1.
Atonality: Music that is not in any key or tonality.
2.
Bitonality: Two keys (tonal centers) occurring simultaneously.
3.
Chance Music: Music in which some or all events are the product of chance.
4.
Chromatic: Melodic or harmonic movement by half steps.
5.
Eclecticism: The practice of combining what the composer believes to be the best features of several different styles.
6.
Expressionism: An early twentieth-century style that emphasized subjective and often disturbing emotions.
7.
Folkloric: A type of twentieth-century music that contains folklike qualities.
8.
Inversion: (1) Turning a melody upside down so that an ascending interval descends, and vice versa. (2) Rearranging the notes in a chord so that its basic note is no longer the lowest one.
9.
Klangfarbenmelodie: German for "Manufactured tone color melody"; melodies made up of different timbres.
10.
Mainstream: Twentieth-century music that is neither experimental nor committed to a particular compositional viewpoint.
11.
Microtone: An interval of less than a half step.
12.
Musique Concrete: Natural sounds that are recorded and then modified and organized by a composer into a musical composition.
13.
Neoclassicism: "New classicism"—works that attempt to emulate the techniques and flavor of those created in the Classical period.
14.
Octave Displacement: Using a note with the same letter name as a previous note but in another octave.
15.
Polymeter: The presence of two or more meters at the same time.
16.
Polytonality: Two or more tonal centers sounding at the same time.
17.
Prepared Piano: A practice sometimes used in twentieth-century music in which tacks, chewing gum, paper, and other objects are placed in the mechanism of the piano so that it sounds different timbres.
18.
Primitivism: Music that seeks to contain rhythmic power and blatant expression.
19.
Retrograde: The reverse direction of a melody of tone row, in which the first note becomes the last, and so on
20.
Retrograde-Inversion: The upside-down and backward version of the tone row.
21.
Serialism: The application of the principles of tone row music to elements such as dynamic levels and articulations.
22.
Sprechstimme: A vocal style that is a combination of speaking and singing.
23.
Tone Row Music: (twelve-tone or dodecaphonic music) A composition based on a row of pitches that uses each of the twelve tones in an octave.
24.
Vocalise: A song sung without words, usually sung on a single vowel sound.
