Music Midterm Terms

The pulse that marks the first beat of every measure

Any beat of the measure that isn’t the downbeat

in two-beat music, the bass tends to emphasize two notes per measure in a down-up pattern that leaves some space between the notes: 1-(and)-2-(and)-1-(and)-2-(and)  etc.  as an example of a two-beat feel in traditional music (marching-band music, country music)

four-beat feel in American popular music was introduced in jazz, beginning with swing. It walks, or plays a note evenly on every beat of a four-beat measure:  1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-

Any of the normally unaccented beats in a bar, such as the second and fourth beats in a bar of four-four time

Secondary beat, gives an extra push to the music

Conveys a feeling of rhythmic power by pounding or leaning insistently on every beat of the measure, making the music incredibly intense and exciting. is intimately connected to blues form and expression, and to dance music

Meaning a musical attack that occurs on a relatively weak beat (or offbeat) at the expense of a neighboring strong beat which receives no attack

Small, privately owned companies

Large corporations that spread mainstream media

Specific, unique quality of a musical sound

Simple and unvarying, basis of most written musical notation

Bending or sliding, more subtle, harder to pin down

A ladder of notes

8 pitches of a common scale

Denotes the basic scales of Western classical and traditional mainstream popular music

Twelve pitches, including all the sharps and flats, much rarer in music

Music in the Broadway tradition of sophisticated, swing-influenced popular song commonly has chromatic inflections carefully woven into its diatonic scales

Home note of a scale, where the melody begins and often begins

Scales used in folk and roots music in America, a basic force behind our rock and popular traditions

Scale helping rock music sound “anti-institutional” while at the same time rootsy, inviting a different kind of authority

Scale with only five different pitches within the octave, with fewer pitches, pentatonic scales are simpler to sing

A pitch space, place in certain scales where you can bend, dig in, wail, or otherwise move around

Diversity, even friction, of sounds and sound combinations, involves rhythm, and the texture or feel of the musical sound

the simplest and most classic form of the blues,

-3 different forms: poetic, melodic, harmonic

Scale lies at the heart of African American singing traditions

Development of an increasingly radical style in the arts

Southern roots music produced a new kind of offshoot, and a new market for music, combining urban and rural elements

World wide swing craze, complete with wild fashions, insane fans, and general craziness, audiences discovering African American music and dance styles

Larger bands for larger clubs and dance halls, usually 9-13 players

Played entirely from written notation, tends to show classical influence

Music that gave space for improvisation by solo players, unwritten elements, fresh and exciting

Four stanzas, arranged musically to form an A-A-B-A pattern

“Hillbilly” music intended for European Americans

“Race music” intended for African-Americans

33rpm or “long playing record” appeared, larger than the then-universal 78rpm format, held more music, lighter, more flexible

An alliance between swing jazz and hillbilly music, dance music

Raunchy bars with dance floors, its lyrics evoke hot, lonely, or edgy places where lost souls gather

Large number of singers and players who created an intense, rough-edged style of electric blues

Universally known and played, usually circulated as sheet music, but often simply learned by ear as tunes, lyrics, and chord changes

Songs identified with one singer and even one recording

Hot music is equated with jazz, while sweet music is not, but within jazz, there are degrees of hot and cool

Incorporates Rock ‘n’ Roll and Hillbilly music, loud, edgy, wild, strong rhythm, southern identity

Sam Phillip’s creation, add R&B influenced blues and boogie basis with a hillbilly string band format

Careful attention to amplification, clean and precise miking, mixing, strong reverb

Pounding on all three triples of the swing beat

An antidote to Rock ‘n’ Roll, singing softly, emphasis is taken off the loud volume, importance of the microphone

1950’s mainstream, youthful pop vocal harmony style

-20th century art and culture had to do with the idea of progression, innovation, moving forward aggressively and idealistically toward a bright, uncharted horizon; and this overarching trend reached a peak at mid-century

-beginning of the 'space age' for millions of Americans.

Key feature of modernism in music, elimination of recognizable traditional design elements, unfamiliar and strange sounds

Powerful tendency in modernist music, crisp, stripped-down “points” of sound, or thin, “pointy” sounds

Music that you don’t listen to consciously, background music, “easy listening” music, “environment” music, meant to make you feel good while ignoring it

Invention and exploitation of high fidelity in music

Any music intended to be heard in a “lounge”, space for live music that patrons might ignore

-Massiveness and complexity

-highly recognizable and extremely influential sound, involving heavy application of reverb (echo) and extensive multitracking

Reflects the fact they often had to rehearse in their own garages, had an amateurish quality, stripped-down, primal quality

First mega-pop representation of self-inventing and self-defining girlhood, proclaiming the power and glory of unvarnished teen female voices and peer-groups

Music that evoked more of a physically active, possibly rebellious edge, instruments were essential to surfing music especially drums and guitars, loose style that developed out of later 50s pop trends

Gives you an idea of 'beat,' and the culture around it, made out of sensuous observation, lusts, fears, logic mixed with the illogical, and through it all, the sound and ideology of jazz 

By the end of the 1950s, it was a major movement and increase popularity in folk music

Compiled by Harry Smith in 1952 for Moe Asch's Folkways Records, the greatest of all American roots record companies

a guitar-based style that actually fused three strands of American music in this era: blues, jazz, and folk

The music on the album adds up to a complete

Everything about the record was ambitious, risky, over the top; and it all worked: possibly first concept album ever made