Mus 300 History of Jazz - Terms and Definitions

Mus 300
History of Jazz
Basic Terms and Definitions

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Additive and divisive time systems - A large philosophical difference in the way that West African and European-Americans construct and describe their musical rhythmic systems. European-Americans think in terms of division in which a whole is subdivided into smaller fractions (a whole note is divided into two half notes or four quarter notes, etc.). Traditional West African music is additive in that it adds various pulses in a twelve-beat rhythmic time line. This relates to a difference of thought in which African music can be thought of as circular whereas European music is more linear.
Atonal - Music which is not in a key and not organized diatonically.Blue note - The flatted (lowered/minor) 3rd, 5th, or 7th degree of a chord or scale; also a tone that sounds between the pitches of the traditional major and minor scales of European-American music. Probably arising from the process of accommodation and compromise between European scales and the West African pentatonic scales, again, blues notes most often occur on the third, fifth, and seventh scale steps.
Blues poetry - The lyrics to a blues song. Can be in AABA form (32-Bar form) if the A section returns before the next verse.

For example:

• (A section) My Man don't love me, treats me awful mean. (pause)

• (B section or Bridge) He is the lowest man I've ever seen (pause)

Bluesy quality - Frequent use of chromatic notes (notes outside the major scale), especially the flat (lowered) 3rd, 5th, or 7th degree.
Bomb - a percussion drum accent in the bop period: dropping bombs as opposed to keeping steady time.
Break - a short passage (usually two bars) in which the accompaniment stops playing and a soloist improvises by himself or herself. Breaks frequently occur between measures 6-8 or 14-16 in sectional form.
Bridge - (also called the "B section," 'release," "inside," or "channel") The section which presents contrast to the A section of text and/or music. (See Blues Poetry). In thirty-two bar pop song form (AABA), the B section is often called the bridge, channel, or release.
Call and response (or responsorial) - where a soloist is answered by another musician or a group of musicians. In jazz this is frequently called "trading fours" as musicians exchange four bars of improvisation against one another ("trading twos" means that they exchange two-bar licks, etc.)
Chart - during the swing era and later times, the chart was the arrangement that determined the organization of an ensemble work. A chart could be a head chart developed by a band spontaneously during rehearsals or it could be a written chart like those by Ellington that were carefully worked out on paper in advance. fill - rhythmic ideas a percussionist will play to "fill" a silence or signal a soloist’s entrance or exit.
Chord - A chord is a simultaneous sounding of pitches or notes. It is typically formed by skipping every other note in the scale and like modes, can start on any scale degree (note or pitch). Therefore in a C scale (CDEFGABC) the C chord would contain the notes "C E G." If the 7th degree is added (B), the chord would be called a C major seventh chord. The "D" chord in the key of C would be built with the pitches DFA and sounded as a simultaneity.
Chord progression - First read "Chord." Moving from one chord to another.
Chord voicing - Frist read "Chord." The the way the pitches of a chord are ordered or arranged. Recalling our "C" chord "CEG," we can place those pitches in any order and they are still a C chord - "EGC" or "GCE" etc. Duplicate pitches do not affect the identity (sonority) of the chord - "CEGEGEEC" still functions as a "CEG" chord.
Chorus - Playing the jazz piece one time could be called a one chorus. "Taking a Chorus (or ride)" means soloing over the chords of the song; two choruses would be two times through the piece. The section of a popular tune which follows the verse.
Chromatic - Pitches or notes between letter named scale degrees. The blue notes are chromatic tones. The European octave is divided into 12 separate notes, like the 12 frets on a guitar. This is the chromatic scale. There are seven letter named notes CDEFGAB, and five chromatic notes which lie between them. The chromatic notes are called sharps and flats and derive their names from the letter notes which they border - Thus C# (sharp) and Db (flat) are really the same pitch.
Combo - a small ensemble in jazz where each part is played by just one instrument. For example a trio might have a bass, drums, and solo trumpet, saxophone, or piano. A quintet might have a bass, drums, piano, trumpet, and saxophone. The New Orleans style would typically have a combo consisting of a rhythm section with piano, bass, banjo, and drums, and a front line of trumpet, clarinet, and trombone.
Comping - a form of piano accompaniment in which the musician improvises a syncopated harmonic backup to a soloist that relates to the soloist’s melodic improvisation. Developed during the swing era, comping was a lighter, more swinging way to drive the soloist along without playing on every beat of the measure.
Context - the social, historical, and cultural heritage in which music transpires. The function and venue for the music has a major impact on the performance and reception of the music.
Creole - a mixture of ethnic origins. In New Orleans, creoles were usually considered people of mixed French and Spanish ancestry. Black creoles were usually of French, African ancestry and were generally known as free people of color. This was a special class of people in Louisiana who were of mixed African and European parentage yet who were free (some of them even owned slaves themselves). They were often well educated, wealthy, and based their culture on the model of aristocratic New Orleans society.
Cross rhythms - Using two (or more) different rhythms such as waltz time against march time (3/4 - 4/4).
Dotted eighth note - A pitch whose duration lasts for the length of three sixteenth notes.
Dotted eighth-sixteenth figure - A syncopated rhythm; often incorrectly used to notate swing style. More appropriately found in Ragtime.
Double time - a rhythmic acceleration in which each beat is divided in half so that the pulse feels twice as fast. Example - clap eight times in a measure instead of just four times in a measure of four quarter notes.
Eighth note - One half the duration of a quarter note.
Eighth note triplet - The word triplet means duration values divided into thirds. Therefore, if a quarter note is divided into triplets, each section of the quarter note would equal %33.33... In this case 3 eighth notes would be equal to 1 quarter note and their values would equal 1/3. Often called a swing eighth note.
Fifth - The fifth scale degree.
Flat fifth - The fifth scale degree lowered by one half step; also blue or chromatic note.
Flat seventh - The seventh scale degree lowered by one half step; also blue or chromatic note.
Flat third - The third scale degree lowered by one half step; also blue or chromatic note.
Form - The overall shape, organization, or structure of a musical composition. West African music tends to have the form be related to function (work, recreation, social, ritual, ceremonial) whereas European-American forms are "synthetic" pre-existing molds such as "sectional," "blues," or "thirty-two bar pop song form."
Fourth - The fourth scale degree of a key.
Head - Usually found in 32 bar pop song form, the opening section where the theme is stated. Sometimes the head is repeated again in the middle of a string of solo improvisations and used to conclude a piece as well.
Heterophony - a melody that is performed by a group in which each person "personalizes" the melody. Each musician is playing the same melody, but they add their individual musical ornaments.
Hocket - a melody or rhythmic pattern is divided between more than one performer. This is a way of making interlocking parts out of a single whole. Hocket is frequently encountered in traditional communal musics of West Africa. (note - the term actually means "hiccup" in Latin and was used to describe a similar concept in Medieval-era music).
Homophony - layers of musical activity that move at the same rhythm. Melody and accompaniment is a type of homophony
Improvisation - spontaneous musical creation. chorus improvisation is the jazz process in which a musician creates new melody on top of a pre-existing chord pattern (such as a blues or "rhythm changes.").
Intonation - Most instruments can play pitches between the established chromatic scale degrees in Western music. Typically, musicians are trained to avoid these microtones. Musicians try to play the pitches with accurate intonation, not allowing the note to dip or rise below or above the correct frequency.
Jungle sound - the style developed by the Ellington Orchestra in Harlem during the 1930s-1940s which featured the growling mute work of "Bubber" Miley (trumpet) and "Tricky Sam" Nanton (trombone).
Key - Is normally defined by the beginning and ending chord (harmony) of a song and by the order of whole steps and half steps between tonic scale degrees. Simply put, If the song begins on a C major chord and ends on a C major chord, then the song is in the key of C major. Minor keys work the same way. (Also see mode or scale).
Layers - West African music is often constructed with "strata" of sound that are related in a complex way to the organizing pattern of the core "time line." These different layers can be thought of as interlocking patterns as in a hocket (see above).
Legato - Playing two or more notes without a conceivable break between them.
Major - The quality of a key or scale where the third degree is four chromatic steps above the tonic. The quality of a chord whose third degree is four chromatic steps above the root.
Measure - Same as "Bar." Typically lasting four beats in 4/4 or common (C) meter.
Meter - The number of beats before the next strong downbeat (called beat 1). Common meter has four beats in each measure. The basis of time organization in the European-American musical system. Meter measures patterns of accents in units called bars or measures (these terms mean the same thing). 4/4 or march time is the most common meter in jazz and features four beats in each measure with an accent on the first beat of each measure.
Minor - A major interval reduced by one 1/2 step. A diatonic scale with a flatted/lowered 3rd, 6th, and 7th degrees.
Modal jazz - a harmonic and melodic system developed by Miles Davis and others such as Herbie Hancock which is based on the older scales known as modes such as the dorian. For instance, "So What" is based on a dorian mode (whose notes are the white notes on the piano - d,e,f,g,a,b,c,d). Modal jazz tends to be more stagnant harmonically compared to the fast chord changes of bebop style.
Mode - Essentially the same as scale but not key. Modes are built from the same notes of the key but emphasis other groupings of those same pitches. If C major has the notes C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C, then the "D" mode would run from D to D using the same notes (DEFGABCD etc.). The sound or feel of each mode is different. There are seven notes in any key, so each key can feature seven different modes. (Also see key)
Monophony - one line of sound performed by a single musician or by a group of musicians who are all playing in unison together.
Mute - a device that brass players can use to change the timbre of their sound (such as Miles Davis’s use of the Harmon stem mute) or the "growling" jungle sound" created by Bubber Miley of Duke Ellington’s Orchestra.
Octave - Prefix "oct" means 8. The distance (interval) between C and the next C in an ordered scale is one octave. The last C (C D E F G A B C) is in a higher register, 8 degrees higher than the first C, and vibrates twice as fast as the first C.
Orchestration - The process of allocating the pitches of a song between the different instruments in the group.
Ostinato - a short repeated melodic and rhythmic idea. Ostinati can be placed on top of one another in interlocking layers of sound to create polyrhythms. musical texture - the relationship of lines of musical ideas.
Polyphony - layers of different melodic and rhythmic activity
Polyrhythm - "Poly" means many, so many, typically independent rhythms. This term often describes the independence between the various drum parts in a West African Drum Choir. The presence of two or more layers of different rhythmic patterns that are sounded simultaneously. Two or more lines of sound with conflicting rhythmic accents.
Polytonal - "Poly" means many, so many, typically independent tonalities (keys).Usually this term describes a section of music, often dissonant, which is simultaneously employing 2 or more keys.
Quarter note - Most often the rhythmic unit which the foot taps with the music. The quarter note is usually the "Beat." The math is logical - 4 quarter notes equal one whole note (a full measure in 4/4 or common meter has four beats or quarter notes); a quarter note can divided into various subunits - 2 eighths, 3 triplets, 4 sixteenths, etc. Various combinations can also equal a quarter note - eighth + 2 sixteenths, dotted eighth + sixteenth, and so forth.
Responsorial (or call and response) - where a soloist is answered by another musician or a group of musicians. In jazz this is frequently called "trading fours" as musicians exchange four bars of improvisation against one another ("trading twos" means that they exchange two-bar licks, etc.)
Rhythm - Rhythm refers to the arrangement of sounds in time - not random events, and therefore encompasses beat, tempo, and meter.
Rhythm section - that part of a jazz ensemble that is keeping time. Usually this refers to the bass (tuba, string, or electric), piano, drums, guitar (or banjo).
Riff - a harmonized melodic and rhythmic idea that was used as an accompaniment pattern during the swing era of jazz.
Scale - Essentially the same as mode but not key. Scales are built from the same notes of the key but may emphasis other ordered groupings of those same pitches. If C major has the notes C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C, then the "D" mode would run from D to D using the same notes (DEFGABCD etc.). The sound or feel of each mode is different. There are seven notes in any key, so each key can feature seven different modes. (Also see key)
Scat - wordless vocals improvised by a jazz singer (for example the scat on Louis Armstrong’s "Skid dat de dat" or "Heebie Jeebies").
Scoring - Basically the same as orchestration. Often applied to sections which have been "cross-scored" (combining instruments from different sections simultaneously, rather than having just the saxes play, then the trumpets, then the trombones, etc.).
Sectional form - This is a form descended from quadrilles and related to ragtime and marching band styles in which there are usually nine sections, each of which is 16 bars in length. The usual arrangement of sections is AABBACCDD.
Short term repetition - There are only three ways of approaching an idea. It is first stated, then it may be repeated, varied (repeated with some change), or contrasted (followed by a new idea). West African music uses short repeating ideas called ostinati in which a short pattern is repeated over and over again against other repeated ideas. European-American music tends to think in terms of large scale repetition long sections are repeated. Examples of short term repetition include the bass pattern of a blues or the layers of patterns in "Watermelon Man."
Shout chorus - in a New Orleans/Chicago style jazz piece in sectional form, this is the last section in which the whole ensemble played loudly with the front line soloists weaving around each other in improvisation. Players frequently stood up to play this last chorus.
Sixteen-bar blues - An extended 12 bar blues. The final section is typically a repeat of the A section. It can also be built from two 8 bar (measure) phrases.
Sixteenth note - Generally the most often used division of a quarter note. 4 sixteenths equal one quarter note; 4 quarter notes equal one measure or bar.
Staccato - An articulation which directs the performer to cut the duration of a note much shorter than its written value, often with a sharp attack.
Straight four - a rhythmic feel in which the rhythm section is keeping an even four feel in 4/4 meter without strong accents.
Strain - in sectional form, a sixteen-bar unit that forms the large building block of the form. Also known as a section.
Street cries - the vocal "calls" of New Orleans and other cities used by tradesmen to sell their wares. The street cry is somewhere between sung and shouted.
Swing - such a simple yet complex word--you have a whole separate handout on this one. It is a "feel" in which the music is loosely propelled with an uneven division of the beat. Swing is also the name for a whole style/period of jazz featuring the big bands of the 1920s - 1940s. As Duke noted - "It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing."
Swing eighth note - A precarious term to define. For our purposes, it will be two eighth notes - the first is held longer than the second. They are written as normal eighths for sake of easier notation. Mathematically, the first equals approximately %66 of the beat and the second the remainder. In reality, the first is not held quite that long.
Syncopation - Stressing (accenting) parts of the beat which are not normally stressed; an accent in an unexpected place. In 4/4 meter the expected accents fall directly on the first and third beats. The "back beat" (beats two and four) are forms of syncopation that are often associated with rock and roll. Syncopation can happen as layers of rhythm are superimposed over a steady four (usually maintained in the rhythm section)
Tempo - The speed of the beat.
Thirty-two-bar forms - Songs with 32 measures, typically 2 sixteen bar sections which can be further divided into 4 eight bar units. An AABA or Bar form.
Timbre - sometimes called "tone color." The use of certain instruments and the ways in which they are combined. (timbre is the factor that makes a flute sound different than a violin when they are playing exactly the same pitch at the same volume).
Time line - a vocal expression that translates into a rhythmic pattern used to organize a West African percussion piece. These patterns are usually twelve beats. Example - "sang si sang sang si sang si"
Tonal - A song or section of music which is organized by key or scale.
Tonal center - Most often a section of a piece which has temporarily changed keys and thus has a new "Tonal center" which differs from the stated key signature.
Tone color - The dark or bright shading that a musician can apply to a pitch. You can experience this shading by humming the same note with your lips closed or opened.
Trading fours - a type of musical "competition" in which musicians exchange four bars of improvisation with one another, sometimes echoing one or another or trying to outdo one another. Trading twos means they are exchanging two bars, etc.
Trap set - the collection of drums that developed in New Orleans style jazz (which perhaps simulated the collective percussion sound of a whole West African drum ensemble). A trap set typically includes a bass drum played with a pedal, a hi hat cymbal played with a pedal, a snare drum (with metal springs), a deeper sounding tom tom drum, and crash and ride cymbals.
Turnaround - A chord progress which leads back to the beginning of the song.
Twelve-bar blues progression - A progression of chords common to the blues, usually I-IV-I-V-I in the most basic sense.
Verse - Often the first section of a song; See book for expanded explanation.
Voicing in fourths - A simultaneity whose individual componets are spaced four scale degrees apart in closest voicing.
Walking bass - the style of bass performance that developed during the swing era in which the bass outlines the harmonic motion by playing a note on each quarter note beat of 4/4 meter.
Waltz - A dance popularized during the late 19th century in triple meter.

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