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A musical figure or figuration is the shortest idea in music; a short succession of notes, often recurring. It may have melodic pitch, harmonic progression, and rhythmic meter. The 1964 Grove's Dictionary defines the figure as "the exact counterpart of the German 'motiv' and the French 'motif '": it produces a "single complete and distinct ...
In contemporary art music, the entire gamut of historical style periods has served as a creative resource. Interest in musical historicism has been spurred by the emergence of such international organizations as the Delian Society , dedicated to the revitalization of tonal art music, and Vox Saeculorum , whose composer members have a ...
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart , it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theory of music .
Since music can be endlessly broken down into smaller and smaller categories, a genealogical chart will usually focus on one major genre and its different strains. How these developed out of one another is shown in a genealogical chart, often with major figures or innovators of each subgenre. A simplified example appears below.
The range of possible topics is virtually limitless. Some examples might be "Music during World War I," "Medieval and Renaissance instrumental music," "Music and politics," "Mozart's Don Giovanni, or Women and music." The methods and tools of music history are nearly as many as its subjects and therefore make a strict categorization impossible.
Common practice period – period of about 250 years during which the tonal system was regarded as the only basis for composition. It began when composers' use of the tonal system had clearly superseded earlier systems, and ended when some composers began using significantly modified versions of the tonal system, and began developing other systems as well.
Date ranges of classical music eras are therefore somewhat arbitrary, and are only intended as approximate guides. Scholars of music history do not agree on the start and end dates, and in many cases disagree whether particular years should be chosen at all. The 20th century has exact dates, but is strictly a calendar based unit of time.
Ancient Roman music and singing originated from Etruscan music, [5] [6] [7] and then Ancient Greek music. [8] During its early history, it was mostly used for military purposes. [9] According to Cicero, Roman musical tradition was adapted during the reign of Numa Pompilius.