Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Polyphonic or Counterpoint or Contrapuntal: Multiple melodic voices which are to a considerable extent independent from or in imitation with one another. Characteristic texture of the Renaissance music, also prevalent during the Baroque period. [8] Polyphonic textures may contain several PMs. [5]
Polyphony (/ p ə ˈ l ɪ f ə n i / pə-LIF-ə-nee) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ().
In Western pedagogy, counterpoint is taught through a system of species (see below). There are several different forms of counterpoint, including imitative counterpoint and free counterpoint. Imitative counterpoint involves the repetition of a main melodic idea across different vocal parts, with or without variation.
The smallest pitch difference between notes (in most Western music) (e.g. F–F ♯) (Note: some contemporary music, non-Western music, and blues and jazz uses microtonal divisions smaller than a semitone) semplice Simple sempre Always sentimento Feeling, emotion sentito lit. "felt", with expression senza Without senza misura Without measure ...
In music, an invention is a short composition (usually for a keyboard instrument) in two-part counterpoint. (Compositions in the same style as an invention but using three-part counterpoint are known as sinfonias. Some modern publishers call them "three-part inventions" to avoid confusion with symphonies.)
Virgil Thomson [16] lists the "raw materials" of music in order of their supposed discovery: rhythm, melody, and harmony; including counterpoint and orchestration. Near the end of the twentieth century music scholarship began to give more attention to social and physical elements of music. [17]
The notion of counterpoint seeks to understand and describe the relationships between melodic lines, often in the context of a polyphonic texture of several simultaneous but independent voices. Therefore, it is sometimes seen as a type of harmonic understanding, and sometimes distinguished from harmony.
Another crucial distinction between Renaissance and Baroque writing is its texture: the shift from contrapuntal polyphony, in which all voices are theoretically equal, to monody and treble-bass polarity, along with the development of basso continuo. In this new style of writing, solo melody and bass line accompaniment were now the important ...