Sharp (music)In music, sharp, dièse (from French), or diesis (from Greek) means, "higher in pitch". More specifically, in musical notation, sharp means "higher in pitch by one semitone (half step)". A sharp is the opposite of a flat, a lowering of pitch. The ♯ symbol itself is conjectured to be a condensed form of German ligature sch (for scharf) or the symbol ƀ (for "cancelled flat"). In intonation, sharp can also mean "slightly higher in pitch" (by some unspecified amount).
Concert pitchConcert pitch is the pitch reference to which a group of musical instruments are tuned for a performance. Concert pitch may vary from ensemble to ensemble, and has varied widely over time. The ISO defines international standard pitch as A440, setting 440 Hz as the frequency of the A above middle C. Frequencies of other notes are defined relative to this pitch. The written pitches for transposing instruments do not match those of non-transposing instruments. For example, a written C on a B clarinet or trumpet sounds as a non-transposing instrument's B.
Set theory (music)Musical set theory provides concepts for categorizing musical objects and describing their relationships. Howard Hanson first elaborated many of the concepts for analyzing tonal music. Other theorists, such as Allen Forte, further developed the theory for analyzing atonal music, drawing on the twelve-tone theory of Milton Babbitt. The concepts of musical set theory are very general and can be applied to tonal and atonal styles in any equal temperament tuning system, and to some extent more generally than that.
Musical temperamentIn musical tuning, a temperament is a tuning system that slightly compromises the pure intervals of just intonation to meet other requirements. Most modern Western musical instruments are tuned in the equal temperament system. Tempering is the process of altering the size of an interval by making it narrower or wider than pure. "Any plan that describes the adjustments to the sizes of some or all of the twelve fifth intervals in the circle of fifths so that they accommodate pure octaves and produce certain sizes of major thirds is called a temperament.
Charles IvesCharles Edward Ives (aɪvz; October 20, 1874 May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Later in life, the quality of his music was publicly recognized through the efforts of contemporaries like Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison, and he came to be regarded as an "American original".
DitoneIn music, a ditone (ditonus, from δίτονος, "of two tones") is the interval of a major third. The size of a ditone varies according to the sizes of the two tones of which it is compounded. The largest is the Pythagorean ditone, with a ratio of 81:64, also called a comma-redundant major third; the smallest is the interval with a ratio of 100:81, also called a comma-deficient major third. The Pythagorean ditone is the major third in Pythagorean tuning, which has an interval ratio of 81:64, which is 407.82 cents.
Whole-tone scaleIn music, a whole-tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbors by the interval of a whole tone. In twelve-tone equal temperament, there are only two complementary whole-tone scales, both six-note or hexatonic scales. A single whole-tone scale can also be thought of as a "six-tone equal temperament". { \override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f \relative c' { \clef treble \time 6/4 c4 d e fis gis ais c } } { \override Score.
Regular temperamentA regular temperament is any tempered system of musical tuning such that each frequency ratio is obtainable as a product of powers of a finite number of generators, or generating frequency ratios. For instance, in 12-TET, the system of music most commonly used in the Western world, the generator is a tempered fifth (700 cents), which is the basis behind the circle of fifths. When only two generators are needed, with one of them the octave, this is called "linear temperament".
