Music Content Knowledge (5113) Praxis II
Exam Questions with Correct Answers |
Updated (100% Correct Answers)
Characteristics of Medieval Era Answer: Dominated by vocal music.
Sacred Music: Gregorian Chant and Masses. Secular Music: for dance
and entertainment (Troubadours/Trouvères)
Gregorian Chant Answer: melodies that were free flowing with no
distinct meter, melismatic, largely monophonic, and sung by
unaccompanied voice or choir
Organum Answer: an early form of polyphony in which voices are
sung in parallel motion
Masses Answer: important religious ritual and featured non-
imitative polyphony
Motet Answer: polyphonic music that was both sacred and secular;
major musical form of the Medieval and Renaissance periods taht
emerged from medieval organum and clausulae.
Secular Music (Troubadours and Trouvères) Answer: drone
accompaniment, regular meter, syncopations, polyphony, and
harmony; by the end of Medieval era became the driving force of
musical development
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Musical Importance of the Mass Answer: one of the most important
services of the Roman Catholic Church; driving force of musical
development in the Medieval and Renaissance eras. The liturgy of
the Ordinary was most often set to music. By the Renaissance era;
polyphony was common, musical notation had been refined, and
complete masses were written by a single composer (e.g. Machaut's
Mess de Notre Dame). By the twentieth century the genre declined.
The Sections within the Ordinary of a Mass Answer: Kyrie, Gloria,
Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei
Medieval Motet Answer: featured a tenor line derived from
plainchant with one or more upper voices in French or Latin. The
tenor vocal line usually had a short, repeated rhythmic pattern,
while the upper voices had contrasting, lively upper voices. The texts
of the upper voices were sometimes independent and in a different
language from the tenor line
Renaissance Motet Answer: Referred more to a genre of music than
a certain form or structure; by 15th century the motet was known as
a polyphonic setting of any sacred Latin text, not restricted to the
liturgy. Composers of the Renaissance introduced imitation
homophony, and four-part harmony to the motet.
polyphony Answer: texture of music in which all voices or parts
hold similar musical prominence or interest, several distinct melodic
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