Music Terminology

Some useful terminology for music:

composer
conductor
band
orchestra
(sections:)
percussion
woodwinds
brass
strings

choir
duet
duo
ensemble
quartet
quintet
sextet
trio
chamber orchestra
philharmonic
symphonic

rhythm
beat
pitch
volume
quality
(speed) fast, slow
note (natural, flat, sharp)
part
monody, polyphony
register
soprano, mezzosoprano, alto, tenor, bartione, bass
falsetto
key, key signature
meter
measure
time signature
tempo: moderato, ritardando, adagio, allegretto, allegro, andente largo, legato
common time
cut time
3/4 time (waltz)
dynamics: forte, piano, crescendo, decrescendo, diminuendo
clef: treble, alto, bass
scale
major
minor
quarter-tone
chord
arpeggio
run
cadence
double-stop
dissonance
triplet
tremolo
vibrato
uptempo
score
staff
canon
unison
improvistion
syncopation
swing

motif
theme
variation
segue
solo
movement
anthem
aria
ballad
concerto
coda
elegy
entr'acte
etude
fanfare
fugue
Gregorian chant
hymn
intermezzo
(jazz) standard
jig
minuet
musical theatre
opera
operetta
opus
ballet
overature
pavane
prelude
pastorale
requiem mass
rhapsody
rondo
scherzo
serenade
sonata
suite
symphony
waltz

madrigal
Baroque
Classical
Romantic
Neoclassicism
Neo-romanticism
Impressionism
Expressionism
Modernism
Post-Modern
Minimalism
experimental music (avant-garde)
noise
Ragtime
Jazz
big band
swing
soul
dixieland jazz
bebop
blues
bluegrass
country
country-pop
western music
folk
filk music
rock n roll
popular (pop)
cinema/tv score music
Electronic music
musical
ballroom: tango, cha cha cha
gospel
reggae
hip hop
rap
r&b
disco
motown
latin
techno
trip hop
new age
punk rock
grunge
alternative rock
progressive rock
hard rock
glam rock
emo
metal
death metal
parody/comedy music
muzak
 fusion

Art vocab

Some art vocabulary for your notes (some of which we covered last week):

design
composition
line
shape
form
texture
value
color
hue
tint
shade
saturation/intensity
proportion/scale
emphasis
harmony/unity
variety
rhythm
balance
movement
foreground
background
complementary
contour
gesture
contrast
dominant
theme
motif
perspective
media
monochromatic
mood
tone
positive space
negative space
cool colors
warm colors
neutral colors
organic shapes
geometric shapes
performance art
video art
collage
assemblage
installation
painting
drawing
print
lithograph
sculpture
sculptor
primary colors
secondary colors
tertiary colors
still life
additive
subtractive
abstract
acrylic
oil
symmetry
asymmetry
art deco
art nouveau
atmospheric perspective
brushstroke
calligraphy
canvas
ceramics
charcoal
cubism
exhibition
expressionism
font
foreshortening
gallery
gesso
gouache
grayscale
horizon
icon
illustration
implied line
impressionism
landscape
medium
minimalism
mosaic
mural
palette
pastel
photorealism
point of view
pointillism
pop art
portrait
pottery
radial balance
realism
reproduction
self portrait
silhouette
sketch
stained glass
still life
surrealism
tension
trompe l'oeil
volume
wash
watercolor

soundsuit

I’m interested in <soundsuit> that is one of Nick Cave’s many exhibition. This is sculpture. And that sculpture is very magnificent. There are lots of ceramic bird figurines, many square spangled decoration, and lots piece of fabrics. Also it has ceramic flowers, too. Followings are element factor.

 First, there is line. This is sculpture, so it has curvy and angular lines.

 Second is shape. It is three dimensional arts, so shape element is not important. But, a spangle decoration of downside’s leg part has shape. That is rectangle.

 Next, there is form. This art’s name is soundsuit. So it looks like human body. Especially, this sculpture’s downside looks like human leg. Because it sculpture is mannequin, but something looked like metal armature surrounds human’s upside part. So upside is bumpy. It is very geometric.

 Fourth is color. It is very colorful. It has many ceramic bird sculptures, and these are very colorful, and spangled decorations, too. It is shinnying with silver, pink, and a few of red color.

 Fifth is value. Its downside is lighting with spangle decorations, but upside is little dark. Because it is armature attached many decorations.

 Next is texture. That texture is very rough. Because it has many decorated attach. It has ceramic bird, ceramic flowers, and metal foliage. So it is much uneven.

 Finaly, there is space. 3-dimension arts have space. Its space between armature and human body make its shadow. And it makes its ‘space.’

 Next part, There are principles of designs.

 First, unity. It has unity. Its factors are all brilliant. And its decorations are also colorful, too. But it has variety, too. It has a lot of kind of ceramic birds, and all of these things have different figure. And other parts of this sculpture have unique factors.

All parts of this sculpture are very splendid, but upside part is especially arrestive. Because many decorations are exist in there. In the balance aspect, color, value and texture make it evenly balanced. They are disperse over the sculpture.

History vocabulary

Here are a couple of links to vocabulary and terminology important for college-level study of U.S. history (I will send a pdf of another list I found via email):
http://www.apstudynotes.org/us-history/vocabulary/chapter-1-new-world-beginnings/
http://www.course-notes.org/US_History/Vocabulary_Terms

Here are some more general social studies and history terms that are good to know:
nation
federal
state
county
city
town
colony
territory
American Indians/Native Americans
citizen
vote
climate
economy
ballot
monument
landmark
tax
urban
suburban
rural
settlement
pilgram
custom
justice
legal
political
economic
culture
ethnic
ancestor
U.S. Constitution
diversity
election
governor
mayor
president
immigration
import/export
industry
population
agriculture
executive branch
legislative branch
judicial branch
ancestor
heritage
natural resources
supply/demand
alliance
amendment
article
bill
law
veto
charter
Congress
compromise
democracy
republic
doctrine
patriotism
revolution
primary source
secondary source
tolerance/intolerance (religious)
slavery
independence
BCE/BC
CE/AD
civilization
dynasty
empire
hierarchy
mandate
monotheism
polytheism
monarchy
oligarchy
philosophy
social class
bias
capitalism
depression/recession
discrimination
dissent
due process of law
habeas corpus
impeachment
inflation
preamble
revenue
secession
anarchy
arms race
checks and balances
bear/bull market
censure
counterculture
guerilla warfare
imperialism
isolationism
militarism
monopoly
deregulation
socialism
totalitarianism
welfare
suffrage
appeasement

Art at the Weatherspoon: Diana Al-Hadid piece (Free writing)

Artist: Diana Al-Hadid (born 1981)
Piece: Untitled, 2010
-materials include charcoal, conte and pastel on vellum
-in both her drawings and sculpture, Al-Hadid seems to usually depict ruins-like architectural forms
-influences include: Eastern and Western art, Biblical and mythical narratives, Arabic storytelling, Gothic architecture, Islamic ornamental art, scientific advances (physics and astronomy)

The piece appears to be a muddy array of dark and light lines, blurred around the edges, sometimes rough, but almost drippy like cave walls...at first it seems sloppy and haphazard, but looking closer, you can see the deliberative marks. Couldn't possible be accidental, yet I still feel some of it is--so spontaneous and eccentric.
Lines...The whole piece is made of lines, it's the basic unit of the entire composition, like cobblestones make a street path. Mostly vertical lines, occasionally diverging to the right here and there, creating diagonal (to the southeast?) streaks off of the main marks. The lines are both heavy and dark and light, black and white (the piece is monochromatic), layered and layered and layered on top of each other, which ends up creating overall value changes, implied/visual space and form and texture. I think probably the conte and pastel are what she used to render the heavier lines, and the charcoal the lighter lines. Lines vary from opaque to somewhat transparent, (I notice this particularly on the light streaks that have been layered over dark). Also organic, the lines were not made with a straight-edge or ruler, though they are for the most part straight and vertical. The edges of the lines are inconsistent, showing differences in the pressure of her hand on the page with the charcoal/conte/pastel. Some of the lines strike me as very scratchy, others seem nice and drippy...she applied the marks with a firm hand, although you see some more light and feathery marks near the edges of the piece.
Like clouds or eddies in water, the elements (lines) are so intricate and chaotic and changing, but you could probably imagine the shape of a ruinous city on a cliff or an underground cavern town, the same way you "see" shapes of things in clouds. Groupings of light and dark lines (of varying distances from each other) give impressions of towers, maybe, or spires dripping skyward. The shapes are not clearly defined, but left up to the mind and imagination of the person viewing the artwork...similarly, form is not clearly delineated, but the arrangements of light and dark streaks somehow create shadowy muddy forms that might become something more in your head. Places where the dark lines gather closer together recess into the page while the lighter spots push outwards towards the viewer, creating the optical illusion of 3D form within a 2D piece. Together the dark and light areas work together to create those imaginary forms of towers I described before. Or perhaps they create something like large rock faces in some places, areas that are more flat off of which light seems to reflect, or light vertical bulges of a cave wall.
Wide range of values used in the piece, again, lots of very light (light as the page color) and very dark streaks. There is no smooth gradient of light as in chiaroscuro-style works, but how close the streaks of dark and light are to each other create areas of very dark or very light or in-the-middle greyness.
I keep describing the piece as "drippy" like water on a shower curtain or dripping down your car's front windshield in the rain, although the artist obviously didn't use any wet media, it is just the way her lines are applied on the page--vertically and not too jagged--that remind me  of dripping water. Then there are the areas of diagonal lines and blurred charcoal that seem like wind blowing dust from the surface of the "ruins." The actual texture of the lines on the page look like they're probably mostly smooth, not terribly rough or bumpy. Some of the crackling, irregular dark lines give a temporary sense of roughness, like that of a rock, but I only see these in a few areas.
Arrangement of positive and negative space in the piece: negative space exists only around the edges of the piece, the positive space is to the center-bottom-left area, and is heavily populated by lines--there are no negative spaces within the main positive space. Arrangement of the clump of dark lines on the page gives it a window-to-another-world quality, with a frame of negative whitish area around it. The dark area recedes greatly into the page, again, fading around the edges into this strange area of nothingness and white void, which gives the positive space no real context, it's just floating like a fantastical city or cathedral somewhere...
Unity and variety...the unity in this piece is the similar character of all the lines, both light and dark--their similar character and personality and expressiveness, their vertical direction, firmness, determine, unambiguous...while the lines are not clones of each other, they are clearly apart of the same population and species of lines. The variety is in the individuals that are each and every line, the slightly different paths they take, the differences in color, and differences in width and pressure on the page.
Again, the piece is asymmetrical balanced, very heavy from the center towards the bottom left, sinking, sinking towards the bottom and into the page. The movement of the artwork I think is determined by the direction of the vertical lines, as well as the strange off-shoots of vertical lines towards the right. I read the piece from the top to bottom I think...something about what reminds me of water makes me read it that way I think. You might could read it from the bottom up, the forms/"towers" growing or stretching upwards. Don't honestly imagine anyone reading the piece horizontally, left to right or vice versa...you'd miss so much, and the lines practically demand that your eyes move vertically over the piece in one direction or another. In that sense, rhythm in the piece is different depending on how you read it...it seems very slow and gradual, biding its time, to me. I read from up to down, so the motion is smooth and mostly uninterrupted. Reading the piece from side to side, I imagine would give someone a very jarring and quick rhythm--sharp changes between light and dark, more or less gradual in some places, constantly line after line after line after line. This would be I think like driving through a city rather quickly, catching glimpses of things passing by as opposed to standing from far away or on a building top and gazing for a long time, over the course of an entire day or season, observing the slow and gradual change, the build-ups and sinks, the unification and diverging of the lines.
I think the most difficult thing in watching this piece has to do with the focal point...I just spoke of the rhythm and movement, of my eyes at least, through the piece. I couldn't possibly say where it began though, what I saw first, and if I closed by eyes and tried to look many times, I think I'd see something different first each and every time. The piece is so complex and chaotic and heavy that the only thing that is certain is that your eyes will probably land somewhere in the dark area of the page, amidst all the streaks of dark and light.
Honestly, I don't think proportion has a very big role in this artwork, as it doesn't truly and definitively describe any forms, so it is hard to compare sizes of shapes or forms...the main dark area on the page is massive, takes up most of the space on the drawing surface page, over 3/4s of it I believe, which is significant. Size of the drawing itself doesn't bring to mind any particular comparisons...it has to be about 2/3 of my height at least, but the size of the artwork doesn't really point to any relative size outside of it. The perceived towers and buildings or whatnot inside the piece are purely fictional...I see a somewhat uniform size between them all because that is how I imagine it is, but there's no way to measure this or give it certainty.
I love caves, love love love caves, and this is probably why I paid attention to this piece. In seeing and imagining rock walls dripping with water, I came to associate the lines with small streams of water, as rain makes on surfaces. Reading the plaque next to the piece, I can see and associate the virtual forms and shapes with those of buildings or architecture...the starkness certainly is reminiscent of Gothic architecture, another style of building I really love. Feelings the artwork brings up are various...foreboding (from the darkness and the complexity of lines, the uncertainty of the shapes or what it represents), nostalgia (how it reminds me of a ruined city or an underground cavern or some other group of dusty, abandoned architecture), an imaginative excitement from seeing what details or imaginary shapes I can find just by looking closer at the piece, as well as a sense of being lost, not sure of where to go, or where to look first, or what any of those dropping falling streaks of light and dark marks even mean, where they go, where they fade to...

ENGLISH WORDS

1)      

Slang is informal word that is used by social person. Slang words aren’t official, but they used on speaker’s realistic social life. Slang words are often used as a euphemism. The origin of the ‘slang’ is uncertain. It was connected with thieves’ cant, but it is unclear. Slang words are often known within ingroup and clique. But in other case, some slang words are considered as such by most speakers. For example, slang word ‘cool’ means ‘very good.’ and ‘impressive.’

 Loanword means a word is borrowed from other language. The word ‘loanword’ came from German word ‘lehnwort.’ Loanword is new word. So it is used by some people who know about that at first, but the new word become used by most speakers. For example, in old English period, Latin word ‘circul’ came into english, it became ‘circle.’

 A euphemism is a expression that don’t give negative feeling to listener. Generally, it is used on profanity words, sort of sexual words and taboo words. The word ‘euphemism’ comes from the Greek word ‘euphemia’, meaning ‘the use of words of good omen.’ For example, ‘lose a person’ means someone had died. The other is ‘candy.’ We think that this word is a kind of sweets. But on euphemism it means drug.

 Lastly, there is idiom. The idiom is expression and phase that has a featuring meaning that is used by most people popularly. This is separated from literal meaning. It has a special meaning. A idiom can be hard to translate other language. For example, ‘lay one’s cards on the table’ means to reveal one’s secret.

 

 

2)     The reasons that why euphemism and idioms is necessary.

The euphemism makes it possible to comfort listener’s mind. A literal way of expression can listener to uncomfortable. And, euphemism is for speakers, too. They don’t want to say words of kind of offensive and sensitive topics.

 Next is idiom. Idiom helps to make English a more colorful language. And idiom can having a strong and more certain meaning.

 

3)

 Slang – “Indian giver”; Indian giver is an expression used to describe a person who gives gift and later wants back. The term ‘indian giver’ was first citied in John Russell Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms(1860) as ‘indian giver. When an Indian gives anything, he expects to receive an equivalent. ’ Thus it was really an exchange an exchange of gifts and not a matter of selflessness. It is unclear exactly how the expression came to be, but the consensus is that it is based on American Indians having a distinctly different sense of property ownership than people of European ancestry.  Ex) “Mark me, he’ll never take those bonds... he gave them to you and he ‘s not an Indian giver.”

 Loanword – “Mazel tov”; Mazel tov is English word of Yiddish origin. Its literal meaning is good destiny. This is a phrase used to express congratulations for a happy event. The expression comes from the mishnaic Hebrew mazzel, meaning ‘constellation’ the phrase ‘mazel tov’ is recorded as entering into English from Yiddish in 1862. It is used for a sort a happy situation. Another use is the end of bad experience. Ex) I heard you just got a promotion at work – mazel tov!

 Euphemism – “ Ethnic cleaning” – Ethnic cleaning is euphemism expression of genocide. It means purposeful policy designed by one ethnic group to remove other ethnic by violent way. The term itself appears by international media early in 1992. Ex) "The Croatian political and military leadership issued a statement Wednesday declaring that Serbia's 'aim is obviously the ethnic cleansing of the critical areas that are to be annexed to Serbia'."

 Idioms – “making ends meet” it means having enough money to live on. ‘Ends’ means money financial success. Tobias Smollett first recorded the saying in his novel ‘The Adventures of Roderick Random’ (1748). It has same meaning with ‘make both ands meet.’  Ex) Growing up, my family was poor, We often did not have enough to make ends meet.

English is a quirky language

Name any slang words, idioms or sayings in English you've heard of or are familiar with: