‘Pygmy’ terminology sheet:

Hocket: from lati hoquetus, meaning ‘hiccup’, is the a single melody is shared
between two (or occasionally more) voices such that alternately one voice sounds
while the other rests. The alternation is usually between a higher and lower voice.

Yodel: the alternation of a chest voice with a head voice.

Ostinato: a brief melodic and rhythmic pattern repeated over and over again.

Pentatonic: built on the pentatonic scale, which is identifiable as the five black
notes of the piano, or the first five notes in the vocal line of Don Mc Lean’s song
‘Vincent’. This scale is a basic scale for many musical cultures from disparate parts
of the world.

Polyphony: polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic

voices

Polyrhythm: Polyrhythm is the simultaneous use of two or more conflicting

rhythms, that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple
manifestations of the same meter. [Lee’s example is of combined simple and
compound meter, see below].

Simple metre: Simple metre or simple time is a metre in which each beat of the
measure divides naturally into two equal parts, rather than three which gives a
compound metre.

Compound metre: Compound meter, compound metre, or compound time, is a

time signature or meter with a triple pulse within each beat.