MusicLesson 4 of 5 in the course Scales and harmony

Foundations of Harmony: Chords, Intervals, Context, and Perception

5 flashcards · 5 quiz questions · 5 match pairs · 5 fill-in sentences · English

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Summary

Harmony helps explain how simultaneous and successive musical sounds combine to create larger musical ideas. This lesson introduces the central dimensions of harmony, its historical roots, and the ways cultural traditions shape its study.

Harmony concerns the combination of different sounds to create distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony describe or explain the effects of pitches that coincide, and identify and categorize musical structures such as chords, textures, and tonalities.

All flashcards

What is harmony?
Harmony combines sounds to create musical ideas, including simultaneous pitch relationships and musical events unfolding through time.
What are the vertical and horizontal dimensions of harmony?
The vertical dimension concerns pitches sounding together; the horizontal dimension concerns how musical events unfold over time.
What does counterpoint study?
Counterpoint studies relationships among melodic lines, often when several independent voices sound together.
What is an interval?
An interval is the relationship between two pitches.
What is tonal fusion?
Tonal fusion is the perception of multiple pitches as one unified tone.

Quiz questions

  1. How can the consonance of an interval be affected?Answer: Its perceived stability can depend partly on musical context and style.
  2. What does 12-tone equal temperament do to the octave?Answer: It divides the octave into twelve equal semitone steps.
  3. How are chords in tertian harmony constructed?Answer: By stacking intervals of a third.
  4. What characterizes coordinate harmony in Dahlhaus's distinction?Answer: Adjacent sonorities relate without necessarily aiming toward one tonal goal.
  5. What can produce roughness between partials?Answer: Nearby partials interfering and creating beats.

Based on the Wikipedia article Harmony, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Adapted into a summary, flashcards and quizzes.

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