Terms

© 2024 Thomas S. Clark – All Rights Reserved

ACCELERATION – consistent successive small compressions of beat or pulse.

ARRAY, SUCCESSIVE INTERVAL – When pitches or pitch classes are collected and arranged from lowest to highest within an octave (a scale), the successive interval array is the interval string of semitone sizes from lowest to next lowest, then it to next, etc.

BEAT – pulse that constitutes the primary level of a meter’s hierachy, the connector between both quicker subdivided and slower grouped levels.

CANON – a leading line is echoed after some delay by one or more answering lines of identical rhythmic values and melodic shape (possibly transposed).

COMPOSITE RHYTHM – a stream of durations between time points marked by an attack of a note in one or more lines of the fabric.

COMPRESSION  (time) – an element of a group or stream is a shorter span than the previous element. Example: rhythmic activity changing from half-notes to quarter-notes to eighth-notes is a compression of pace.

CONSTELLATION – any group of pitches formed by their proximity in time (as in simultaneous) or pitch space or similarity of sound color (as in the several pitches of a melodic line played by a particular instrument). Like a star constellation, the pitches establish vertical, horizontal, and diagonal relationships in time/pitch space.

CONSTREAM – a stream of successive pitch constellations, which would traditionally be called a chord progression.

CONTRAPUNTAL ACCENT – prominence of contrapuntal intervals formed by notes starting together on a time-point.

CYCLE – the duration of equivalent time spans in a periodic stream of events.

DURATION – can be measured by whatever time unit is most usefully relevant: beats, measures, seconds, eighth-notes, milliseconds, etc.

ELEMENT  (time) – a point and following time span of an event or group of events, relating to other consecutive elements to form a group at a broader (slower) level of time.

EXPANSION  (time) – opposite of compression, elements of a group or stream are longer spans than previous elements.

GROUP, RHYTHMIC – consecutive related elements, with a point of initiation and accumulated durational span.

HAUPTSTIMME – the focal element of a musical fabric (as named by Schoenberg).

HYPERMEASURE – extension of metric hierachy grouping measures, typically in two- or three-measure units.

INTERVAL  (pitch) – In a 12-tone universe, the distance in semitones between two pitches. For example, C up to G (the classic “Perfect Fifth”) is practically equivalent to 7 semitones.

INTERVAL CLASS – the shortest distance in semitones between two pitch classes. There are only 6 interval classes. Example: A up to F is 8 semitones, but F up to A an octave higher is only 4 semitones, therefore interval class 4.

INTERVAL STACK – When pitches of a constellation are arranged lowest to highest, like a chord, the interval stack is the successive interval array of semitones from lowest to next, on up to the top.

KLANGFARBENMELODIE – a line expressed in sound by a string of changing tone colors (Farben).

LINE – an element of a musical fabric consisting of a conforming stream of similar events (notes, pitches, colors, drum sounds, etc.).

METER – a nested hierarchy of periodic articulation of time points, creating the perception/expectation of events happening at periodic time points on more than one level of speed/duration.

PACE – different than tempo, the general quickness / slowness of rhythmic activity in a line or whole fabric. Pace can increase (compression) when tempo remains steady, does not accelerate.

PERIOD – grouping of phrases, typically concluded with a significant harmonic cadence and/or melodic sense of arrival.

PERIODIC – a stream of events whose elements exhibit equivalent time spans.

PHRASE – grouping of molecules, shapes, motives, chord changes, etc. in a coherent stream, typically the length of the human breath.

PITCH CLASS – all pitches octave or enharmonically related are members of one pitch class. Forte numbered them, pc0 = C, pc1 = C#/Db, etc. to facilitate transposition as an arithmetic addition. We prefer simply to name the pitch as a capital letter, using instead the interval pattern constructed on a different starting pitch.

POINT – a precise moment in time flow marking the beginning of a span of time that extends until a comparable event marks the next time point.

POINTILLISM – (unlike painting) separating sounds in time and pitch space, not to blend them into a texture so much as to highlight the different qualities of each unique sound event.

PROPORTION – the relationship of time spans expressed as a ratio, reduced to smallest-possible integers (whole numbers).

PULSE – ungrouped periodic time marking in a speed of about 50 to 1000 per minute (above 1000 per minute becomes pitch).

RELATIVITY – the essence of music structure, relating all parameters of a musical event, interacting qualities of each sound event’s or each line’s loudness, resonance, timbre, duration, pitch, and time point of initiation.

SET CLASS – all sets of the same number of pitch classes that are transpositionally and/or inversionally equivalent, i.e. reduce to the same successive-interval (scale) array or inversion. Example:  D F C reduces to C, D, F = array 2 3;  A E G = E, G, A = 3 2, inverse of 2 3. According to Forte, there are only 12 distinct 3-note set classes. See Constellations: 3-pitch interval stacks.

SPAN – the duration of time from one point to the next marked by a comparable event.

SOUND MASS – music that is designed primarily as animating massive layers of sound.

STREAM – a series of events formed by the elements of consecutive groups.

TIME POINT – a precise moment in time flow marking the beginning of a span of time extending until a comparable event marks the next time point.

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