Music Fundamentals
This term is defined as “sound organized in time.”
What is music?
Violins, harps, and guitars belong to this Sachs–Hornbostel category.
What are chordophones?
The interval from C to E is this type of third.
What is a major third?
This term refers to the steady underlying pulse of music.
What is the beat?
This field studies visual works and their historical context.
What is art history?
These two properties define a sound wave—one affects loudness, the other affects pitch.
What are amplitude and frequency?
This family includes trumpets, trombones, and tubas.
What is the brass family?
This interval spans 12 half steps.
What is an octave?
This Italian tempo marking means “at a walking tempo.”
What is Andante?
This element of art refers to the path of a moving point, often defining shapes.
What is line?
At 440 Hz, orchestral musicians tune to this pitch.
What is A above middle C (A-440)?
These instruments create sound when their own bodies vibrate—examples include bells and woodblocks
Answer: What are idiophones?
In blues scales, this scale degree may be “between the keys,” often sliding upward.
What is the third (b3 to 3)?
Music without a steady beat or tempo is described using this term.
What is unmetered?
This term describes the arrangement of visual elements in a work of art.
What is composition?
This smallest interval in Western music is the distance between two adjacent piano keys.
What is a half step (semitone)?
This early electronic instrument is played without touching it, using electrical fields.
What is the theremin?
These two scales share the same pitches but have different tonics.
What are relative major and minor?
A gradual slowing down of tempo is indicated by this term.
What is ritardando?
This early 20th‑century American movement included the Ashcan School and New York Dada.
What is American Modernism?
This type of scale raises both the sixth and seventh degrees when ascending, but lowers them again when descending.
What is the melodic minor scale?
This French term describes early tape-based electronic composition using recorded natural sounds.
What is musique concrète?
This interval, also called a tritone, spans six half steps.
What is an augmented fourth or diminished fifth?
This expressive technique involves subtle speeding up and slowing down of the beat.
What is rubato?
This 1913 exhibition shocked American audiences and introduced European avant‑garde art.
What is the Armory Show?