New Zealand Scholarship Music Assessment key terms

A large-scale structure built on exposition, development and recapitulation, usually with an introduction and coda, in which contrasting themes are stated, worked over and restated in a home key.

The opening section of a sonata-form or fugal movement in which the principal themes or subject entries are first presented, normally establishing the tonic and then moving to a contrasting key.

The central sonata-form section that treats earlier themes as raw material, fragmenting, sequencing and modulating them, often visiting remote keys before preparing the return of the tonic.

The sonata-form section that restates the exposition's material with the second theme now resolved into the tonic key, giving the movement tonal closure.

A form in which a stated melody is followed by successive sections that alter it through melodic decoration, rhythmic change, reharmonisation, texture or mode while remaining recognisably derived from the original.

A short repeated bass pattern over which upper parts vary continuously, common in Baroque instrumental music and in passacaglia and chaconne types.

A musical figure, rhythmic pattern or phrase repeated persistently in one part while other parts change, used to build tension or texture.

A form in which a main theme alternates with contrasting episodes, typically ABACA or ABACABA, giving a refrain-like sense of return.

A three-part structure ABA in which a contrasting middle section is followed by a return of the opening material, often with varied scoring or ornamentation.

A two-part structure AB, often with each section repeated, in which the second section typically moves to a related key and then returns to the tonic.

A contrapuntal composition in which a short subject is announced in successive voices at different pitches and then developed through episodes, stretto and entries in related keys.

The principal melodic idea of a fugue or invention, stated first in one voice and then imitated by others, usually entering on tonic and dominant degrees.

A secondary melodic line that accompanies the fugue subject consistently whenever the subject appears, forming invertible counterpoint with it.

The art of combining independent melodic lines so that they sound well together, studied through species exercises and observed in imitative and fugal textures.

A device in which a melodic idea stated in one voice is repeated shortly afterwards in another voice, possibly at a different pitch or with altered intervals.

A strict form of imitation in which one voice follows another exactly, at a stated interval of time and pitch, often continuing through the whole piece.

In a fugue, the overlapping of subject entries so that each voice enters before the preceding one has finished its statement of the subject, heightening intensity near the close.

A harmonic or melodic formula that closes a phrase, ranging from a full close on the tonic to weaker half closes and interrupted progressions that defer resolution.

A closing progression from dominant to tonic chords in root position, with the tonic melody note in the top voice, producing a strong sense of finality.

A cadence ending on the dominant chord, or a dominant-to-tonic close weakened by inversion or by a non-tonic melody note, leaving the phrase open.

A melodic unit of roughly two to eight bars that forms a coherent musical thought and is usually closed by a cadence, combining with other phrases into periods and sections.

A short, distinctive melodic, rhythmic or harmonic idea that is repeated, transformed and developed to generate larger structures.

A change of prevailing key within a piece, achieved by introducing the new tonic through pivot chords, chromatic alteration or a dominant preparation.

A chord shared by the old and new keys, functioning diatonically in both, which is used to smooth the transition during a modulation.

The system in which a piece is organised around a central tonic note and its related chords, creating hierarchy, expectation and resolution around that home key.

Using only the notes of a particular major or minor scale, without chromatic alteration beyond what the prevailing key signature and harmonic practice allow.

The use of notes outside the prevailing diatonic scale, producing colour, tension and sometimes weakening the sense of a fixed key.

A bass line annotated with numerals and accidentals indicating the intervals to be realised above it, the shorthand notation of the Baroque continuo practice.

A Baroque accompanying group, typically a keyboard or plucked instrument with a bass melody instrument, that realises a figured bass to supply harmony and rhythm.

An ordered succession of chords whose changing functions create tension and release, often described by roman numerals relative to the prevailing key.

The craft of assigning musical material to instruments, choosing combinations and doublings to control colour, balance, weight and clarity of texture.

The characteristic quality of a sound that distinguishes one instrument or voice from another, determined by its overtone content and attack.

The way simultaneous musical lines and chords are woven together, described as monophonic, homophonic, polyphonic or heterophonic, and as thin or dense.

The way notes are attacked and released, indicated by markings such as staccato, legato, accent and tenuto, shaping phrasing and character.

A short musical idea associated with a character, object, place or idea, transformed and combined across a dramatic work to carry narrative meaning.

Instrumental music that follows an extra-musical narrative, scene or idea, often set out in a written programme or descriptive title.

Instrumental music conceived as pure structure without an explicit narrative or pictorial programme, valued for its internal formal and expressive relationships.

A twentieth-century method organising pitch, and sometimes rhythm or dynamics, into ordered rows in which no element is repeated until the row is exhausted.

An ordering of all twelve pitch classes used as the basis of a serial composition, subject to transposition, inversion, retrograde and retrograde inversion.

Music that avoids establishing a tonic and therefore lacks the hierarchical pull of key, often treating all pitch classes with equal weight.