"Interval (music) In music theory, an interval is the difference in pitch between two sounds. An interval may be described as horizontal, linear, or melodic if it refers to successively sounding tones, such as two adjacent pitches in a melody, and vertical or harmonic if it pertains to simultaneously sounding tones, such as in a chord. In Western music, intervals are most commonly differences between notes of a diatonic scale. The smallest of these intervals is a semitone. Intervals smaller than a semitone are called microtones. They can be formed using the notes of various kinds of non-diatonic scales. Some"
"Simultaneity (music) In music, a simultaneity is more than one complete musical texture occurring at the same time, rather than in succession. This first appeared in the music of Charles Ives, and is common in the music of Conlon Nancarrow and others. In music theory, a pitch simultaneity is more than one pitch or pitch class all of which occur at the same time, or simultaneously: ""A set of notes sounded together."" ""Simultaneity"" is a more specific and more general term than chord: many but not all chords or harmonies are simultaneities, though not all but some simultaneities are chords."
"melody, and abrupt changes in volume. Melodic fission In music cognition, melodic fission (also known as melodic or auditory streaming, or stream segregation), is a phenomenon in which one line of pitches (an auditory stream) is heard as two or more separate melodic lines. This occurs when a phrase contains groups of pitches at two or more distinct registers or with two or more distinct timbres. The term appears to stem from a 1973 paper by W. J. Dowling. In music analysis and, more specifically, in Schenkerian analysis, the phenomenon more often is termed compound melody. In psychophysics, auditory scene"
"a ""chord""."" According to Monath (1984, p. 37); ""A chord is a combination of three or more tones sounded simultaneously,"" and the distances between the tones are called intervals. However sonorities of two pitches, or even single-note melodies, are commonly heard as ""implying"" chords. A simple example of two notes being interpreted as a chord is when the root and third are played, but the fifth is omitted. In the key of C major, if the music comes to rest on the two notes G and B, most listeners will hear this as a G major chord. Since a chord"
"Melodic fission In music cognition, melodic fission (also known as melodic or auditory streaming, or stream segregation), is a phenomenon in which one line of pitches (an auditory stream) is heard as two or more separate melodic lines. This occurs when a phrase contains groups of pitches at two or more distinct registers or with two or more distinct timbres. The term appears to stem from a 1973 paper by W. J. Dowling. In music analysis and, more specifically, in Schenkerian analysis, the phenomenon more often is termed compound melody. In psychophysics, auditory scene analysis is the process by which"
"singing an independent line (either the same melody at a different time, or different melodies) this is called polyphony. On synthesizers, the term ""unison"" is used to describe two or more oscillators that are slightly detuned in correspondence to each other, which makes the sound fatter. This technique is so popular that some modern virtual analog synthesisers have a special oscillator type called ""super saw"" or ""hyper saw"" that generates several detuned sawtooth waves simultaneously. Unison In music, unison is two or more musical parts sounding the same pitch or at an octave interval, usually at the same time. Rhythmic"
"Unison In music, unison is two or more musical parts sounding the same pitch or at an octave interval, usually at the same time. Rhythmic patterns which are homorhythmic are also called unison. Unison or perfect unison (also called a prime, or perfect prime) may refer to the (pseudo-)interval formed by a tone and its duplication (in German, ""Unisono"", ""Einklang"", or ""Prime""), for example C–C, as differentiated from the second, C–D, etc. In the unison the two pitches have the ratio of 1:1 or 0 half steps and zero cents. Although two tones in unison are considered to be the"
"voice"", in unison. If there is an instrument accompanying them, then the instrument must play the same notes being sung by the singers (in order for there to be unison). Otherwise the instrument is considered a separate ""voice"" and there is no unison. If there is no instrument, then the singing is said to be ""a cappella"". Music in which all the notes sung are in unison is called monophonic. From this sense can be derived another, figurative, sense: if several people do something ""in unison"" it means they do it simultaneously, in tandem, in lockstep. Related terms are ""univocal"""
"down and may become so slow as to be imperceptible. As the two tones get further apart, their beat frequency starts to approach the range of human pitch perception, the beating starts to sound like a note, and a combination tone is produced. This combination tone can also be referred to as a missing fundamental, as the beat frequency of any two tones is equivalent to the frequency of their implied fundamental frequency. This phenomenon is best known in acoustics or music, though it can be found in any linear system: ""According to the law of superposition, two tones sounding"
"Parallel harmony In music, parallel harmony, also known as harmonic parallelism, harmonic planing or parallel voice leading, is the parallel movement of two or more lines (see voice leading). Examples may be found in Claude Debussy's ""Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune"" (1894), Maurice Ravel's ""Daphnis and Chloë"" Suite No. 2 (1913), Richard Strauss's ""Elektra"" (1909), Arnold Schoenberg's ""Pierrot Lunaire"", ""Columbine"" (1914), and William Schuman's ""Three Score Set for Piano"" (1944). In the last example, the inversions of the chords suggest a bichordal effect. Lines with parallel harmony can be viewed as a series of chords with the same intervallic structure."
"any given note in different octaves may be taken as the same note, it is more precise for the purposes of analysis to speak of distinct ""pitch classes"". Furthermore, as three notes are needed to define any common chord, three is often taken as the minimum number of notes that form a definite chord. Hence Andrew Surmani, for example, (2004, p. 72) states, ""When three or more notes are sounded together, the combination is called a chord."" George T. Jones (1994, p. 43) agrees: ""Two tones sounding together are usually termed an ""interval"", while three or more tones are called"
"Combination tone A combination tone (also called resultant or subjective tone) is a psychoacoustic phenomenon of an additional tone or tones that are artificially perceived when two real tones are sounded at the same time. Their discovery is credited to the violinist Giuseppe Tartini (although he was not the first, see Sorge) and so are also called Tartini tones. There are two types of combination tones: sum tones whose frequencies are found by adding the frequencies of the real tones and difference tones whose frequencies are the difference between the frequencies of the real tones. ""Combination tones are heard when"
"sound of a note with a timbre particular to the instrument playing the note) ""can be described as a combination of many simple periodic waves (i.e., sine waves) or ""partials,"" each with its own frequency of vibration, amplitude, and phase."" (See also, Fourier analysis.) A partial is any of the sine waves (or ""simple tones"", as Ellis calls them when translating Helmholtz) of which a complex tone is composed, not necessarily with an integer multiple of the lowest harmonic. A harmonic is any member of the harmonic series, an ideal set of frequencies that are positive integer multiples of a"
"English word ""chord"" derives from Middle English ""cord"", a shortening of ""accord"" in the original sense of ""agreement"" and later, ""harmonious sound"". A sequence of chords is known as a chord progression or harmonic progression. These are frequently used in Western music. A chord progression ""aims for a definite goal"" of establishing (or contradicting) a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. The study of harmony involves chords and chord progressions, and the principles of connection that govern them. Ottó Károlyi writes that, ""Two or more notes sounded simultaneously are known as a chord,"" though, since instances of"
"tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity"" (""Webster's Collegiate Dictionary"", online edition). This approach to the definition focuses not on the ""construction"" but on the ""experience"" of music. An extreme statement of the position has been articulated by the Italian composer Luciano Berio: “Music is everything that one listens to with the intention of listening to music” . This approach permits the boundary between music and noise to change over time as the conventions of musical interpretation evolve within a culture, to be different in different cultures at"
"Catch (music) In music, a catch is a type of round or canon at the unison. That is, it is a musical composition in which two or more voices (usually at least three) repeatedly sing the same melody, beginning at different times. Generally catches have a secular theme, though many collections included devotional rounds and canons. In early collections the terms ""catch"" and ""round"" were interchangeable and, with part-songs and multi-voice canons, were all indexed as ""songs"". The catch and round differ from the canon in having a cadence on which the song can terminate after a specified number of"
"two or more notes being played at the same time makes. Harmony, when present, gives the melody its texture and provides support for the melody’s notes and lyrics. Harmony can be demonstrated by instruments or voices through lyrics. The instruments or voices can be in either major or minor tonality. Melody is the reoccurring sounds throughout a song or composition, depending on the form. The melody is what creates a patterned theme throughout a song or in a composition, which is easily recognizable, for example, in the verse-chorus form of a song or composition, the melody is present in the"
"an organ in which there were no stops and all the ranks sounded simultaneously. Mixture stops are typically labeled with the number of ranks of pipes that they have, i.e. how many pipes sound when a single key is pressed. For example, a Mixture II contains two ranks (sounding two notes), a Mixture V contains five ranks, and so forth. The mixture is sometimes designed so that the number of ranks per note increases as one ascends the compass of the keyboard. A mixture exhibiting this trait is referred to as ""progressive"", and is labeled with two numbers (e.g. Plein"
"Klang (music) In music, klang (also ""clang"") is a term sometimes used to translate the German ""Klang"", a highly polysemic word. Technically, the term denotes any periodic sound, especially as opposed to simple periodic sounds (sine tones). In the German lay usage, it may mean ""sound"" or ""tone"" (as synonymous to ""Ton""), ""musical tone"" (as opposed to noise), ""note"", or ""timbre""; a chord of three notes is called a ""Dreiklang"", etc. ""Klang"" has been used among others by Hugo Riemann and by Heinrich Schenker. In translations of their writings, it has erroneously been rendered as ""chord"" and more specifically as"
"would include all the notes on the keyboard, including the ""white notes"" and ""black notes"" and unusual scales, such as the whole tone scale (a whole tone scale in the key of C would contain the notes C, D, E, F, G and A). A low, deep musical line played by bass instruments such as double bass, electric bass or tuba is called a bassline. Harmony refers to the ""vertical"" sounds of pitches in music, which means pitches that are played or sung together at the same time to create a chord. Usually this means the notes are played at"
"Triad (music) In music, a triad is a set of three notes (or ""pitch classes"") that can be stacked vertically in thirds. The term ""harmonic triad"" was coined by Johannes Lippius in his ""Synopsis musicae novae"" (1612). When stacked in thirds, notes produce triads. The triad's members, from lowest-pitched tone to highest, are called: Some twentieth-century theorists, notably Howard Hanson and Carlton Gamer, expand the term to refer to any combination of three different pitches, regardless of the intervals amongst them. The word used by other theorists for this more general concept is ""triad"". Others, notably Allen Forte, use the"
"between parts or lines of music: Music that contains a large number of independent parts (e.g., a double concerto accompanied by 100 orchestral instruments with many interweaving melodic lines) is generally said to have a ""thicker"" or ""denser"" texture than a work with few parts (e.g., a solo flute melody accompanied by a single cello). Timbre, sometimes called ""color"" or ""tone color"" is the quality or sound of a voice or instrument. Timbre is what makes a particular musical sound different from another, even when they have the same pitch and loudness. For example, a 440 Hz A note sounds"
"Unfolding (music) In Schenkerian analysis, unfolding (German: """") or compound melody is the implication of more than one melody or line by a single voice through skipping back and forth between the notes of the two melodies. In music cognition, the phenomenon is also known as melodic fission. The term ""compound melody"" may have its origin in Walter Piston's ""Counterpoint"" (New York, Norton, 1947), under the form ""compound melodic line"" (London edition, 1947, p. 23). In the context of Schenkerian analysis, it appears among others in Forte & Gilbert, ""Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis"" (1982), Chapter 3, pp. 67-80. Manfred Bukofzer,"
"Musical note In music, a note is the pitch and duration of a sound, and also its representation in musical notation (♪, ♩). A note can also represent a pitch class. Notes are the building blocks of much written music: discretizations of musical phenomena that facilitate performance, comprehension, and analysis. The term ""note"" can be used in both generic and specific senses: one might say either ""the piece 'Happy Birthday to You' begins with two notes having the same pitch"", or ""the piece begins with two repetitions of the same note"". In the former case, one uses ""note"" to refer"
"Inharmonicity In music, inharmonicity is the degree to which the frequencies of overtones (also known as partials or partial tones) depart from whole multiples of the fundamental frequency (harmonic series). Acoustically, a note perceived to have a single distinct pitch in fact contains a variety of additional overtones. Many percussion instruments, such as cymbals, tam-tams, and chimes, create complex and inharmonic sounds. However, in stringed instruments such as the piano, violin, and guitar, or in some Indian drums such as tabla, the overtones are close to—or in some cases, quite exactly—whole number multiples of the fundamental frequency. Any departure from"
"Common tone (chord) In music, a common tone is a pitch class that is a member of, or common to (shared by) two or more chords or sets. Typically, it refers to a note shared between two chords in a chord progression. According to H.E. Woodruff: The example below shows the seven diatonic triads of C major. The common tones between the tonic triad and the other six triads are highlighted in blue. As Woodruff describes, the tonic triad shares ""no"" common tones with either II and VII (consecutive to I), ""one"" common tone with IV and V (four and"
"Equale An equale or aequale (from , equal voices or parts) is a musical idiom. It is a piece for equal voices or instruments. In the 18th century the equale became established as a generic term for short, chordal pieces for trombone choirs, usually quartets or trios. The instruments were not necessarily equal in pitch, but formed a closed consort. Aequales were conventionally used in Austria to commemorate the dead. They were performed from towers on All Souls' Day (2 November), and on the previous evening. They were also performed at funerals. While aequales might be played by other instruments,"
"Melody A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ""melōidía"", ""singing, chanting""), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of pitch and rhythm, while more figuratively, the term can include successions of other musical elements such as tonal color. It may be considered the foreground to the background accompaniment. A line or part need not be a foreground melody. Melodies often consist of one or more musical phrases or motifs, and are usually repeated throughout a composition in various forms."
"Multiphonic A multiphonic is an extended technique on a monophonic musical instrument (one which generally produces only one note at a time) in which several notes are produced at once. This includes wind, reed, and brass instruments, as well as the human voice. Multiphonic-like sounds on string instruments, both bowed and hammered, have also been called multiphonics, for lack of better terminology and scarcity of research. Multiphonics on wind instruments are primarily a 20th-century technique, first explicitly called for in ""Sequenza I"" for solo flute by Luciano Berio and ""Proporzioni"" for solo flute by Franco Evangelisti, both composed in 1958,"
"listener can possibly (or relatively easily) discern the pitch. Sounds with definite pitch have harmonic frequency spectra or close to harmonic spectra. A sound generated on any instrument produces many modes of vibration that occur simultaneously. A listener hears numerous frequencies at once. The vibration with the lowest frequency is called the ""fundamental frequency""; the other frequencies are ""overtones"". ""Harmonics"" are an important class of overtones with frequencies that are integer multiples of the fundamental. Whether or not the higher frequencies are integer multiples, they are collectively called the partials, referring to the different parts that make up the total"
"Modular music Modular music is music that originates from the combination and overlapping of different compositions one over the other. The compositions —also called modules— are written by one or many different composers in different moments. New modules can be added or removed to create a totally new work, a new composition, different from the original one. A modular composition can be expanded and extended in time, space and size. In the high Medieval times, French monks discovered that superimposing two melodies and playing them contemporaneously would generate interesting acoustics. They really witnessed innovative acoustic combinations: the counterpoint; at first"
"and ""unanimous"". Monophony could also conceivably include more than one voice which do not sing in unison but whose pitches move in parallel, always maintaining the same interval of an octave. A pair of notes sung one or a multiple of an octave apart are almost in unison, due to octave equivalency. When there are two or more voices singing different notes, this is called ""part singing"". If they are singing notes at different pitches but with the same rhythm this is called homophony. An example is a barbershop quartet or a choir singing a hymn. If each voice is"
"balance between ""tense"" and ""relaxed"" moments. The term ""harmony"" derives from the Greek ""harmonia"", meaning ""joint, agreement, concord"", from the verb ""harmozō"", ""(Ι) fit together, join"". In the past, ""harmony"" often referred to the whole field of music, while ""music"" referred to the arts in general. In Ancient Greece, the term defined the combination of contrasted elements: a higher and lower note. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether the simultaneous sounding of notes was part of ancient Greek musical practice; ""harmonía"" may have merely provided a system of classification of the relationships between different pitches. In the Middle Ages the term"