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20th Century Music

Terms in this set (16)

Impressionism
Use of static Harmony and instruments with timbres that personify colors. No traditional form and lack of directional melody. Has no traditional basis.
Expressionism
a style of painting, music, or drama in which the artist or writer seeks to express emotional experience rather than impressions of the external world.
Atonal Music
Music that lacks a tone center- which does not establish a key.
Neoclassicism
A method of re-creating classical music, but with a 20th century style. E.Grieg and Stravinsky were big on this.
Musique Concrete
Much like Sampling, the use of recorded sounds for composing music. I.E. No need of having a live performer. Used to being in a natural element into the piece.
Minimalism
Music very much opposite to the complex style of the 20th century, minimalism uses no form and structure but, uses minute changes. It puts emphasis on harmony and generally lacks melody.
Aleatory Music
Music that has a random nature, giving the performer freedom in the way in which they can play their music.
Nationalism
Music that tends to represent the country which it originates from. Started out in Europe during the Romantic period, but spread to the Americas in the 20th century.
Polytonailty
The use of more than one key simultaneously in a composition.
Sprechgesang
An expressionist vocal technique between speaking and singing.
Pointillism
Also known as punctualism, is a composition style where the melodic line has notes that are written in seclusion as opposed to linearly. Much like a painting made by dots.
Serialism
An example being the 12-tone technique, is giving notes values to manipulate different musical elements.
Dissonance
Is when there is a lack of harmony between the notes played.
12 Tone Series
The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any one note[3] through the use of tone rows, orderings of the 12 pitch classes. All 12 notes are thus given more or less equal importance, and the music avoids being in a key. The technique was influential on composers in the mid-20th century
Tone Cluster
A musical chord formed by playing the adjacent notes in a scale, together. An example is playing C, C# and D together.
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