20th Century Music Higher

Impressionism – late 1900s

Impressionism Often programmatic (descriptive) Chords used for expression Discords merge into further discords Parallel Chords Use of unusual scales Modal Pentatonic Whole tone L'apres midi d'une faune - Debussy

Whole Tone Scale A scale made up of whole tones Whole Tone Scale

Minimalism – 1950s +

Minimalist Ideas repeated over and over Sounds very simple Changes happen gradually Steve Reich – Six Marimbas

Neo Classical Dissonance Instrumentation Unusual harmonic changes Stravinsky - Pulcinella

Musique Concrete

Musique Concrete Recorded Natural Sounds Edited using techniques such as: Cutting and re-assembling Playing backwards Slowing down Speeding up Pierre Schaeffer - Apostrophe

Musical A play which has speaking, singing and dancing Performed on a stage. In recent years the musical has seen a revival and may now deal with very dramatic stories and contain no dialogue.

Jazz Funk a sub-genre of jazz music. Herbie Hancock - Chameleon a sub-genre of jazz music. a strong rhythmic ‘groove,’ above which instrumentalists improvise solo passages. will typically consist of drum kit, bass guitar, rhythm guitar and synthesiser, emerged during the 1970s with features being similar to disco.

Soul developed in the southern states of America grew in popularity throughout the 1960s a combination of gospel, blues and country music, its gritty sound reflected what was happening socially in America at that time Marvin Gaye – Heard it through the Grapevine

Serialism Berg – Violin Concerto Devised by Schoenberg Arrangement of 12 notes of chromatic scale Tone row None should appear out of order A note may be immediately repeated Any note may appear in any octave

Tone Row Original form Retrograde (in reverse order) Inversion (turned upside down) Retrograde Inversion (backward and upside down)

Harmonics Harmonics can be produced by a number of instruments. By lightly touching the string of a bowed stringed instrument at certain points for example, a high eerie sound is produced. On a guitar or harp these have a bell-like quality. EXAMPLE

Polytonality Two or more keys played or sung at the same time The melody might be in the key of C major whilst the accompaniment might be in E major Bartok Ives Holst Stravinsky Jesus Must Die from Jesus Christ Superstar

Cross Rhythms The effect of two notes being played against three The effect that occurs when the accents in a piece of music are different from those suggested by the time signature 4/4 time into 3+3+2 quavers VISUAL EXAMPLE

Note Clusters A group of notes played on a keyboard instrument with the palm of the hand or even with the forearm

Irregular Metres Groupings of notes change, but the underlying pulse remains constant.  Groupings of two and three produce irregular accents and metres Destroy the feeling of a regular down beat by changing the time signature frequently MONEY

Sprechgesang A technique used in vocal music Half-way between singing and speaking Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire

Hemiola A rhythmic device giving the impression of a piece of music changing from duple (2) to triple (3) time vice versa Sometimes placed at the end of a piece to act as a kind of Rallentando. EXAMPLE