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Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The process of interpreting musical notation is often referred to as reading music.
Mozart's Piano Sonata, K 545 opening. The right hand plays the melody, which is in the top stave. The left hand plays the accompaniment part, which is in the lower stave. In the first bar of the accompaniment part, the pianist plays a C Major chord in the left hand; this chord is arpeggiated (i.e., a chord in which the notes are played one after the other, rather than simultaneousl
Some definitions refer to music as a score, or a composition: [18] [7] [19] music can be read as well as heard, and a piece of music written but never played is a piece of music notwithstanding. According to Edward E. Gordon the process of reading music , at least for trained musicians, involves a process, called "inner hearing" or "audiation ...
John Butt has argued that figured bass is an instance of "purposely incomplete" notation conferring a positive advantage. [18] Accompaniments improvised from a figured bass line can be made to suit varying circumstances e.g. tempi, instrumentation, and even the hall acoustics.
In music, form refers to the structure of a musical composition or performance.In his book, Worlds of Music, Jeff Todd Titon suggests that a number of organizational elements may determine the formal structure of a piece of music, such as "the arrangement of musical units of rhythm, melody, and/or harmony that show repetition or variation, the arrangement of the instruments (as in the order of ...
The Oxford Companion to Music describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (key signatures, time signatures, and rhythmic notation); the second is learning scholars' views on music from antiquity to the present; the third is a sub-topic of musicology ...
In Western musical theory, a cadence (from Latin cadentia 'a falling') is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards. [2] A harmonic cadence is a progression of two or more chords that concludes a phrase, section, or piece of music. [3]
Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality, in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on a single, central triad is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale function independently of one another. [1]