Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all human societies. Definitions of music vary widely in substance and approach. While scholars agree that music is defined by a small number of specific elements, there is no consensus as to what these necessary elements are. Music is often characterized as a highly versatile medium for expressing human creativity. Diverse activities are involved in the creation of music, and are often divided into categories of composition, improvisation, and performance. Music may be performed using a wide variety of musical instruments, including the human voice. It can also be composed, sequenced, or otherwise produced to be indirectly played mechanically or electronically, such as via a music box, barrel organ, or digital audio workstation software on a computer.
Polyphony 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 (monophony) or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony).
A choir, also known as a chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words is the music performed by the ensemble. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the medieval era to the present, or popular music repertoire. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, hand, and facial gestures.
Overtone singing, also known as overtone chanting, harmonic singing, polyphonic overtone singing, or diphonic singing, is a set of singing techniques in which the vocalist manipulates the resonances of the vocal tract to arouse the perception of additional separate notes beyond the fundamental frequency that is being produced.
A barbershop quartet is a group of four singers who sing music in the barbershop style, characterized by four-part harmony without instrumental accompaniment. The four voices are: the lead, the vocal part which typically carries the melody; a bass, the part which provides the bass line to the melody; a tenor, the part which harmonizes above the lead; and a baritone, the part that frequently completes the chord. The baritone normally sings just below the lead singer, sometimes just above as the harmony requires. Barbershop music is typified by close harmony— the upper three voices generally remain within one octave of each other.
A Greek chorus in the context of ancient Greek tragedy, comedy, satyr plays, is a homogeneous group of performers, who comment with a collective voice on the action of the scene they appear in, or provide necessary insight into action which has taken place offstage. Historically, the chorus consisted of between 12 and 50 players, who variously danced, sang or spoke their lines in unison, and sometimes wore masks.
In music, unison is two or more musical parts that sound either the same pitch or pitches separated by intervals of one or more octaves, usually at the same time. Rhythmic unison is another term for homorhythm.
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, or the way a symphonic piece is orchestrated", among other factors. It is, "the ways in which a composition is shaped to create a meaningful musical experience for the listener."
"Form refers to the largest shape of the composition. Form in music is the result of the interaction of the four structural elements described above [sound, harmony, melody, rhythm]."
Barbershop vocal harmony is a style of a cappella close harmony, or unaccompanied vocal music, characterized by consonant four-part chords for every melody note in a primarily homorhythmic texture. Each of the four parts has its own role: generally, the lead sings the melody, the tenor harmonizes above the melody, the bass sings the lowest harmonizing notes, and the baritone completes the chord, usually below the lead. The melody is not usually sung by the tenor or baritone, except for an infrequent note or two to avoid awkward voice leading, in tags or codas, or when some appropriate embellishment can be created. One characteristic feature of barbershop harmony is the use of what is known as "snakes" and "swipes". This is when a chord is altered by a change in one or more non-melodic voices. Occasional passages may be sung by fewer than four voice parts.
Blackfoot music is the music of the Blackfoot people. Singing predominates and was accompanied only by percussion.
Capoeira music is the traditional musical accompaniment used in Afro-Brazilian art capoeira, featuring instruments like berimbau, pandeiro, atabaque, agogô, and reco-reco. The music plays a crucial role in capoeira roda, setting the style the energy of a game.
Trallalero is a kind of polyphonic folk music from the Ligurian region of Genoa, in northern Italy. It is traditionally performed by men, though there have been some female performers in the modern era. The name derives from the monosyllabic vocables, tra-la-le-ro, which feature heavily in the repertoire of the groups or Squadre. These are typically sections of songs without words during which the melody is sung on nonsense syllables.
Prehistoric music is a term in the history of music for all music produced in preliterate cultures (prehistory), beginning somewhere in very late geological history. Prehistoric music is followed by ancient music in different parts of the world, but still exists in isolated areas. However, it is more common to refer to the "prehistoric" music which still survives as folk, indigenous or traditional music. Prehistoric music is studied alongside other periods within music archaeology.
Evolutionary musicology is a subfield of biomusicology that grounds the cognitive mechanisms of music appreciation and music creation in evolutionary theory. It covers vocal communication in other animals, theories of the evolution of human music, and holocultural universals in musical ability and processing.
A hymn tune is the melody of a musical composition to which a hymn text is sung. Musically speaking, a hymn is generally understood to have four-part harmony, a fast harmonic rhythm, with or without refrain or chorus.
A men's chorus or male voice choir (MVC), is a choir consisting of men who sing with either a tenor or bass voice, and whose music is typically arranged into high and low tenors, and high and low basses —and shortened to the letters TTBB. The term can also refer to a piece of music which is performed by such a choir.
Knowledge of the biblical period is mostly from literary references in the Bible and post-biblical sources. Religion and music historian Herbert Lockyer, Jr. writes that "music, both vocal and instrumental, was well cultivated among the Hebrews, the New Testament Christians, and the Christian church through the centuries." He adds that "a look at the Old Testament reveals how God's ancient people were devoted to the study and practice of music, which holds a unique place in the historical and prophetic books, as well as the Psalter."
Suyá music is the music of the Suyá people, a tribe of about 150 people who live on the Suyá-Miçu River and are native to Mato Grosso, Brazil. Their houses are set up in a circle around the village square, where the majority of their ceremonies take place. Other buildings include a men's meeting house where there is almost always singing. Speech and hearing are highly valued in the social behavior of the tribe. The Suyá Indians symbolize their importance with body decorations that include ear and lip disks. In 1980, ethnomusicologist Anthony Seeger interpreted this body ornamentation as an emphasis on orality and listening as a principal means of perception, transmission, comprehension, and expression of fundamental values.
The Creation, the oratorio by Joseph Haydn, is structured in three parts. He composed it in 1796–1798 on German text as Die Schöpfung. The work is set for soloists, chorus and orchestra. Its movements are listed in tables for their form, voice, key, tempo marking, time signature and source.
Traditional sub-Saharan African harmony is a music theory of harmony in sub-Saharan African music based on the principles of homophonic parallelism, homophonic polyphony, counter-melody and ostinato-variation. Polyphony is common in African music and heterophony is a common technique as well. Although these principles of traditional African music are of Pan-African validity, the degree to which they are used in one area over another varies. Specific techniques that used to generate harmony in Africa are the "span process", "pedal notes", "rhythmic harmony", "harmony by imitation", and "scalar clusters".
