Unit 2 Music Appreciation Notes.pdf - Unit 2 Music...

Unit 2 Music Appreciation Notes
Chapter 7
● Tempo is the rate of speed, or pace, of the music
● Allegro (fast), moderato (moderate), adagio (quite slow), accelerando (speeding up), and
ritardando (slowing down)
● Dynamics describe the volume, or how loud or soft the music is played
● Italian terms for dynamics include forte (loud) and piano (soft)
● Composers indicate tempo and dynamics as a means of expression
● Common tempo markings:
○ Grave: solemn (very, very
slow)
○ Largo: broad (very slow)
○ Adagio: quite slow
○ Andante: a walking pace
○ Moderato: moderate
○ Allegro: fast
○ Vivace: lively
○ Presto: very fast
● Modifiers
○ Molto- very
○ Meno- less
○ Poco- a little
○ Non troppo- not too much
● Change of Tempo
○ Accelerando- getting fast
○ Ritardando- holding back, getting slower
○ Tempo- in time or returning to original pace
● Dynamics
○ Pianissimo (pp)- very soft
○ Piano (p)- soft
○ Mezzo piano (mp)-
moderately soft
○ Mezzo forte (mf)- moderately
loud
○ Forte (f)- loud
○ Fortissimo (ff)- very loud
○ Crescendo- growing louder
○ Decrescendo- growing softer
Chapter 8
● Greek word for music implied a union of melody, language, and movement
● Nonlexical- nonsensical (na na na)
● Scat singing- vocal improvisation using wordless vocables (shoo-be-doo-be-doo-wop)
● Vocalise- wordless melody (singing on neutral vowel like “ah”
● Vernacular- the language of the people
● Secular- nonreligious
● Sacred- religious music, Latin is language of the Roman Catholic Church
● Each syllable of a song text may get one note (syllabic setting) (happy birthday)
● One syllable may get a few notes (neumatic setting)
● One syllable may get many notes (melismatic setting) (hallelujah ending)
● Composers use word-painting to emphasize the text, perhaps with a drawn-out word
over many notes (melisma) or with a melody that pictorializes a word
● Most common type of musical setting, in both popular and art music, is strophic form, in
which the same music is repeated for each stanza

● Refrain or chorus are words and music that recur after each stanza
● Sung dramas, the text may be free (unrhymed, metrical)
● Arias are song-like passages and are very lyrical
Chapter 9
● Timbre or tone color accounts for the striking differences in the sound quality of musical
instruments, mechanisms that generate vibrations and launch them into the air
● It’s what makes trumpets and guitars sound difference
● It’s influenced by size, shape, proportions of instrument, material which it is made from,
and manner by which the vibration is produced
● Register- specific area in the range of an instrument or voice, such as low, middle, or
high
●