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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 instrumental music, a style of playing that imitates the way the human voice might express the music, with a measured tempo and flexible legato. cantilena a vocal melody or instrumental passage in a smooth, lyrical style canto Chorus; choral; chant cantus mensuratus or cantus figuratus (Lat.) Meaning respectively "measured song" or "figured ...
In theory, "music history" could refer to the study of the history of any type or genre of music, such as the music of India or rock music. In practice, these research topics are more often considered within ethnomusicology and "historical musicology" is typically assumed to imply Western Art music of the European tradition.
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 ...
"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" is a maxim used to express the futility of translating music through words. [1] It may be employed as an argument for dismissing music criticism altogether. [2] The quote's origin is unknown. It is most commonly misattributed to musicians Laurie Anderson [3] and Elvis Costello. [4]
Baroque opera arias and a considerable number of baroque sacred music arias was dominated by the Da capo aria which were in the ABA form. A frequent model of the form began with a long A section in a major key, a short B section in a relative minor key mildly developing the thematic material of the A section and then a repetition of the A section. [4]
However, because of contradictions in the original definitions, writers use these words in different ways. In music, arsis is an unaccented note , while the thesis is the downbeat. [3] However, in discussions of Latin and modern poetry the word arsis is generally used to mean the stressed syllable of the foot, that is, the ictus. [4]
Music theory analyzes the pitch, timing, and structure of music. It uses mathematics to study elements of music such as tempo , chord progression , form , and meter . The attempt to structure and communicate new ways of composing and hearing music has led to musical applications of set theory , abstract algebra and number theory .