VPMA93H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Common Practice Period, Whole Tone Scale, Chromatic Scale
26 May 2018
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VPMA LEC 3 May 25
MELODY
• succession of pitches that form a distinctive, coherent musical unit
➢ Aspects of melody:
➢ Range-narrow, medium, wide
➢ Contour-level, undulating, ascending, descending, arch shaped
➢ Motion-conjunct, distinct
➢ Ornamentation-unornamented, highly ornamented
Word painting: musical illustration of meaning of a word or short phrase of text
Madrigal: main secular vocal genre in 16th century Italy
Oriana: legendary british princess; used as poetic designation for queen Elizabeth 1
Program music: piece of instrumental music that seeks to recreate in sound the events and emotions
portrayed in some extramusical source
phrase – a self-contained portion of a melody
antecedent, consequent – two musical phrases, the second of which is a concluding response to or
resolution of the first
motive – a short fragment of melody or rhythm used in constructing a long section of music
TONALITY
• the organization of music around a central pitch, and the scale built on that pitch
pitch – the relative position (high or low) of a musical sound, depending on its frequency (rate of
vibration); the faster the vibrations, the higher the pitch
staff – a group of five equidistant horizontal lines on which notes are placed in such a way as to indicate
pitch; successive notes written on lines and spaces from lowest to highest represent rising pitch
note – when a symbol is placed on a staff it indicates a specific pitch; notes of music are referred to by
the names of the first seven letters of the alphabet: A B C D E F G
interval – the distance between any two pitches
octave – two pitches with the same pitch names (eight notes apart) and the higher of whose frequencies
is twice the lower
unison – an interval formed by two statements of the same pitch
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