In English early Baroque music, a broken consort is an ensemble featuring instruments from more than one family, for example a group featuring both string and wind instruments. A consort consisting entirely of instruments of the same family, on the other hand, was referred to as a "whole consort ", though this expression is not found until well into the seventeenth century. The word "consort", used in this way, is an earlier form of "concert", according to one opinion, while other sources hold the reverse: that it comes from the French term concert or its Italian parent term concerto , in its sixteenth-century sense. Matthew Locke published pieces for whole and broken consorts of two to six parts as late as 1672.
68-669: Thomas Morley (1557 – early October 1602) was an English composer, theorist , singer and organist of the Renaissance . He was one of the foremost members of the English Madrigal School . Referring to the strong Italian influence on the English madrigal , The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians states that Morley was "chiefly responsible for grafting the Italian shoot on to the native stock and initiating
136-625: A recorder or transverse flute. Such consorts became quite popular during the Elizabethan era and often accompanied vocal songs. Two manuscript sets of partbooks dating from 1588 and ca. 1590 are the earliest substantial sources of music for this consort. The earlier collection is known as the Walsingham Consort Books, and contains 34 pieces, including twelve by Richard Allison and seven by Daniel Bachiler , who likely wrote and owned these books. The later set of partbooks
204-553: A Roman Catholic, but he was able to avoid prosecution as a recusant , and there is evidence that he may have been an informer on the activities of Roman Catholics. It is believed that Morley moved from Norwich to London sometime before 1574 to be a chorister at St. Paul's Cathedral . Around this time, he studied with William Byrd , whom he named as his mentor in his 1597 publication A Plain and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke . Byrd also taught Morley's contemporary, Peter Philips . In 1588 he received his bachelor's degree from
272-508: A collection published by Thomas Morley (1599/1611). There were a number of other consort compositions published by Philip Rosseter (1609), and some vocal music accompanied by this specific consort was published in collections such as William Leighton 's The Teares and Lamentatacions of a Sorrowfull Soule (1614) and the Psalms of David in Metre (1599) by Richard Allison. Sydney Beck made
340-505: A given meter. Syncopated rhythms contradict those conventions by accenting unexpected parts of the beat. Playing simultaneous rhythms in more than one time signature is called polyrhythm . In recent years, rhythm and meter have become an important area of research among music scholars. The most highly cited of these recent scholars are Maury Yeston , Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff , Jonathan Kramer , and Justin London. A melody
408-650: A greater or lesser degree. Context and many other aspects can affect apparent dissonance and consonance. For example, in a Debussy prelude, a major second may sound stable and consonant, while the same interval may sound dissonant in a Bach fugue. In the Common practice era , the perfect fourth is considered dissonant when not supported by a lower third or fifth. Since the early 20th century, Arnold Schoenberg 's concept of "emancipated" dissonance, in which traditionally dissonant intervals can be treated as "higher," more remote consonances, has become more widely accepted. Rhythm
476-723: A particular composition. During the Baroque period, emotional associations with specific keys, known as the doctrine of the affections , were an important topic in music theory, but the unique tonal colorings of keys that gave rise to that doctrine were largely erased with the adoption of equal temperament. However, many musicians continue to feel that certain keys are more appropriate to certain emotions than others. Indian classical music theory continues to strongly associate keys with emotional states, times of day, and other extra-musical concepts and notably, does not employ equal temperament. Consonance and dissonance are subjective qualities of
544-488: A pipe, he found its sound agreeable and named it huangzhong , the "Yellow Bell." He then heard phoenixes singing. The male and female phoenix each sang six tones. Ling Lun cut his bamboo pipes to match the pitches of the phoenixes, producing twelve pitch pipes in two sets: six from the male phoenix and six from the female: these were called the lülü or later the shierlü . Apart from technical and structural aspects, ancient Chinese music theory also discusses topics such as
612-512: A science of sounds". One must deduce that music theory exists in all musical cultures of the world. Music theory is often concerned with abstract musical aspects such as tuning and tonal systems, scales , consonance and dissonance , and rhythmic relationships. There is also a body of theory concerning practical aspects, such as the creation or the performance of music, orchestration , ornamentation , improvisation, and electronic sound production. A person who researches or teaches music theory
680-515: A singer, composer and organist at St Paul's Cathedral . He was also involved in music publishing. From 1598 up to his death he held a printing patent (a type of monopoly). He used the monopoly in partnership with professional music printers such as Thomas East . Morley was born in Norwich , the son of a brewer. Most likely he was a singer in the local cathedral from his boyhood, and he became master of choristers there in 1583. He may have been
748-517: A six-part instrumentation popular in England from the late-sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, contemporaneously referred to as an "English consort". In late sixteenth-century England the word "consort" on its own was normally applied to groups of diverse instruments coming from different families, and the sense of the term "broken" in the Elizabethan era refers primarily to division ,
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#1732798047271816-779: A surging or "pushed" attack, or fortepiano ( fp ) for a loud attack with a sudden decrease to a soft level. The full span of these markings usually range from a nearly inaudible pianissississimo ( pppp ) to a loud-as-possible fortissississimo ( ffff ). Greater extremes of pppppp and fffff and nuances such as p+ or più piano are sometimes found. Other systems of indicating volume are also used in both notation and analysis: dB (decibels), numerical scales, colored or different sized notes, words in languages other than Italian, and symbols such as those for progressively increasing volume ( crescendo ) or decreasing volume ( diminuendo or decrescendo ), often called " hairpins " when indicated with diverging or converging lines as shown in
884-469: A theoretical nature, mainly lists of intervals and tunings . The scholar Sam Mirelman reports that the earliest of these texts dates from before 1500 BCE, a millennium earlier than surviving evidence from any other culture of comparable musical thought. Further, "All the Mesopotamian texts [about music] are united by the use of a terminology for music that, according to the approximate dating of
952-408: A time in the same parish as Shakespeare, and a connection between the two has been long speculated, but never proven. His famous setting of "It was a lover and his lass" from As You Like It has never been established as having been used in a performance of Shakespeare's play during the playwright's lifetime. However, given that the song was published in 1600, there is evidently a possibility that it
1020-457: A tone comprises. Timbre is principally determined by two things: (1) the relative balance of overtones produced by a given instrument due its construction (e.g. shape, material), and (2) the envelope of the sound (including changes in the overtone structure over time). Timbre varies widely between different instruments, voices, and to lesser degree, between instruments of the same type due to variations in their construction, and significantly,
1088-678: A tradition of other treatises, which are cited regularly just as scholarly writing cites earlier research. In modern academia, music theory is a subfield of musicology , the wider study of musical cultures and history. Guido Adler , however, in one of the texts that founded musicology in the late 19th century, wrote that "the science of music originated at the same time as the art of sounds". , where "the science of music" ( Musikwissenschaft ) obviously meant "music theory". Adler added that music only could exist when one began measuring pitches and comparing them to each other. He concluded that "all people for which one can speak of an art of sounds also have
1156-399: Is a balance between "tense" and "relaxed" moments. Timbre, sometimes called "color", or "tone color," is the principal phenomenon that allows us to distinguish one instrument from another when both play at the same pitch and volume, a quality of a voice or instrument often described in terms like bright, dull, shrill, etc. It is of considerable interest in music theory, especially because it
1224-410: Is a group of musical sounds in agreeable succession or arrangement. Because melody is such a prominent aspect in so much music, its construction and other qualities are a primary interest of music theory. The basic elements of melody are pitch, duration, rhythm, and tempo. The tones of a melody are usually drawn from pitch systems such as scales or modes . Melody may consist, to increasing degree, of
1292-799: Is a music theorist. University study, typically to the MA or PhD level, is required to teach as a tenure-track music theorist in a US or Canadian university. Methods of analysis include mathematics, graphic analysis, and especially analysis enabled by western music notation. Comparative, descriptive, statistical, and other methods are also used. Music theory textbooks , especially in the United States of America, often include elements of musical acoustics , considerations of musical notation , and techniques of tonal composition ( harmony and counterpoint ), among other topics. Several surviving Sumerian and Akkadian clay tablets include musical information of
1360-453: Is an additional chord member that creates a relatively dissonant interval in relation to the bass. It is part of a chord, but is not one of the chord tones (1 3 5 7). Typically, in the classical common practice period a dissonant chord (chord with tension) "resolves" to a consonant chord. Harmonization usually sounds pleasant to the ear when there is a balance between the consonant and dissonant sounds. In simple words, that occurs when there
1428-402: Is called an interval . The most basic interval is the unison , which is simply two notes of the same pitch. The octave interval is two pitches that are either double or half the frequency of one another. The unique characteristics of octaves gave rise to the concept of pitch class : pitches of the same letter name that occur in different octaves may be grouped into a single "class" by ignoring
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#17327980472711496-464: Is common in folk music and blues . Non-Western cultures often use scales that do not correspond with an equally divided twelve-tone division of the octave. For example, classical Ottoman , Persian , Indian and Arabic musical systems often make use of multiples of quarter tones (half the size of a semitone, as the name indicates), for instance in 'neutral' seconds (three quarter tones) or 'neutral' thirds (seven quarter tones)—they do not normally use
1564-591: Is derived from the Greek music scale, and that Arabic music is connected to certain features of Arabic culture, such as astrology. Music is composed of aural phenomena; "music theory" considers how those phenomena apply in music. Music theory considers melody, rhythm, counterpoint, harmony, form, tonal systems, scales, tuning, intervals, consonance, dissonance, durational proportions, the acoustics of pitch systems, composition, performance, orchestration, ornamentation, improvisation, electronic sound production, etc. Pitch
1632-472: Is not an absolute guideline, however; for example, the study of "music" in the Quadrivium liberal arts university curriculum, that was common in medieval Europe , was an abstract system of proportions that was carefully studied at a distance from actual musical practice. But this medieval discipline became the basis for tuning systems in later centuries and is generally included in modern scholarship on
1700-419: Is often referred to as "separated" or "detached" rather than having a defined or numbered amount by which to reduce the notated duration. Violin players use a variety of techniques to perform different qualities of staccato. The manner in which a performer decides to execute a given articulation is usually based on the context of the piece or phrase, but many articulation symbols and verbal instructions depend on
1768-427: Is one component of music that has as yet, no standardized nomenclature. It has been called "... the psychoacoustician's multidimensional waste-basket category for everything that cannot be labeled pitch or loudness," but can be accurately described and analyzed by Fourier analysis and other methods because it results from the combination of all sound frequencies , attack and release envelopes, and other qualities that
1836-521: Is produced by the sequential arrangement of sounds and silences in time. Meter measures music in regular pulse groupings, called measures or bars . The time signature or meter signature specifies how many beats are in a measure, and which value of written note is counted or felt as a single beat. Through increased stress, or variations in duration or articulation, particular tones may be accented. There are conventions in most musical traditions for regular and hierarchical accentuation of beats to reinforce
1904-507: Is still an important reference for information about sixteenth century composition and performance. Thomas Morley was buried in the graveyard of the church of St Botolph Billingsgate , which was destroyed in the Great Fire of London of 1666, and not rebuilt. Thus his grave is lost. Thomas Morley's compositions include (in alphabetical order): Music theory Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding
1972-554: Is the lowness or highness of a tone , for example the difference between middle C and a higher C. The frequency of the sound waves producing a pitch can be measured precisely, but the perception of pitch is more complex because single notes from natural sources are usually a complex mix of many frequencies. Accordingly, theorists often describe pitch as a subjective sensation rather than an objective measurement of sound. Specific frequencies are often assigned letter names. Today most orchestras assign concert A (the A above middle C on
2040-986: The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book ), and music for the broken consort , a uniquely English ensemble of two viols , flute, lute , cittern and bandora , notably as published by William Barley in 1599 in The First Booke of Consort Lessons, made by diuers exquisite Authors, for six Instruments to play together, the Treble Lute, the Bandora, the Cittern, the Base-Violl, the Flute & Treble-Violl . Morley's Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (published 1597) remained popular for almost two hundred years after its author's death, and
2108-654: The University of Oxford , and shortly thereafter was employed as organist at St. Paul's in London. His young son died the following year in 1589. He and his wife Susan had three more children between 1596 and 1600. In 1588 Nicholas Yonge published his Musica transalpina , the collection of Italian madrigals fitted with English texts, which touched off the explosive and colourful vogue for madrigal composition in England. Morley found his compositional direction at this time, and shortly afterwards began publishing his own collections of madrigals (11 in all). Morley lived for
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2176-564: The "breaking" of long notes into shorter ones. "It is the shimmering effect of this 'sweet broken music' that so delighted audiences then and continues to cast its spell today." As constituted during the time of Queen Elizabeth I (called an "Englisch consort" by Praetorius in 1618, and more recently a "mixed consort" or "consort-of-six", or a "Morley consort", ), it typically featured three plucked string instruments ( lute , cittern , and bandora , called "Pandora" by Morley), two bowed instruments (treble viol or violin, and bass viol), and
2244-572: The "horizontal" aspect. Counterpoint , which refers to the interweaving of melodic lines, and polyphony , which refers to the relationship of separate independent voices, is thus sometimes distinguished from harmony. In popular and jazz harmony , chords are named by their root plus various terms and characters indicating their qualities. For example, a lead sheet may indicate chords such as C major, D minor, and G dominant seventh. In many types of music, notably Baroque, Romantic, modern, and jazz, chords are often augmented with "tensions". A tension
2312-549: The Month of Maying " (which is actually a ballett); he took the aspects of Italian style that suited his personality and anglicised them. Other composers of the English Madrigal School, for instance Thomas Weelkes and John Wilbye , were to write madrigals in a more serious or sombre vein. In addition to his madrigals, Morley wrote instrumental music, including keyboard music (some of which has been preserved in
2380-709: The Western tradition. During the thirteenth century, a new rhythm system called mensural notation grew out of an earlier, more limited method of notating rhythms in terms of fixed repetitive patterns, the so-called rhythmic modes, which were developed in France around 1200. An early form of mensural notation was first described and codified in the treatise Ars cantus mensurabilis ("The art of measured chant") by Franco of Cologne (c. 1280). Mensural notation used different note shapes to specify different durations, allowing scribes to capture rhythms which varied instead of repeating
2448-470: The chord C major may be described as a triad of major quality built on the note C . Chords may also be classified by inversion , the order in which the notes are stacked. A series of chords is called a chord progression . Although any chord may in principle be followed by any other chord, certain patterns of chords have been accepted as establishing key in common-practice harmony . To describe this, chords are numbered, using Roman numerals (upward from
2516-498: The curiously brief but brilliant flowering of the madrigal that constitutes one of the most colourful episodes in the history of English music." Living in London at the same time as Shakespeare , Morley was the most famous composer of secular music in Elizabethan England. He and Robert Johnson are the composers of the only surviving contemporary settings of verse by Shakespeare. Morley was active in church music as
2584-402: The difference in octave. For example, a high C and a low C are members of the same pitch class—the class that contains all C's. Musical tuning systems, or temperaments, determine the precise size of intervals. Tuning systems vary widely within and between world cultures. In Western culture , there have long been several competing tuning systems, all with different qualities. Internationally,
2652-657: The figure, motive, semi-phrase, antecedent and consequent phrase, and period or sentence. The period may be considered the complete melody, however some examples combine two periods, or use other combinations of constituents to create larger form melodies. A chord, in music, is any harmonic set of three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously . These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may, for many practical and theoretical purposes, constitute chords. Chords and sequences of chords are frequently used in modern Western, West African, and Oceanian music, whereas they are absent from
2720-521: The first type (technical manuals) include More philosophical treatises of the second type include The pipa instrument carried with it a theory of musical modes that subsequently led to the Sui and Tang theory of 84 musical modes. Medieval Arabic music theorists include: The Latin treatise De institutione musica by the Roman philosopher Boethius (written c. 500, translated as Fundamentals of Music )
2788-406: The graphic above. Articulation is the way the performer sounds notes. For example, staccato is the shortening of duration compared to the written note value, legato performs the notes in a smoothly joined sequence with no separation. Articulation is often described rather than quantified, therefore there is room to interpret how to execute precisely each articulation. For example, staccato
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2856-1002: The greatest music had no sounds. [...] Even the music of the qin zither , a genre closely affiliated with Confucian scholar-officials, includes many works with Daoist references, such as Tianfeng huanpei ("Heavenly Breeze and Sounds of Jade Pendants"). The Samaveda and Yajurveda (c. 1200 – 1000 BCE) are among the earliest testimonies of Indian music, but properly speaking, they contain no theory. The Natya Shastra , written between 200 BCE to 200 CE, discusses intervals ( Śrutis ), scales ( Grāmas ), consonances and dissonances, classes of melodic structure ( Mūrchanās , modes?), melodic types ( Jātis ), instruments, etc. Early preserved Greek writings on music theory include two types of works: Several names of theorists are known before these works, including Pythagoras ( c. 570 ~ c. 495 BCE ), Philolaus ( c. 470 ~ ( c. 385 BCE ), Archytas (428–347 BCE ), and others. Works of
2924-427: The history of music theory. Music theory as a practical discipline encompasses the methods and concepts that composers and other musicians use in creating and performing music. The development, preservation, and transmission of music theory in this sense may be found in oral and written music-making traditions, musical instruments , and other artifacts . For example, ancient instruments from prehistoric sites around
2992-429: The individual work or performance but the fundamental materials from which it is built." Music theory is frequently concerned with describing how musicians and composers make music, including tuning systems and composition methods among other topics. Because of the ever-expanding conception of what constitutes music , a more inclusive definition could be the consideration of any sonic phenomena, including silence. This
3060-446: The instrument and musical period (e.g. viol, wind; classical, baroque; etc.). Broken consort Though historically the term only came into use in the late seventeenth century and with reference only to English music, some more recent writers have applied the term retrospectively to music of earlier periods and of different nationalities, and—through a confounding of the terms "broken music" with "broken consort"—more specifically to
3128-426: The interval between adjacent tones is called a semitone , or half step. Selecting tones from this set of 12 and arranging them in patterns of semitones and whole tones creates other scales. The most commonly encountered scales are the seven-toned major , the harmonic minor , the melodic minor , and the natural minor . Other examples of scales are the octatonic scale and the pentatonic or five-tone scale, which
3196-481: The key-note), per their diatonic function . Common ways of notating or representing chords in western music other than conventional staff notation include Roman numerals , figured bass (much used in the Baroque era ), chord letters (sometimes used in modern musicology ), and various systems of chord charts typically found in the lead sheets used in popular music to lay out the sequence of chords so that
3264-438: The moral character of particular modes. Several centuries later, treatises began to appear which dealt with the actual composition of pieces of music in the plainchant tradition. At the end of the ninth century, Hucbald worked towards more precise pitch notation for the neumes used to record plainchant. Guido d'Arezzo wrote a letter to Michael of Pomposa in 1028, entitled Epistola de ignoto cantu , in which he introduced
3332-572: The music of many other parts of the world. The most frequently encountered chords are triads , so called because they consist of three distinct notes: further notes may be added to give seventh chords , extended chords , or added tone chords . The most common chords are the major and minor triads and then the augmented and diminished triads . The descriptions major , minor , augmented , and diminished are sometimes referred to collectively as chordal quality . Chords are also commonly classed by their root note—so, for instance,
3400-399: The musician may play accompaniment chords or improvise a solo. In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches ( tones , notes ), or chords . The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic line , or
3468-497: The nature and functions of music. The Yueji ("Record of music", c1st and 2nd centuries BCE), for example, manifests Confucian moral theories of understanding music in its social context. Studied and implemented by Confucian scholar-officials [...], these theories helped form a musical Confucianism that overshadowed but did not erase rival approaches. These include the assertion of Mozi (c. 468 – c. 376 BCE) that music wasted human and material resources, and Laozi 's claim that
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#17327980472713536-444: The performance or perception of intensity, such as timbre, vibrato, and articulation. The conventional indications of dynamics are abbreviations for Italian words like forte ( f ) for loud and piano ( p ) for soft. These two basic notations are modified by indications including mezzo piano ( mp ) for moderately soft (literally "half soft") and mezzo forte ( mf ) for moderately loud, sforzando or sforzato ( sfz ) for
3604-598: The performer's technique. The timbre of most instruments can be changed by employing different techniques while playing. For example, the timbre of a trumpet changes when a mute is inserted into the bell, the player changes their embouchure, or volume. A voice can change its timbre by the way the performer manipulates their vocal apparatus, (e.g. the shape of the vocal cavity or mouth). Musical notation frequently specifies alteration in timbre by changes in sounding technique, volume, accent, and other means. These are indicated variously by symbolic and verbal instruction. For example,
3672-584: The piano) to the frequency of 440 Hz. This assignment is somewhat arbitrary; for example, in 1859 France, the same A was tuned to 435 Hz. Such differences can have a noticeable effect on the timbre of instruments and other phenomena. Thus, in historically informed performance of older music, tuning is often set to match the tuning used in the period when it was written. Additionally, many cultures do not attempt to standardize pitch, often considering that it should be allowed to vary depending on genre, style, mood, etc. The difference in pitch between two notes
3740-477: The practice of using syllables to describe notes and intervals. This was the source of the hexachordal solmization that was to be used until the end of the Middle Ages. Guido also wrote about emotional qualities of the modes, the phrase structure of plainchant, the temporal meaning of the neumes, etc.; his chapters on polyphony "come closer to describing and illustrating real music than any previous account" in
3808-579: The practices and possibilities of music . 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 that "seeks to define processes and general principles in music". The musicological approach to theory differs from music analysis "in that it takes as its starting-point not
3876-404: The quarter tone itself as a direct interval. In traditional Western notation, the scale used for a composition is usually indicated by a key signature at the beginning to designate the pitches that make up that scale. As the music progresses, the pitches used may change and introduce a different scale. Music can be transposed from one scale to another for various purposes, often to accommodate
3944-457: The range of a vocalist. Such transposition raises or lowers the overall pitch range, but preserves the intervallic relationships of the original scale. For example, transposition from the key of C major to D major raises all pitches of the scale of C major equally by a whole tone . Since the interval relationships remain unchanged, transposition may be unnoticed by a listener, however other qualities may change noticeably because transposition changes
4012-408: The relationship of the overall pitch range compared to the range of the instruments or voices that perform the music. This often affects the music's overall sound, as well as having technical implications for the performers. The interrelationship of the keys most commonly used in Western tonal music is conveniently shown by the circle of fifths . Unique key signatures are also sometimes devised for
4080-571: The same fixed pattern; it is a proportional notation, in the sense that each note value is equal to two or three times the shorter value, or half or a third of the longer value. This same notation, transformed through various extensions and improvements during the Renaissance, forms the basis for rhythmic notation in European classical music today. D'Erlanger divulges that the Arabic music scale
4148-538: The sonority of intervals that vary widely in different cultures and over the ages. Consonance (or concord) is the quality of an interval or chord that seems stable and complete in itself. Dissonance (or discord) is the opposite in that it feels incomplete and "wants to" resolve to a consonant interval. Dissonant intervals seem to clash. Consonant intervals seem to sound comfortable together. Commonly, perfect fourths, fifths, and octaves and all major and minor thirds and sixths are considered consonant. All others are dissonant to
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#17327980472714216-409: The system known as equal temperament is most commonly used today because it is considered the most satisfactory compromise that allows instruments of fixed tuning (e.g. the piano) to sound acceptably in tune in all keys. Notes can be arranged in a variety of scales and modes . Western music theory generally divides the octave into a series of twelve pitches, called a chromatic scale , within which
4284-552: The texts, was in use for over 1,000 years." Much of Chinese music history and theory remains unclear. Chinese theory starts from numbers, the main musical numbers being twelve, five and eight. Twelve refers to the number of pitches on which the scales can be constructed. The Lüshi chunqiu from about 238 BCE recalls the legend of Ling Lun . On order of the Yellow Emperor , Ling Lun collected twelve bamboo lengths with thick and even nodes. Blowing on one of these like
4352-745: The word dolce (sweetly) indicates a non-specific, but commonly understood soft and "sweet" timbre. Sul tasto instructs a string player to bow near or over the fingerboard to produce a less brilliant sound. Cuivre instructs a brass player to produce a forced and stridently brassy sound. Accent symbols like marcato (^) and dynamic indications ( pp ) can also indicate changes in timbre. In music, " dynamics " normally refers to variations of intensity or volume, as may be measured by physicists and audio engineers in decibels or phons . In music notation, however, dynamics are not treated as absolute values, but as relative ones. Because they are usually measured subjectively, there are factors besides amplitude that affect
4420-531: The world reveal details about the music they produced and potentially something of the musical theory that might have been used by their makers. In ancient and living cultures around the world, the deep and long roots of music theory are visible in instruments, oral traditions, and current music-making. Many cultures have also considered music theory in more formal ways such as written treatises and music notation . Practical and scholarly traditions overlap, as many practical treatises about music place themselves within
4488-419: Was a touchstone for other writings on music in medieval Europe. Boethius represented Classical authority on music during the Middle Ages, as the Greek writings on which he based his work were not read or translated by later Europeans until the 15th century. This treatise carefully maintains distance from the actual practice of music, focusing mostly on the mathematical proportions involved in tuning systems and on
4556-685: Was copied by Matthew Holmes, and is known both as the Holmes Consort Books and as the Cambridge Consort Books, because they are deposited in the Cambridge University Library . There are also individual parts from consorts found in various other manuscripts, most notably the "Browne bandora book", which contains the bandora parts to 35 consort pieces. There are also twenty-five surviving compositions for this type of consort by several composers in
4624-497: Was used in stage performances. While Morley attempted to imitate the spirit of Byrd in some of his early sacred works, it was in the form of the madrigal that he made his principal contribution to music history. His work in the genre has remained in the repertory to the present day, and shows a wider variety of emotional colour, form and technique than anything by other composers of the period. Usually his madrigals are light, quick-moving and easily singable, like his well-known " Now Is
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