Modern Flashcards
harmonic stasis
20th century. Music that avoids moving forward toward resolution. Messiaen creates a feeling of meditation in Liturgie de cristal.
metric modulation
20th century. Transitioning from one tempo and meter to another through a stage that exhibits characteristics of both resulting in a precise proportional change. Carter - Cello Sonata - first use
prepared piano
Various objects are inserted between the strings of a piano resulting in complex percussive sounds when the piano is played from the keyboard. Cage - Sonatas and Interludes - specific directions for preparing piano ahead of time.
chance music
Leaving some musical decisions typically made by the composer up to chance. Cage - Music of Changes - charts created to determine some musical features.
indeterminacy
Leaving some musical decisions unspecified. Feldman - Projection I - graphic notation for general guidelines rather than specific notes.
musique concrete
Term developed in Paris in the 1940s to describe music that is created by assembling and manipulating recorded sounds - using sounds themselves rather than notation. Schaeffer - Symphonie pour un homme seul - first major work.
micropolyphony
Canons with many lines moving at different rates. Ligeti - Atmospheres - create the effect of a mass of sound slowly moving through space.
New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit)
Trend in the 1920s that opposed the complexity of expressionism and sought for music that was widely accessible and connected to events and concerns of its time. Weil - Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) - parodied American popular music.
Gebrauchsmusik
“music for use” - Hindemith sought to create music for young musicians that was of high quality, modern, challenging and rewarding to perform.
ultramodernist
20th century - composing trend in AMerica between the World Wars focused on developing new musical resources. Vare`se - considered all sound to be raw material in pieces like Ionisation.
sound mass
A term coined by Vare`se for sounds categorized by timbre, register, rhythm, or melodic gesture which may remain stable or be transformed on recurrances. Hyperprism - demonstrates how sound masses can change as they interact.
tone cluster
A chord of diatonic or chromatic seconds produced by pressing the keys with the fist or forearm. Cowell pioneered the use of this technique in The Tides of Manaunaun.
atonality
Music that avoids establishing a tonal center. Schoenberg described his atonal music as “the emancipation of dissonance” and used traditional methods such as variation to provide structure to his music.
pitch-class set
A collection of notes organized around one of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale which maintains its identity when transposed, inverted or reordered. Typically sets were three or more notes that were treated like a chord.
chromatic saturation
The appearance of all twelve pitch-classes within a segment of music. Has been used in tonal and atonal music to create a sense of completion once all twelve tones have been presented.
