Music 101 Exam #5 Final Exam
Questions with Complete Answers
Impressionism - Answer-The movement that arose in France in opposition to German
Romantic music. Imprecise quality of art. Rejected photographic realism. Aesthetics
aims of painters and musicians closely aligned.
Symbolists - Answer-Poets whose aesthetic aims were in harmony with those of the
Impressionist painters. Worked to create a poetic style in which the literal meaning of
the word was less important than its sound and the associations that that sound might
produce. Mallarme (Debussy's friend) was the spiritual leader.
Whole-Tone Scale - Answer-A scale in which all the pitches are a whole step apart.
Used in Debussy's "Preludes for Piano". No one pitch is heard at the tonal center. All
pitches seem equally important. No tonal anchor.
Parallel Motion - Answer-All parts move together, locked in step, in the same direction.
Antithesis of counterpoint. Innovation is Debussy. Opposition to the German school.
Exoticism - Answer-Music that was communicated by any sounds drawn from outside
the traditional Western European musical experience. Imaginative.
Tambourine - Answer-A small drum with jingles around the end. Heard in Ravel's
Rapsodie espagnole.
Cubism - Answer-Angular melody and discontinuous rhythm. Used in art and music in
the early-twentieth century.
Octave Displacement - Answer-Avoiding a simple interval for a more distant one an
octave above or below. A feature of modern music.
Seventh Chord - Answer-A chord that spans seven letters of the scale.
Ninth Chord - Answer-A chord that spans nine letters of the scale.
Eleventh Chord - Answer-A chord that spans eleven letters of the scale.
Tone Cluster - Answer-The simultaneous sounding of a number of pitches only a whole
step or a half step apart.
Impresario - Answer-Producer. Diaghilev of the Russian Ballet.
, Neo-classicism - Answer-A style that emphasized classical forms and smaller
ensembles of that sort that had existed in the Baroque and Classical periods.
Developed by Stravinsky.
Polymeter - Answer-Two or more meters sounding simultaneously. Used in Rite of
Spring.
Polyrhythm - Answer-The simultaneous sounding of two or more rhythms. Used in Rite
of Spring.
Polychord - Answer-The simultaneous sounding of one triad or seventh chord with
another. Used in Rite of Spring.
Second Viennese School - Answer-Arnold Schoenberg. Alban Berg. Anton Webern.
Atonal Music - Answer-Music without tonality. Without a key center. Created by
Schoenberg.
Expressionism - Answer-Initially a German-Austrian development. Aim was not to depict
objects as they are seen but to express the strong emotion that the object generated in
the artist.
Sprechstimme - Answer-Speech-voice. A vocal technique that requires the vocalist to
declaim the text more than to sing it. Used in Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire" to project
Pierrot's inner anxiety.
Twelve-Tone Composition - Answer-A method of writing that employs each of the
twelve nots of the chromatic scale set in a fixed, predetermined order.Throughout the
composition the twelve notes must come in the same order. Discovered by Schoenberg.
Serial Music - Answer-Music in which elements such as pitch, timbre, or dynamics come
in a fixed series.
Russian Revolution - Answer-The overthrow of the Russian tsar by the socialist
Bolshevik Party in 1917. Paved the way for the establishment of a Communist-ruled
Soviet Union.
Formalism - Answer-How Soviet authorities referred to modern music. Branded it as
"antidemocratic".
Intermezzo - Answer-Italian for "between piece". A light musical interlude intended to
separate and thus break the mood of two more serious surrounding movements.
Quarter-Tone Music - Answer-Music in which the smallest interval is not the chromatic
half step but half of the half step. Used by Ives.
Questions with Complete Answers
Impressionism - Answer-The movement that arose in France in opposition to German
Romantic music. Imprecise quality of art. Rejected photographic realism. Aesthetics
aims of painters and musicians closely aligned.
Symbolists - Answer-Poets whose aesthetic aims were in harmony with those of the
Impressionist painters. Worked to create a poetic style in which the literal meaning of
the word was less important than its sound and the associations that that sound might
produce. Mallarme (Debussy's friend) was the spiritual leader.
Whole-Tone Scale - Answer-A scale in which all the pitches are a whole step apart.
Used in Debussy's "Preludes for Piano". No one pitch is heard at the tonal center. All
pitches seem equally important. No tonal anchor.
Parallel Motion - Answer-All parts move together, locked in step, in the same direction.
Antithesis of counterpoint. Innovation is Debussy. Opposition to the German school.
Exoticism - Answer-Music that was communicated by any sounds drawn from outside
the traditional Western European musical experience. Imaginative.
Tambourine - Answer-A small drum with jingles around the end. Heard in Ravel's
Rapsodie espagnole.
Cubism - Answer-Angular melody and discontinuous rhythm. Used in art and music in
the early-twentieth century.
Octave Displacement - Answer-Avoiding a simple interval for a more distant one an
octave above or below. A feature of modern music.
Seventh Chord - Answer-A chord that spans seven letters of the scale.
Ninth Chord - Answer-A chord that spans nine letters of the scale.
Eleventh Chord - Answer-A chord that spans eleven letters of the scale.
Tone Cluster - Answer-The simultaneous sounding of a number of pitches only a whole
step or a half step apart.
Impresario - Answer-Producer. Diaghilev of the Russian Ballet.
, Neo-classicism - Answer-A style that emphasized classical forms and smaller
ensembles of that sort that had existed in the Baroque and Classical periods.
Developed by Stravinsky.
Polymeter - Answer-Two or more meters sounding simultaneously. Used in Rite of
Spring.
Polyrhythm - Answer-The simultaneous sounding of two or more rhythms. Used in Rite
of Spring.
Polychord - Answer-The simultaneous sounding of one triad or seventh chord with
another. Used in Rite of Spring.
Second Viennese School - Answer-Arnold Schoenberg. Alban Berg. Anton Webern.
Atonal Music - Answer-Music without tonality. Without a key center. Created by
Schoenberg.
Expressionism - Answer-Initially a German-Austrian development. Aim was not to depict
objects as they are seen but to express the strong emotion that the object generated in
the artist.
Sprechstimme - Answer-Speech-voice. A vocal technique that requires the vocalist to
declaim the text more than to sing it. Used in Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire" to project
Pierrot's inner anxiety.
Twelve-Tone Composition - Answer-A method of writing that employs each of the
twelve nots of the chromatic scale set in a fixed, predetermined order.Throughout the
composition the twelve notes must come in the same order. Discovered by Schoenberg.
Serial Music - Answer-Music in which elements such as pitch, timbre, or dynamics come
in a fixed series.
Russian Revolution - Answer-The overthrow of the Russian tsar by the socialist
Bolshevik Party in 1917. Paved the way for the establishment of a Communist-ruled
Soviet Union.
Formalism - Answer-How Soviet authorities referred to modern music. Branded it as
"antidemocratic".
Intermezzo - Answer-Italian for "between piece". A light musical interlude intended to
separate and thus break the mood of two more serious surrounding movements.
Quarter-Tone Music - Answer-Music in which the smallest interval is not the chromatic
half step but half of the half step. Used by Ives.
