Music Composition Advanced Flashcards

Grade 12 · Music · Flashcards

Key terms and techniques for advanced music composition including harmony, form, counterpoint, and orchestration.

Flashcards

Modal Interchange
Borrowing chords from a parallel mode (e.g., iv minor in a major key) to create emotional color without modulating.
Altered Dominant
Dominant 7th chord with ♭9, ♯9, ♯11, or ♭13 extensions that intensify tension before resolution to the tonic.
Neapolitan Chord (♭II)
A major chord built on the flattened second scale degree; typically appears in first inversion before the dominant.
Sonata Form
Exposition (themes presented in tonic + dominant) → Development (harmonic instability) → Recapitulation (themes return in tonic).
Through-Composed
Form with no repeated large-scale sections; each part presents entirely new material.
Canon
Contrapuntal technique where a second voice imitates the first at a fixed time delay and exact pitch interval.
Parallel Fifths
Two voices moving by the same interval of a fifth simultaneously — forbidden in Renaissance/Baroque counterpoint.
Orchestration
Distributing musical material among specific instruments for idiomatic playability and timbral blend.
Doubling
Two or more instruments playing the same pitch or melodic line to reinforce volume or blend timbres.
Twelve-Tone Serialism
Schoenberg's technique using all 12 chromatic pitches in a fixed row, treating them as equal without tonal hierarchy.
Voice Leading
Movement of individual melodic lines through a progression using small, smooth intervals to create seamless harmonic flow.
Pedal Point
A sustained or repeated pitch (usually in the bass) held while harmonies change above it, creating tension and eventual resolution.

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