MUSIC LESSON 1ST QUARTER

The Distinctive Musical Elements of 20th Century Music:

1. The composers came up with new rhythms and meters. They have the following functions:

a. Polyrhythm – is the simultaneous sounding of contrasting layers of rhythmic patterns.

b. Unusual meters – occurs when the composer used the 5, 7, 11 or other uncommon metric
groupings.

c. Multimeter – occurs when changes in meter happens within a composition.

d. Syncopation – occurs when the accents are place on the supposedly weak beats

2. The use of whole-tone scale, pentatonic scale, and twelve-tone system are evident and it created
the distinctive sounds of the melodies.

• Whole-tone scale – a scale having whole intervals.

• Pentatonic scale – consists of five tones.

• Twelve-tone system – uses the 12 chromatic tones.

3. Vast use of dynamics, unusual instrumental combinations and effects are evident and these were
another innovations made in terms of the timbre-dynamic element.

4. Polyphonic texture intensified.

• Polyphony is the simultaneous sounding of two or more melodies.

5. In terms of harmony, musicians created new chord structures. Some of these are the whole tone
chord and tone clusters.

• Whole tone chords – formed by combining notes having whole interval or two semitones.

• Tone clusters – produced by sounding adjacent notes.

1 Understanding 20th Century Music There are terms used in 20th Century Music that seems complex
and unclear, so for you to understand some of these better, I want you to observe the excerpts of
compositions from 20th Century composers and other notations and try to look for the videos of it.

1. Polyrhythm
A rhythm which makes use of two or more different rhythms simultaneously.

This is a figure from the musical composition of Debussy entitled, “Prelude” from Pour Le Piano. Here,
we can observe that the rhythmic pattern in the treble (G) clef is in contrast with the rhythmic pattern
on the bass (F) clef, and that structure created what we call polyrhythm. 

2. Unusual Meters

This is a musical piece by Bartok entitled, “Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm”, you can observe the use of
different unusual meters, presented by having unusual time signatures. Time signatures are symbols
used to indicate the meters of a musical piece. You may watch this video on YouTube to understand it
better.

Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm - https://youtu.be/5RMv9I9C5H4

3. Whole-tone scale
In 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.

Whole-tone scale, in music, a scalar arrangement of pitches, each separated from the next by a whole-
tone step (or whole step), in contradistinction to the chromatic scale (consisting entirely of half steps,
also called semitones) and the various diatonic scales, such as the major and minor scales (which are
different arrangements of whole and half steps).

4. Pentatonic scale
A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic
scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic
scales were developed independently by many ancient civilizations and are still used in various
musical styles to this day.
5. Twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British
usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition devised by Austrian
composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951). ... All 12 notes are thus given more or less equal
importance, and the music avoids being in a key.

Twelve-tone music is based on series (sometimes called a row) that contains all twelve pitch classes in
a particular order. There is no one series used for all twelve-tone music; most composers write a
unique row for each piece.