music Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact definition of music, definitions of mu ...

a privileged pattern is a motive, figure, or

chord Chord may refer to: * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve * Chord ( ...

which is repeated and

transposed In linear algebra, the transpose of a matrix is an operator which flips a matrix over its diagonal; that is, it switches the row and column indices of the matrix by producing another matrix, often denoted by (among other notations). The t ...

so that the transpositions form a recognizable

pattern A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated li ...

. The pattern of transposition may be either by a repeated interval, an

interval cycle In music, an interval cycle is a collection of pitch classes created from a sequence of the same interval class.Whittall, Arnold. 2008. ''The Cambridge Introduction to Serialism'', p. 273-74. New York: Cambridge University Press. (pbk). In other ...

, or a stepwise line of

whole tones In Western music theory, a major second (sometimes also called whole tone or a whole step) is a second spanning two semitones (). A second is a musical interval encompassing two adjacent staff positions (see Interval number for more deta ...

and

semitone A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between two adjacent no ...

s. The pattern is said to be ''privileged'' because it requires no context and is a

precompositional In music, precompositional decisions are those decisions which a composer decides upon before or while beginning to create a composition. These limits may be given to the composer, such as the length or style needed, or entirely decided by the co ...

technique. (Wilson 1992, p. 39-40)

Sources

*Wilson, Paul (1992). ''The Music of Béla Bartók''. . Music theory {{music-theory-stub

See also

Sources