music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

, a simultaneity is more than one complete musical texture occurring at the same time, rather than in succession. This first appeared in the music of

Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed ...

, and is common in the music of Conlon Nancarrow and others.

Types

music theory Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the " rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (k ...

, a pitch simultaneity is more than one pitch or pitch class all of which occur at the same time, or simultaneously: "A

set Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics *Set (mathematics), a collection of elements *Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively Electro ...

of notes sounded together." ''Simultaneity'' is a more specific and more general term than chord: many but not all chords or harmonies are simultaneities, though not all but some simultaneities are chords. For example,

arpeggio A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves. An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played ...

s are chords whose tones are not simultaneous. "The practice of harmony typically involves both simultaneity...and linearity."Hijleh, Mark (2012). ''Towards a Global Music Theory: Practical Concepts and Methods for the Analysis of Music Across Human Cultures'', chapter 4, . Ashgate. . A simultaneity succession is a series of different groups of pitches or pitch classes, each of which is played at the same time as the other pitches of its group. Thus, a simultaneity succession is a succession of simultaneities. Similarly, ''simultaneity succession'' is a more general term than chord progression or

harmonic A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'', the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the ''1st harmonic'', t ...

progression: most chord progressions or

progressions are then simultaneity successions, though not all simultaneity successions are harmonic progressions and not all simultaneities are chords.

References

External links

"Simultaneity in Music"
by Robert Iolini. Extract from a Master of Arts thesis entitled ''Simultaneity in Music''. Macquarie University. Sydney. Australia. February 1998. Harmony Musical texture Post-tonal music theory {{music-theory-stub

Types

See also

References

Further reading

External links