MUSIC TERMS
TRANSITIONS
TEXTURES
SPACES
TERMS
100
General increase in the volume of sound
What is a crescendo?
100
Hearing a sound before you see a scene and its source
What is sound advance?
100
The most common texture in music
What is melody and accompaniment?
100
The term used by film music scholars for the music not belonging to the physical world shown in the film
What is nondiegetic music?
100
Another word for speech
What is dialogue?
200
Varying levels of volume; soft or loud
What are dynamics?
200
A sound belonging to one scene followed by a similar sound in the next
What is a sound match?
200
This texture has only background and is useful for “setting the scene”
What is an a-melodic texture?
200
We see what we hear...
What is onscreen sound?
200
Sound effects created apart from filming a scene and added to the sound track
What is foley?
300
The higher or lower registers of the voice
What is tessitura?
300
A sound that lingers from one scene over into the next
What is sound lag?
300
This texture is characterized by an independence of musical lines
What is polyphony?
300
Term used for sounds that belong to the physical world of the film
What is diegetic sound?
300
A musical theme created for a film and repeated to produce independent meanings or associations when it is used
What is a leitmotive?
400
Another term for the "generic noise" of an environment
What is ambient sound?
400
The opposite of a sound bridge; an abrupt change in the sound track
What is hard cut?
400
This texture emphasizes foreground to such an extent that background cues are all but eliminated
What is monophony?
400
Sound from a character or source that could be shown but is not (e.g. the birds in Atonement)
What is offscreen sound?
400
Term for when music closely mimics screen action and blurs the line between music and sound effects
What is mickey-mousing?
500
A regular, recurring unit of time corresponding to groups of beats
What is meter?
500
The use of sound to bridge a series of cuts transforming what might otherwise seem to be unrelated shots
What is a sound link?
500
This type of musical texture is familiar from hymns, where each line moves with a similar rhythm
What is homophony?
500
Sound heard in a dream or an internal monologue...
What is imagined sound?
500
A character who exists in diegetic space but consistently remains offscreen
What is an acoustical being?
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