The Vocabulary from Module 3.6 for the AP Music Theory Exam
Terms : Hide Images
| 63702848 | Polyphony | A texture consisting of lines that are melodically and rhythmically independent. | 63702848 | |
| 63702849 | Polytonality | Music suggesting the simultaneous presence of more than one tonal center. | 63702849 | |
| 63702850 | Postcadential | Referring to extensions that occur after a cadence has been completed and thus prolong the effect of its final chord. | 63702850 | |
| 63702851 | Postlude | In song, the instrumental conclusion following the last vocal phrase. | 63702851 | |
| 63702852 | Power chords | In rock music, openfifth chords produced on the guitar's fifth and sixth strings. | 63702852 | |
| 63702853 | Precadential | Referring to extensions that occur in the approach to a cadence and thus prolong the effect of its first chord. | 63702853 | |
| 63702854 | Pre-dominant | Chords that normally proceed directly to the dominant — the subdominant and the supertonic. | 63702854 | |
| 63702855 | Prelude | In song, a short instrumental introduction that precedes the vocal entrance and serves to set the mood or to establish an accompanimental pattern. | 63702855 | |
| 63702856 | Preparatory process | The collective functioning of the musical elements in a way that sets the style or mood of the music to come. | 63702856 | |
| 63702857 | Prime | In 12-tone music, the original form of the 12-tone row. | 63702857 | |
| 63702858 | Progression | The strongest type of harmonic motion, in which each chord moves to the next closest chord to the tonic, as measured in descending-5 th root movements. Harmonic progression generates a satisfying feeling of forward momentum in music. | 63702858 | |
| 63702859 | Proportional | A term referring to the rhythmic aspect of our notation system, in which durational values are not absolute but are fixed only in relationship to one another (a half note is half as long as a whole note, and so on). | 63702859 | |
| 63702860 | Quartal | A chord built of superposed fourths. | 63702860 | |
| 63702861 | Quintal | A chord built of superposed fifths. | 63702861 | |
| 63702862 | Ragtime | A highly syncopated style of piano music, mainly African American in origin, in vogue in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century and one of the forerunners of jazz. | 63702862 | |
| 63702863 | Range | The distance spanned by the highest and lowest pitches of a melodic line. | 63702863 | |
| 63702864 | Real | Referring either to sequences or imitation that constitute exact intervallic repetitions of a preceding idea. | 63702864 | |
| 63702865 | Realize,realization | The term describing what a performer does when he or she plays a figured-bass line, filling out the chords and adding embellishments as the style requires. | 63702865 | |
| 63702866 | Recapitulation | In a fugue, the final appearance(s) of the subject in the home key. More generally, any restatement of original material near the end of the work. | 63702866 | |
| 63702867 | Relative major-minor | A major and minor scale pair sharing the same key signature but not the same tonic. | 63702867 | |
| 63702868 | Repetition | A type of harmonic motion in which a chord is repeated or moves to another chord of the same class. | 63702868 | |
| 63702869 | Resolution | The motion from a tone or chord to another tone or chord of greater stability. | 63702869 | |
| 63702870 | Retardation | An upward-resolving suspension. | 63702870 | |
| 63702871 | Retrograde | A cell or row transformation involving the reversal of the pitch order. | 63702871 | |
| 63702872 | Retrograde inversion | In 12-tone music, the statement of the melodically inverted row in retrograde. | 63702872 |
