Year 9 Music: Terms, Texture, Pitch and Rhythm

• The following are study notes for Year 9 Music, Spring Term 2024, KPI2.
• The notes cover important musical words and terms, texture, pitch and rhythm, and listening skills.

Important Musical Terms

• Texture refers to the number of layers and the relationship between them in a musical piece.
• An ostinato is a repeating musical pattern.
• Diatonic describes music using notes belonging to a specific key.
• Phase shifting occurs when two or more identical musical phrases move increasingly out of sync with each other.
• The first degree of a musical scale is called the tonic.
• Tempo is the speed of the beat in music.
• A motif is a short musical idea that recurs in different moments of a piece.
• Meter is the number of beats in a bar.
• Timbre is the distinctive sound quality of an instrument or voice.
• A pedal note is a single pitch that is held or repeated while the harmony around it changes.

Texture

• Major is not a texture term.
• Monophonic is a texture term.
• Tutti describes a section of music where everyone is playing or singing.
• Unison means that all parts perform the identical pitch and rhythm.
• Polyphonic is the texture term used to describe multiple, independent melodic lines.

Pitch and Rhythm

• The provided musical excerpt is in 3/4 time (3 beats per bar).
• Beat 1 of each bar has a rest (crotchet rest).
• The first three pitches in bar 1 form a G major chord.
• Bar one features descending triadic movement.
• The final quaver in bar 1 is the note A.
• The melodic movement in the second bar is not entirely disjunct.
• The lowest pitch in the second bar is E.

Listening (Extract 1: Suspended by Poppy Ackroyd)

• The repeating semiquaver pattern is played on one pitch.
• The melody's first note is different from the repeating semiquaver pattern.
• The texture of the extract is melody and accompaniment.
• The melodic line uses short phrases separated with large gaps, with some repetition of ideas.

Listening (Extract 2: Calion by Anna Meredith)

• The piece has a regular pulse.
• The shape of the synth motif is a rising leap.
• Syncopation or crossrhythm are rhythmic devices used as the texture becomes more dense.
• This extract is typical of Minimalism through qualities like repetition and layering.