In music, (German for ''primary voice'') or is the main

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound produ ...

, chief part; i.e., the

contrapuntal In music theory, counterpoint is the relationship of two or more simultaneous Part (music), musical lines (also called voices) that are harmonically dependent on each other, yet independent in rhythm and Pitch contour, melodic contour. The term ...

or melodic line of primary importance, in opposition to . (German for ''secondary voice'') or is the secondary part; i.e., a secondary contrapuntal or melodic part, always occurring simultaneously with, and subsidiary to, the . The practice of marking the primary voice within the musical score/parts was invented by

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

. The terms are used primarily by

Alban Berg Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( ; ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sma ...

, and

Anton Webern Anton Webern (; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its lyric poetry, lyrical, poetic concision and use of then novel atonality, aton ...

, but are not uncommon in scores for string quartet. They are commonly indicated in musical scores with the marks "H" and "N" ligatured with the right half of a T (𝆦 and 𝆧). When the "primary voice" ends in one instrument/staff/part, it may be marked with a closing bracket (such as 𝆨) at the point where it passes to another instrument/staff/part. Further contrapuntal lines or material may be considered accompaniment. Other examples of the terms' use include lead and back up vocals, melody and counter-melody. In a footnote to a musical score, Schoenberg wrote, "The human voice is always hen present"

Counter-melody

In music, a counter-melody (often countermelody) is a sequence of notes, perceived as a melody, written to be played simultaneously with a more prominent lead

melody A melody (), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of Pitch (music), pitch and rhythm, while more figurativel ...

: a secondary melody played in counterpoint with the primary melody. A counter-melody performs a subordinate role, and is typically heard in a texture consisting of a melody plus accompaniment. In marches, the counter melody is often given to the trombones or horns (American composer David Wallis Reeves is credited with this innovation in 1876.) The more formal term countersubject applies to a secondary or subordinate melodic idea in a

fugue In classical music, a fugue (, from Latin ''fuga'', meaning "flight" or "escape""Fugue, ''n''." ''The Concise Oxford English Dictionary'', eleventh edition, revised, ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson (Oxford and New York: Oxford Universit ...

. A countermelody differs from a barbershop quartet-style harmony part sung by a backup singer in that whereas the harmony part typically lacks its own independent musical line, a countermelody is a distinct melodic line.

Hauptrhythmus

A (plural ) is a

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular r ...

ic motif or cell. The ''Hauptrhythmus'' of

's Chamber Concerto is:Hailey, Christopher (2010). ''Alban Berg and His World'', p.213-14. . \relative c'

In Unicode

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

, the Hauptstimme, Nebenstimme, and closing bracket symbols are part of the Musical Symbols and are coded as follows:

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hauptstimme Accompaniment Counterpoint German words and phrases Melody Musical terminology

Counter-melody

Hauptrhythmus

In Unicode

See also

Sources