known as?
a. LEADING TONE
34. Why?
a. To Western ears it begs to resolve upward to the C above
35. What is the fifth scale degree called?
a. DOMINANT PITCH
36. What does it function as?
a. Second gravitational center that sets melodies in motion by pulling them away
from the tonic
37. What is an interval?
a. Distance between any two pitches
38. What is a semitone?
a. Half-step :D
39. What is harmonic?
a. Two pitches occur simultaneously
40. What is melodic?
a. Two pitches occurring in succession
41. Can a melodic be ascending or descending or both?
a. Both
42. What is a major scale?
a. Succession of whole and half steps
43. What are the varieties of a minor scale?
a. Natural, harmonic, and melodic
44. What do all minor scales feature?
a. Lowered third scale degree
45. Where are half steps located in a minor scale?
a. Between 2-3 and 5-6
46. What can represent a HARMONIC MINOR?
a. Many pieces of music in the minor mode raise the seventh scale degree by
adding a sharp or natural
47. What makes a melodic minor?
a. Sense of upward motion to the higher tonic and a pull downward to the fifth
scale degree
48. What are relative major and minor?
a. Two keys that use the same pitches but different tonics
49. How are they located?
a. Typically 4 half steps apart
50. What are major and minor scales that begin and end on the same tonic pitch called?
a. Parallel
51. How can you combine elements of both major and minor?
a. A scale with blue inflections
52. What makes up a blues scale?
a. Scale degrees 3 and 7 can be lowered
53. What is melody?
a. A series of successive pitches perceived by the ear to form a coherent whole
54. What is the name of two pitches occurring together?
a. HARMONY or COUNTERPOINT
55. How can you TRANSPOSE a melody?
a. By beginning the same pattern of intervals on a different note
56. What is a contour?
a. A profile
57. What are the different types of a profile
a. A conjunct melody, and a disjunct melody
58. What is a conjunct melody?
a. Moves smoothly in stepwise motion
59. What is a disjunct melody?
a. Contains proportionally more leaps
60. What are the ranges of an instrument?
a. High, middle, and low register
61. What does a melody with a high tessitura call for?
a. More pitches in the performer’s high register
62. What is rhythm?
a. The way music is organized in time
63. What is the beat?
a. The steady pulse that underlies most music
64. What is tempo?
a. Speed of the beat
65. What are the Italian terms that we use in music?
a. ritardando, accelerando, poco a poco, and subito
66. What does subito mean?
a. Suddenly
67. What does poco a poco mean?
a. Gradually
68. What does accelerando mean?
a. Speed up
69. What does ritardando?
a. Slow down
70. What does unmetered mean?
a. No steady tempo
71. What does rubato mean?
a. perceived beat but it speeds up and slows down for expressive effect
72. Are all beats created equal?
a. No
73. What is the first beat called?
a. The downbeat or strong beat
74. What are normal beats grouped into?
a. measures
75. What is a measure?
a. Bars (it’s a set of separated bars)
76. What is the first beat called?
a. Downbeat or string beat
77. What is a chord?
a. Three or more pitches sounding simultaneously
78. What are the most common chords?
a. Groups of four
79. Which is the strong beat in this setup?
a. The first
80. Which is the secondary beat?
a. The third
81. Time signature: What does it consist of?
a. Consists of TWO NUMBERS
82. What does the upper # mean?
a. Gives the number of beats per measure
83. What does the lower number mean?
a. Tells which durational value receives one beat
84. What is a compound meter
a. If the beat has a triple subdivision
85. What is syncopation?
a. When accented or emphasized notes fall on weak beats
86. What is polyrhythm?
a. Occurs when two conflicting rhythmic patterns are present simultaneously
87. What is another name for polyrhythm?
a. Cross-rhythm
88. What is harmony?
a. Occurs whenever two or more tones are sounding simultaneously
89. What do you call the system of organizing pitch and harmony that we find intuitive
today in Western cultures?
a. Common-practice tonality
90. When and where was this developed?
a. In Europe, beginning in the Middle Ages
91. When did it become official?
a. About 1750
92. What is a triad?
a. A three note chord consisting of two intervals of a third
93. What are the FOUR qualities of a triad?
a. Major, minor, diminished, and augmented
94. What is a Major triad?
a. Has a major third on the bottom and a major third on top
95. What is a Minor triad?
a. Has a minor third on the bottom and a major third above
96. What is a diminished triad?
a. Two minor thirds
97. What is an augmented triad?
a. Two major thirds
98. What is the root?
a. The lowest of the three notes
99. Which note is the third?
a. Middle note
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What is the highest note called?
a. The fifth
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When is the root in the root position?
a. On the bottom of the page
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What is the third of the triad when it is on the bottom
a. First inversion
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What is the fifth on the bottom?
a. Second inversion
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How is it indicated?
a. By a six and a four aligned vertically like a fraction with the line missing
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What are chromatic pitches?
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a. Usually decorative or expressive NEVER structural
What is another name for sharps or flats?
a. Accidentals
What is a natural?
a. When a sharp or flat is “undone”
What happens when the music is notated?
a. All three types of minor scales use the same key signature
How many scales, major or minor, are there?
a. 24 (12 major, 12 minor)
Why?
a. Have to preserve a certain order of whole and half steps
What is harmonic progression?
a. A series of chords or intervals that move from tension toward resolution
What is dissonance (tension)?
a. The quality of a pitch, interval, or chord that makes it seem “unstable” or tense
What is consonance?
a. The quality of a pitch, interval, or chord that makes it seem a suitable point of
rest or resolution
What are the most consonant chords?
a. Ones that stress the lower pitches of the overtone series
What is a triton?
a. A musical interval composed of three whole tones
What is a diatonic?
a. A chord or melody is diatonic if no accidentals are needed other than those
already indicated in the key signature
What does the quality of a diatonic triad depend on?
a. Which scale degree is its root
What makes a melody or chord chromatic?
a. When they borrow notes from outside the key
What is another name for a tonic triad?
a. Tonic chord (or tonic)
What is a tonic triad?
a. Diatonic triad built on the tonic pitch
What makes it so special?
a. Most stable chord in a key
b. Nearly all pieces of music end on the tonic chord
When is the tonic triad always major
a. In a major key
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What is counterpoint?
The process developed by Western composers after about 1350 to create
polyphony
What is polyphony?
Music with polyphonic texture
What qualifies as being polyphonic?
Music being written in two different keys
What is texture?
Describes the number of things that are going on at once in a piece of music
How many different types of texture are there? What are they called?
4
Monophony, heterophony, homophony, and polyphony
What is monophony?
Consists of a single unaccompanied melodic line
What is a dynamic?
The loudness and softness of a sound
What is articulation?
Mechanics of starting and ending a sound
What is a Staccato?
A pitch is attached with force and allowed to die quickly
What is a Legato?
Multiple pitches are played in smooth, connected, manner
What is a Pizzicato?
Finger pluck
What is qualified as an Accent?
More sudden sound than staccato, and unlike staccato, silent space before the
next pitch is not required
What refers to localized embellishments, which are often not written down?
Ornamentations
How is music organized on a larger time scale?
Form
What is a score?
Musical notation
What are the two key components to the listening experience?
Memory and anticipation
What is the primary way that tension is created?
Through harmonic dissonance
What are other ways to create harmonic dissonance
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a. Increased dynamic level
b. Increased tempo
c. Increased rhythmic activity (using shorter durations)
What is the smallest unit of form?
a. Motive
What is a Phrase?
a. Cohesive musical thought
What do you see them in?
a. In pairs
What is cadence?
a. Resting point in a piece of music
What do you call a set of phrases that make a complete melody?
a. Theme
What is repetition?
a. Repeating musical material
What is variation?
a. Repetition with enough alterations that the listener sense
What makes up a sonata form of music?
a. Three main sections – exposition, development, and recapitulation
What is fugue?
a. A technique in music
What is the Twelve-Bar Blues?
a. A variation form