Common practice period

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eras of European art music
Ancient music	1500 BCE - 476 CE
Early music	476 - 1600
Common practice period	1600 - 1900
20th century classical music	1900 - 2000

The common practice period, in the history of European art music (that is, what is popularly called "classical" music), encompasses those periods identified as Baroque, Classical, and Romantic. It lasted, therefore, from about 1600 till about 1900, and is most often contrasted with much of the music of the 20th century and with contemporary music.

1 General characteristics
2 Technical features
3 Later trends
4 References
5 External links

[edit] General characteristics

Common practice music is bound together by many traits. It is tonal as opposed to the earlier modal music or the later predominantly atonal music. It includes most of so-called "classical" music, and may be extended to encompass also popular music, up to and including the popular music of our time. Despite the emergence of many new styles and techniques, common practice music is still, in important ways, the dominant European-based music.

Among those adopting the term is Walter Piston. He uses it in his book Harmony (ISBN 0-393-95480-3) to refer to the bulk of the material with which he deals.

[edit] Technical features

[edit] Harmony

Common practice harmony is most often derived from diatonic scales, though popular music may employ modal frames or levels.

[edit] Rhythm

Rhythmically, common practice metric structures generally include:

Clearly enunciated or implied pulse at all levels, with the fastest levels rarely being extreme.
Meters, or pulse groups, in two-pulse or three-pulse groups, most often two.
Meter and pulse groups that, once established, rarely change throughout a section or composition.
Synchronous pulse groups on all levels: all pulses on slower levels coincide with strong pulses on faster levels.
Consistent tempo throughout a composition or section.
Tempo, beat length, and measure length chosen to allow one time signature throughout the piece or section.

(DeLone et al. (Eds.), 1975, chapter 3)

[edit] Duration

Durational patterns typically include:

Small or moderate duration complement and range, with one duration (or pulse) predominating in the duration hierarchy, being heard as the basic unit throughout a composition. Exceptions are most frequently extremely long, such as pedal tones; or, if they are short, they generally occur as the rapidly alternating or transient components of trills, tremolos, or other ornaments.
Rhythmic units based on metric or intrametric patterns, though specific contrametric or extrametric patterns are signatures of certain styles or composers. Triplets and other extrametric patterns are usually heard on levels higher than the basic durational unit or pulse.
Rhythmic gestures of a limited number of rhythmic units, sometimes based on a single or alternating pair.
Thetic (i.e., stressed), anacrustic (i.e., unstressed), and initial rest rhythmic gestures are used, with anacrustic beginnings and strong endings possibly most frequent and upbeat endings most rare.
Rhythmic gestures repeated exactly or in variation after contrasting gestures. There may be one rhythmic gesture almost exclusively throughout an entire composition; but complete avoidance of repetition is rare.
Composite rhythms which confirm the meter, often in metric or even note patterns identical to the pulse on specific metric level.

(DeLone et al. (Eds.), 1975, chapter 3)

Patterns of pitch and duration are of primary importance in common practice melody, while tone quality is of secondary importance. Durations recur and are often periodic; pitches are generally diatonic. (DeLone et al. (Eds.), 1975, chapter 4)

[edit] Later trends

Many people have proposed that a "new" common practice period is now discernible in 20th century "classical" music. George Perle (1990) has argued that this amounts to "Tradition in 20th Century Music", the most significant element of which is the "shared premise of the harmonic equivalence of inversionally symmetrical pitch-class relations," among composers such as Edgard Varèse, Alban Berg, Béla Bartók, Arnold Schoenberg, Alexander Scriabin, Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern, and himself. John Harbison refers to symmetry as the "new tonality".

[edit] References

DeLone et al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-049346-5.
Perle, George (1990). The Listening Composer, pp. 46-47. California: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06991-9.
Harbison, John (1992). Symmetries and the "New Tonality". Contemporary Music Review 6 (2), pp. 71-80.