1. Score
: a printed version of a piece of music. Often refers to the version used by a conductor that depicts the music to be played by all performers—the full score. Printed music, notated on paper, symbols that can be transformed into musical sounds.
2. Improvisation: the process of simultaneously composing and performing music.
3. Notation: The use of written or printed symbols to represent musical sounds. The notated tradition provides for the preservation and dissemination of music by means of notated music, rather than by memory as in the oral tradition.
4. Head arrangement: arranged in their head, not notated on paper.
5. Lead sheet: a notated melody with chord symbols, usually of a popular song or jazz tune, on which a musical performance is based. A means of structuring a performance in lieu of notating all parts for the entire piece.
6. Sound source: any elastic substance capable of generating sound waves that can be perceived as music, such as any conventional band or orchestral instrument, or any material in the environment used to generate sounds to be incorporated in a piece of music. This material may include pots and pans, taped sounds of water, fire, birds, or whales, or things that people become aware of in a classroom that can be used in an original piece of music.
7. Pitch: the highness or lowness of a tone produced by a single frequency. Clusters of frequencies produce sounds perceived as registers: high, middle, or low. A melody will have a range of pitches, the lowest pitch to the highest. Pitch can be a single tone. The faster the frequency, the higher the sound. The slower the frequency, the lower the sound. Static or white noise: the entire range of frequencies sounding at once, a waterfall.
8. Duration: the length of time a pitch sounds.
9. Volume: intensity, or how loud or soft. Also called dynamics.
10. Waveform: the shape of a sound wave (waveform) determines the tone quality or timbre. The shape is determined by the intensity (loudness) of the fundamental frequency (pitch) and its various overtones.
11. Melody: a succession of musical tones usually of varying pitch and rhythm that has identifiable shape and meaning. A melody may be characterized by its smooth conjunct shape that moves mostly stepwise or its disjunct, angular shape resulting from frequent use of wide intervals or skips. It may be comprised of a wide or a narrow range of pitches. Conjunct: a melody that is smooth, moving mostly stepwise. Disjunct: a melody with large skips.
12. Scales: an ascending or descending series of tones organized according to a specified pattern of intervals. Systems of pitch organization such as major scales, minor, modal, pentatonic, whole tone, gapped, ragas, 12-tone.
13. Diatonic: the eight tones of a standard major or minor scaled. A melody is diatonic if most of its pitches are derived from these eight tones.
14. Chromatic: proceeding by half steps, using sharps or flats. Notes ouside of a standard major or minor scale. A melody is chromatic if many opf its pitches are not derived from the standard major or minor scale. Many nonscale tones added to a diatonic scale and obscures the tonality and creates an unstable feeling.
15. Interval: distance or difference in pitch between two musical tones (of a melody).
16. Octave: two tones, they span eight different diatonic pitches, they have the same pitch quality, and same pitch names in Western music.
17. Chord: a meaningful combination of three or more tones. The primary chords are tonic, subdominant, dominant
18. Harmony: pitches heard simultaneously in ways that produce chords and chord progressions.
19. Tonality: The gravitational pull of the music towards a tonal center. The key of the music. A tonal center is usually the starting and stopping pitches.
20. Modulation: to change from one tonality to another, frequently by harmonic progression. The shifting from one key or tonal center to another.
21. Duration: the length of time a pitch sounds. The length of an entire piece of music, the length of each section (movement, chorus), the length of a phrase or musical thought, or the length of single tone.
22. Rhythm: The organization of time in music, creating patterns of long and short durations of pitches to achieve desired degrees of rhythmic energy—the rhythmic pulse. The various durations given to pitches.
23. Tempo: the rate of speed at which music is performed. It can be fast or slow:
23. Meter: the organization of rhythm into patterns of strong and weak beats.
24. Duple meter: alternate beats are stressed (strong-weak).
25. Triple meter: strong-weak-weak. Each pattern (duple or triple) comprises a bar (a measure in notated music). Groups of patterns can comprise a phrase.
26. Strong beat: a stressed beat, or accented beat or downbeat.
27. Nonmetric: no regular pattern (duple or triple) can be perceived.
28. Mixed meter: strong beats occur in different patterns, a combination of duple and triple meter (shifting strong beats).
29. Syncopation: the occurrence of accents in unexpected places, usually on weak beats or on weak parts of beats.
30. Downbeats: first beat of each bar, a strong beat.
31. Dynamics: the level of loudness.
d. Crescendo: gradually get louder
e. Decrescendo: gradually get softer
32. Accent: a stress or emphasis on a particular tone.
33. Timbres: the characteristic quality of the sound of a voice or instrument. The trumpet sounds different than flute because their tone quality or timbre is different.
34. Families of the orchestra: stringed instruments, woodwinds, brass, and percussion.
35. Elements of music: pitch, duration, loudness, timbre.
36. Variety: a departure or a contrast from what was previously stated.
37. Unity: music that does not ramble, is cohesive, and would have variety and contrast along with repetition and returns to previously stated material.
38. Sequence: a melodic pattern repeated several times either a step lower or a step higher than the preceding statement. The repetition of a melodic pattern a step higher or lower.
39. Ostinato: a rhythmic and/or melodic pattern repeated many times.
40. Tension: a perception of instability in traditional Western music that suggests the need for release of tension or resolution. It is often marked by increased harmonic or rhythmic complexity, dissonance, modulation away from the tonic (key center), or a rise in pitch or dynamic level. A lessening of complexity or loudness, a lowering of pitch, a decrease in complexity, a return to consonance or tonic can create stability, resolution, or release of tension.
41. Resolution: release of tension.
42. Dissonance: an active, unstable sound. A type of tension.
43. Consonance: a relatively stable, comfortable sound that seems to be at rest as compared with a dissonant, restless sound.
44. Texture: the density of sound. The number of simultaneously sounding lines. Music can have a full, thick texture or a thin, transparent texture. Also, the manner in which the horizontal pitch sequences are organized determine musical texture.
45. Monophonic texture: a single line melody with no accompaniment or other horizontal or vertical sounds. Chant is an example. Ex: 50, 51
46. Polyphonic texture: two or more independent, simultaneously sounding melodies having equal emphasis. Row, row, row your boat is an example. Ex: 52, 57, 58, 59
47. Homophonic texture: a melody that is dominant with other lines supporting the main melody. Popular music, folk tunes, and hymns are an example. Ex: 2-5
48. Genre: a type of music, a category such as symphony, hymn, ballad, march, opera.
49. Form: the shape or structure of a piece. Form is determined primarily by patterns of contrast and repetition using letters to describe it such as AB, ABA, etc.
50. Binary form: a two-part form, AB, no repetition.
51. Ternary form: a three-part form, ABA, the first theme or section is repeated after a contrasting phrase or section. A thirty-two bar song form is aaba, that is, four phrases with the third incontrast to the first two phrases. Other forms include the twelve-bar blues, the vers/chorus or verse/refrain forms, sonata-allegro form, minuet and trio, theme and variations, and rondo.
52. Song form: a thirty-two bar aaba chorus, examples are art songs, religious, folk, jazz, popular tunes.
53. Verse/chorus: a song in which there are different texts to each verse and a return to the chorus after each verse. The text varies in the verse, but text is the same in chorus. An example is the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
54. Twelve-bar blues: a musical phrase of twelve bars, usually divided into three four-bar segments using a specific set of chord progressions. Some blues melodies have eight or sixteen bars.
55. Cadence: the ending of a musical phrase. Points of repose or release of tension.
56. Motive: a short melodic pattern or phrase that is used for further development and sometimes as the basis of a section of music or a complete composition. An example is Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, first movement, "Fate knocking at the door."
57. Folk music: usually of unknown origin and enjoyed by the general population, it is informal, aesthetically and musically unsophisticated music that communicates directly and obviously to large groups within a culture or a subculture, such as a nation or an ethnic minority. It is usually preserved and transmitted by memory (oral tradition).
58. Art music: music that is formal, sophisticated, urban, and appreciated by an educated elite. It is music derived from a cultivated tradition based largely on notated music. Therefore, it requires a certain amount of musical training to be able to create and perform art music.
59. Oral tradition: music learned and passed down by word of mouth as opposed to that which is conveyed in writing.
60. Field recordings: a scholarly or professional recording of folk or traditional music made in the environment where the performers typically make music, rather than in a professional recording studio.
61. Ethnomusicologist: one who studies music in culture, considering the context of music in a society, music as it relates to human behavior, and the general attitudes of a people about their music.
62. Ballad: a song with a story having a beginning, middle, and end. The music is strophic and may have many stanzas. A ballad singer is a storyteller
63. Strophic: a musical structure in which the same music is used for each stanza of a ballad, song, or hymn.
64. Fiddle tune: a song from oral tradition used to accompany country dances. The song has a shape and character more appropriate for playing on the fiddle than for singing. Fiddle tunes are frequently played by string bands, bluegrass groups, or solo fiddlers.
65. Spirituals: songs derived from slave songs, camp meetings, or other folk songs from the African-American tradition. Currently known from notated, "Europeanized," concert arrangements that have become part of the repertoire of virtually all school, college, and church choirs. Originally made famous by choirs from Tuskegee Institute who sang arrangements of spirituals with the intention of raising funds for their institution and making their music and their institution widely known among white audiences in America and in Europe.
66. Blues: a style of music that has exerted considerable influence on jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, rock, and other forms of recent American popular music. Blues refers to a three-line poetic stanza, a twelve-bar musical structure with a specific chord progression, a scale having the flatted blues notes, or a melancholy, soulful feeling.
67. Gospel music: protestant religious music usually associated more with rural, folk roots than with urban, European traditions. American gospel music has evolved in a way that distinct stylistic differences exist between the gospel music of white and black Americans. We now refer to the black gospel and the white gospel styles. White gospel includes camp meeting songs, hymns and songs for revival services, and music from the Pentecostal tradition.
68. Psalm singing: rhymed, metrical settings of the psalms to hymn tunes suitable for congregational singing. Psalm singing was prevalent in early America. Psalters were the hymn books in which the settings were published with words only or with hymn tunes. A fuging tune was a form of psalm singing popular througout the eighteenth century. A typical fuging tune was a four-part hymn with a short middle, fugal section where each voice enters at a different time.
69. Lining out: A style of hymn singing whereby a minister or song leader sings one line at a time followed by the congregation singing it back, usually by adding its own individual or collective embellishments and often at a much slower tempo. Lining out is derived from rural, folk traditions and was brought to the United States from the British Isles.
70. Singing schools: Established to introduce and teach singing from musical notation. Their primary purpose was to improve the state of hymn singing in America, that is, to elevate the rural, folk-based hymn derived from oral tradition to the urban, European, notation-based hymn sung in a refined style.
71. Shaped-note system: an aid in learning to read music popular in nineteenth-century America. Each pitch of a hymn tune was represented on the staff by a note whose head had a distinctive shape. Each shape represented a specific pitch of the scale.
72. Swing: a manner of performance that, in part, separates jazz from other styles of music. It is a manner that generates heightened energy and rhythmic vitality.
73. Big band jazz: music for a large jazz ensemble, usually from twelve to twenty musicians. It is notated music (charts) that may be original compositions but more frequently are arrangements of pre-existing songs. Arrangements are scored for the brass section (trumpets and trombones), the sax section, and the rhythm section.
74. Combo jazz: a small jazz group, usually from three to six musicians.
75. Scat singing: improvised jazz singing using a variety of vocal sounds rather than lyrics (nonsense syllables). Its purpose is to improvise a vocal solo line in the manner of a lead instrumentalist.
76. Sidemen: used in jazz in reference to the musicians hired by a leader for a live performance or a recording date. Sidemen have played an important role in the development of jazz. They gain valuable experience with the leader, then become leaders themselves, hiring other sidemen. Sidemen, themselves, may be great jazz artists, as evidenced by the personnel on many of the historic jazz recordings.
77. Break: a stop of the music in a jazz piece during which a soloist will improvise, usually for two bars. A break will occur at the end of a phrase, providing transition to the next phrase.
78. Hillbilly: a style of popular song derived from the rural, southern folk tradition and from sentimental songs of the late nineteenth century. It represents a merging of rural and urban influences and a regional, ethnic music made popular nationally and successful commercially.
79. Chart: a weekly record of sales of songs in a variety of categories, such as rock, jazz, rhythm and blues, and country. It is used to measure a song's popularity. The most widely used charts are produced by Billboard Magazine. Also, the written or printed arrangement of a popular song or a jazz tune for an ensemble, such as a rock group, studio orchestra, or a jazz band.
80. Standard: a song that has sustained popularity though decades and generations, transcending changing styles and tastes.
81. Tin Pan Alley: a period of popular song writing that began in the 1890s and whose most productive years were in the 1920s and 1930s. Many of America's most beloved songs, the standards, are part of the Tin Pan Alley tradition. Also, Tin Pan Alley symbolized that part of the music industry devoted to the sale of popular songs. The name derived from the street in New York City where virtually every publisher of popular music was located in the early part of the twentieth century.
82. Lyrics: the words to a popular song. The person who writes the lyrics is a lyricist.
83. Western swing: a style of country music that became popular as the popularity of hillbilly music moved westward. It featured a larger instrumental ensemble that includes saxes, brass, and a standard jazz rhythm section.
84. Rap: a style of black popular music that, in the 1980s emerged from the inner city to become mainstream, an ehtnic style becoming nationally popular. Rhythm is highly repetitive, including the poetry which is recited in a highly rhythmic manner. Electronic keyboards, sampled sounds and rhythms, drum machines, and prerecorded tracks are common in rap records.
85. Rhythm and Blues: a style of black popular music that originally featured a blues singer, electric guitarist, and pianist playing a boogie woogie-style accompaniment in blues form. Later, R & B symbolized any blues-based black popular music.
86. Motown sound: a style of black popular music derived more from black gospel than blues or jazz traditions. It featured a studio-controlled sound (Motown Records) designed to make black music widely popular and profitable.
87. Soul: an extension of rhythm and blues that has come to symbolize any popular music performed by blacks for black audiences. It combines elements of R & B, jazz, and black gospel.
88. Rockabilly: the form of popular music in the 1950s that resulted from the influence of hillbilly singers on the new rock and roll music.
89. Rock and Roll: an underground, antiestablishment, and protest music that emerged in the 1950s and evolved into a phenomenally successful commercial product. It was derived primarily from a merging of black and white traditions (rhythm and blues and hillbilly) and was a music that appealed mostly to teenagers for both listening and dancing. Influenced by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Pink Flyd, and other British groups, rock and roll assumed a new character (now known as rock) that featured advanced electronic technology, sophisticated arrangements, and extreme visual impact and on-stage behavior. Rock transformed American popular music and created the study of popular culture.
90. Salon music: a type of piano music popular throughout the Western Hemisphere during the nineteenth century. Reflecting European practices, salon music was comprised of short, simple pieces published as sheet music and often were created in the style of marches or dances, such as the tango, habanera, conga, polka, bolero, or waltz.
91. Nationalistic music: concert art music that reflects national or regional rather than universal characteristics. The music may describe something derived from the folk or popular traditions of a nation; its history, tales, or legends; its cultural characteristics; or a place that is important to the nation or region. Americanist music or American nationalism refers to composers who sought to develop a distinctively American musical style. They frequently would incorporate familiar patriotic, folk, or religious tunes, or at least fragments of these tunes, in their classical compositions.
92. Pentatonic scale: a five-tone scale that serves as the basis of much music throughout the world.
93. Vocables: words in native-American songs having no meaning and intended only as vocal sounds.
94. Gamelan orchestra: an Indonesian orchestra, particularly from the islands of Bali and Java, that is comprised of various sized drums, metal xylophones, and gongs. Gamelan music has a long history and has influenced composers of Western classical music as well as jazz and rock performers.
95. Melismatic: a text setting wherein a series of notes of music is given to one syllable of text. A syllabic setting is one note of music given to one syllable of text.
96. Chant: a simple song found in many cultures and traditions. It is a monophonic song without accompaniment, of relatively short duration, of limited melodic range, and with a fluid pulse reflecting the rhythm of the text. Gregorian chants, sung in Latin, are those used in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church. They date from the end of the sixth century A.D. when Pope Gregory was thought to have ordered a collection and classification of chants used throughout the far-flung Roman Catholic church.
97. Counterpoint: the compositional technique of creating polyphonic texture. It is frequently used as a synonym for polyphony. Imitative counterpoint is the creation of two or more independent melodic lines, with each entrance beginning with the same melodic shape at the same or a different pitch level.
98. Mass: the Roman Catholic worship service. It may be a High Mass or a Low Mass. The High Mass is compossed of the Proper and the Ordinary. The Proper varies from Sunday to Sunday throughout the church year. The Ordinary remains the same and is comprised of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. Much choral literature has been derived from polyphonic settings of various parts of the Ordinary.
99. Motet: a sacred, polyphonic composition with a nonliturgical text. It flourished during the Renaissance and was sung without accompaniment (a cappella) in Latin by trained choirs, typically, in four or five parts. Polychoral motets were written for multiple choirs or choirs divided into two or three distinct groups performing singly (in alternation) and jointly in the full ensemble.
100. Cantus firmus: a term meaning "fixed melody" that denotes a pre-existing melody, often a Gregorian chant, which a composer from the Renaissance used as the basis of a polyphonic composition.
101. Madrigal: a Renaissance secular contrapuntal work for several voices that originated in Italy and later flourished in England.
102. Consort: a group of like instruments, such as soprano, alto, tenor, and bass recorders, that provide a homogenous sound.
103. Continuo: a technique for providing a harmonic basis in the new homophonic music of the Baroque period. It was a style of accompaniment for a singer or one or two solo instruments. The bass line provided the underlying structure for the harmonies, and it usually was played on a cello. The chords were not completely notated and were improvised on a keyboard instrument, usually a harpsichord. The performer determined what chords to play from the bass line and the figured bass. The figures were numbers below certain notes of the bass line that served as a musical shorthand to indicate the harmonies.
104. Concerto: a three-movement work for solo instrument and orchestra that emerged during the Baroque period and has been a common instrumental genre ever since. The concerto grosso was an important genre of this period that featured a small group of soloists with orchestra. The arrangement of the movements is fast-slow-fast. Many concertos since the Baroque period include a cadenza, an unaccompanied passage in free rhythm in which the soloist displays his or her greatest virtuosity.
105. Sonata form: a structure that composers from the Classic period and since have commonly used for the first movement of a sonata, symphony, concerto, or string quartet (or other similar chamber music work). It includes three main sections: the exposition, development, and recapitulation and often begins with an introduction and ends with a coda. The exposition has two theme areas in contrasting keys. The development is based on material from the exposition. The recapitulation is a return to previous material stated in the exposition.
106. Fugue: an imitative polyphonic composition that originated as a keyboard genre during the Baroque period. It is, however, a compositional technique used during and since the Baroque in both choral and instrumental music. A fugue is built on a single theme whose entrances appear imitatively in several voices (melodic lines at different pitch levels), usually three or four, and then developed in intricate contrapuntal interplay.
107. Chorale: originally a hymn tune of the German Lutheran church sung by the congregation in unison and in the German rather than Latin language. It was an ougrowth of the Reformation and the rise of the Protestant church. Chorale tunes, especially during the Baroque era, were used as the bases for other compositions: they were harmonized in four-part settings for singing by choirs and congregations; they were used as the bases of sacred polyphonic compositions for trained choirs; and they formed the bases of organ pieces known as chorale preludes.
108. Cantata: an extended solo or choral work that flourished during the Baroque period. It was intended for the German Lutheran worship service, although some cantatas have secular texts. Choral cantatas, particularly those by J. S. Bach, include harmonized chorales, polyphonic choruses, arias, recitatives, solo ensembles, and instrumental accompaniment.
109. Oratorio: an extended sacred choral work intended for concert performance. It emerged during the Baroque period and has been a common genre since. It is of large proportions, lengthy (many lasting up to three hours), and dramatic in nature, sometimes including the character of a narrator as a soloist. Polyphonic choruses, arias, recitatives, solo ensembles, and orchestral accompaniment are common components of oratorios.
110. Aria: a lyrical song found in operas, cantatas, and oratorios. It may comment on the text presented in a recitative that preceded the aria.
111. Recitative: a vocal solo in opera, cantatas, and oratorios that declaims the text in a sung-speech manner, in free rhythm with minimal accompaniment, so that all listeners can understand the words. It frequently introduces an aria.
112. Opera: a dramatic stage production that involves soloists who sing arias and recitatives, solo ensembles, choruses, dancing, dramatic action, costumes, staging, and orchestral accompaniment. It began at the beginning of the Baroque period and evolved into a genre that continues in popularity throughout the Western world, particularly in Italy.
113. Symphony: a multimovement work for symphony orchestra. The typical order of movements is fast-slow-dance-fast. This pattern was standard in the Classic period but less adhered to in the Romantic period or the twentieth century.
114. Chamber music: works for solo instruments performing together in small ensembles, such as a string quartet, a woodwind quintet, or a piano trio. Each part is played on one instrument. In the Classic period, the string quartet (first and second violins, viola, and cello) became the standard chamber music genre. The quartet, typically, was a four-movement work with a fast-slow-dance-fast pattern, although many exceptions to this pattern exist.
115. Minuet and trio: a stately dance in triple meter in ABA form. It is found most often as the third movement of a symphony, sonata, or string quartet. A scherzo and trio form is similar, but it has a faster tempo and increased rhythmic energy. The form and function are the same as the minuet and trio.
116. Rondo: based on two or more contrasting theme areas, each followed by a return of the opening theme. Common forms of the rondo may be depicted as abaca or abacaba. It is commonly used as the spirited final movement of a Classic period sonata, symphony, or string quartet.
117. Theme and Variations: an instrumental form based on a stated theme followed by a series of variations on that theme.
118. Absolute music: music created for its own sake without extramusical connotation. It is characteristic of such genres as the sonata, symphony, concerto, and string quartet as well as preludes, fugues, etudes, and other works whose titles depict only form or function. Program music depicts images, moods, stories, characters, and other nonmusical associations. It includes all music with text and many instrumental forms common during the romantic period, including the symphonic poem and some symphonies that were created with programmatic associations.
119. Symphonic poem: a programmatic, one-movement work for symphony orchestra with contrasting moods. It became popular during the Romantic period.
120. Overture: a festive opening to an opera or other musical stage production. It sets the tone, sometimes identifies principal themes and characters, and prepares an audience for the opening scene. Overtures have become popular concert pieces, sometimes achieving popularity and subsequent performances where the stage production did not. Because of this popularity, many composers have composed overtures as independent concert pieces. In the Baroque period, the French overture was a popular instrumental genre, and in the Romantic period, the concert overture assumed even greater popularity.
121. Libretto: the words to an opera or other musical stage production. The person who writes the story is the librettist.
122. Ballet: a stage production featuring formal, stylized dance performances with story or unified theme. It has, at times, been part of opera, but also developed popularity as in independent genre in the nineteenth century.
123. Miniature: a small-scale composition that became popular in the Romantic period, perhaps as an alternative to the massive size and sounds of the symphony orchestra. It includes the art song (a solo song with piano accompaniment) and the character piece (a one-movement work for solo piano). The art song (commonly known by the German word, lied, or its plural, lieder) is exemplified by the songs of Schubert that he set to German poetry. The character piece is exemplified by the works of Chopin, such as his impromptus, nocturnes, mazurkas, etudes, polonaises, and preludes.
124. Neoclassical: a style of modern composition that is based on established forms and structures of the past and particularly on the aesthetics and musical values of the Classic period.
125. Atonality: the avoidance of tonal centers and tonal relationships in music. This is highly chromatic, dissonant music without traditional, functional chord progressions, modulations, and tuneful melodies. Dissonances stand alone, without the need to resolve to consonances as in traditional music.
126. Serial Composition: (twelve-tone technique). A set of nonrepeated pitches, a tone row, used as the basis for organizing the vertical and horizontal arrangement of pitches throughout a composition. A system created and refined by Schoenberg, rows originally were comprised of all twelve tones of the chromatic scale. Serialism was created as an alternative to the major/minor tonal system, and it was a means for organizing the chaotic chromaticism prevalent in late nineteenth-century German romantic music and early twentieth-century atonal music. An extension of the twelve-tone technique includes the serialization of note values, timbres, or dynamics. Music in which all these aspects are serialized, including pitch, is known as totally controlled music.
127. Musique Concrete: the compositional technique of manipulating tape recorded sounds of existing natural resources. The sounds of recorded instruments, voices, or other sound sources are altered by changing tape speed or direction and by cutting and splicing the tape. These altered sounds, perhaps combined with original sounds, serve as the sound source for an electronic music compositions. Edgar Varese pioneered musique concrete which predated electronically generated or synthesized sounds.
128. Minimalism: a style of composition whose creator attempts to achieve the greatest effect from the least amount of material. It is typically based on many repetitions of simple patterns, creating slow, subtle changes in rhythm, chord movement, or other musical elements. Philip Glass, a contemporary American composer, is considered the leading exponent of minimalist music.
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