Humanities - Musical Terminology - Chapter 18 - Connelly
1. Contrapuntal (counterpoint) having two or more independent but harmonically
related melodic parts sounding together
2. Canon: a contrapuntal composition which employs a melody with one or more
imitations.
Example: Pachelbel's Canon
3. Lute: any plucked string instrument with a neck - European
4. A cappella: (unaccompanied)
5. Monophonic: the simplest of musical textures, consisting of melody without
accompanying harmony. This may be realized as just one note at a time, or with the
same note duplicated at the octave (such as often when men and women sing together).
5. Polyphonic: music consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed
to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice
accompanied by chords (monody).
6. Madrigal: type of secular vocal music composition, written during the Renaissance
and early Baroque eras. Mostly polyphonic and unaccompanied by instruments, with
the number of voices varying from two to eight, but most frequently three to six.
7. Polychoral: music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras which involved
spatially separate choirs singing in alternation.
8. Antiphonal: A piece of music which is performed by two semi-independent choirs
interacting with one another, often singing alternate musical phrases
(2)
9. The virginal: a keyboard instrument popular in the Elizabethan drawing rooms of the
time. A virginal was played in a similar way to a harpsichord, but the strings ran
parallel to the keyboard.
11. Aria: An aria (Italian for air) in music was originally any expressive melody,
usually performed by a singer. The term is now used almost
exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral
accompaniment
12. chromatic: A scale which divides the octave into its semitones. There are twelve
semitones, or half steps, to an octave in the chromatic scale.
SCALE STEPS (IN SEMITONES OR HALF STEPS)1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13
c / c# / d / d# / e / f / f# / g / g# / a / a# / b / c'
10. Dynamics: volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the
execution of a given piece
· fff ---- louder than ff
· ff ----- fortissimo ------louder than f
· f ------forte ------loudly
· mf --- mezzo-forte ------moderately loud
· mp -- mezzo-piano ----- moderately soft
· p ----- piano ------softly
· pp --- pianissimo ------softer than p
· ppp - softer than pp