Structure
The large fragments of a piece of music or song wherein the main themes are the dominant features.
What is a section?
The technical terms for music that rises in an upward motion and falls in a downward motion - usually of a melody.
What are 'ascending' and 'descending'?
Crotchets, quavers, minims, semibreves and dotted notes, just to name a few.
What are note lengths?
Strings, chordophones, woodwind, aerophones, keyboards, tuned percussion, drums, membranophones, untuned percussion, ideophones, and electrophones are usually the main ones of these.
What are the instrument classifications?
These are the Italian terms for low, strong and half, now used as dynamics terms.
What are piano, forte and mezzo? (at least one correct is sufficient)
The micro-fragments within the larger structures of a piece of music or song, that are generally characterised as a 'musical sentence'.
What is a phrase?
The set of pitches used within a composition or section of a composition - these can often be major, minor, blues, modal or atonal.
What is 'tonality' or 'key'?
Some common examples include presto, largo, andante and moderato.
What is 'tempo'?
Music that has a clear melodic line, supported by one or perhaps many more accompanying layers.
What is homophonic music?
The manner in which notes are performed, including staccato, legato, pizzacato, marcato, sfortzando, tenuto just to name a few. We also use English terms like slur, bend, accent and placed.
What is 'articulation'?
The musical form or structure of a piece or song where two different themes are presented one after another, with the first theme returning again at the end.
What is ternary form?
The relationship between notes as they are played simultaneously - often in chords or as part of a parallel, oblique, or contrary motion passage.
What is harmony?
The measure of how beats are grouped into recurring patterns in music called bars.
What is 'metre' or 'time signature'?
Arpeggios, broken chords, oom pah pah, full chords, sustained chords, drones and counterpoint are examples of these.
These are performed differently on different instruments, such as vibrato or melisma when singing, tremolo or double stopping on strings, bending or growling on a wind instrument, or even applying sustain or muting to a piano
What are expressive techniques?
A sophisticated type of ternary form where the three sections are called, 'exposition', 'development' and 'recapitulation'.
What is 'sonata form'?
A set of two or more chords that signal the end of a musical phrase - these are usually perfect, imperfect, plagal or interrupted, or in Jazz known by chord numbers (e.g. 2-5-1)
What is a 'cadence'?
Some examples include swing, dotted, ostinato, triplets, duplets, back beat, free, diminution, off-beat, augmentation, and syncopation.
What is 'rhythm' or what are 'rhythmic devices'?
This style of harmony was popular in the Baroque Period, where layers of instruments or voices would often employ countermelodies, staggered entries, canon or imitation in a bid for melodic dominance.
What is polyphonic music?
When one goes beyond how an instrument is traditionally performed for expressive effect, such as playing violin with the back of the bow, overtone singing, jet whistles, key clicks, slapping the guitar's body, or even placing objects in the strings of a piano.
What are 'extended techniques'?
A type of musical piece (not song) that typically has three movements that are fast (in sonata form), slow (lyrical) and fast, where a solo instrument is featured against an orchestral accompaniment.
What is a 'concerto'?
Appoggiatura, acciaccatura, turns, mordents, grace notes, pitch bends, trills or runs, just to name a few.
What are ornaments? (Ornamentation)
An example could be if the music played two bars of compound quadruple time, then three bars of simple triple time, repeated throughout the piece or song.
What is a poly-rhythm?
Features added to the sound of an instrument in order to alter its colour, such as mutes, distortion, sustain, or electronic manipulations.
What are sound effects?
Popular in the Baroque Period, this technique was characterised by juxtaposing two opposite dynamic levels against one another with sudden changes made from one phrase to the next.
What are 'terrace dyanamics'?