Dictionary of Music - Birding America

234 mechanical instruments3 In fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England, astately dance form in duple meter.mechanical instruments Musical instrumentsthat can produce music entirely without the aid of aperformer. Most such instruments are operated by aclockwork mechanism, as in the barrel organ ormusic box. Sometimes, as in the player piano, a rollof paper is perforated with holes corresponding tothe notes to be played. This, in turn, makes the hammersstrike appropriate keys.medesimo tempo (me de′sē mô′′ tem′pô) Italian.See ISTESSO TEMPO.mediant (mē′dē ənt). The third degree of a diatonicscale, that is, the third note in any major orminor scale (see SCALE DEGREES). In the key of Cmajor the mediant is E, in the key of of D major it isF-sharp, in the key of A minor it is C, etc. The mediantis so called because it is halfway between thefirst degree, or tonic (C in the key of C), and the fifthdegree, or dominant. In analyzing the harmony of acomposition, the Roman numeral III or the letter Mis used to designate a triad built on the mediant.medieval A term applied to music of the periodfrom c. 450 to c. 1450. The principal kinds ofmusic developed in Europe during this span of athousand years were vocal, consisting of churchmusic and secular (nonreligious) songs of variouskinds. Until about the ninth century, all music wasmonophonic (written in one voice-part). The developmentof ORGANUM represents the earliest knownattempts at polyphony (music in several voiceparts),but monophonic music continued to be writtenthroughout the entire period. The chief kinds ofmonophonic music were, on the one hand, thechants of the various churches—Gregorian chant,Byzantine chant, etc.—and, on the other hand, thesongs, at first in Latin and later in local languages,of minstrels and other entertainers—jongleurs,troubadours, trouvères, minnesingers, and later theMeistersinger. The early development ofpolyphony took place almost entirely in churchmusic. Organum was cultivated by the school of St.Martial (tenth to twelfth centuries), which alsomade the traditional chant more elaborate throughthe addition of tropes and sequences. During thetwelfth and thirteenth centuries the center of musicalactivity shifted to Paris, where the Notre Dameschool continued the development of organum aswell as creating the polyphonic conductus,clausula, and motet (see ARS ANTIQUA). In the fourteenthcentury, with the ARS NOVA, polyphonyappeared in secular music as well. The Frenchwrote ballades, rondeaux, and virelais; the Italianspreferred the madrigal, caccia, and ballata. Similardevelopments took place in England, but the closeconnections maintained with Continental culture,especially that of France, make it difficult todistinguish twelfth- and thirteenth-century Englishcompositions. Most of what survives is sacredpolyphony, the famous canon “Sumer is icumen in”being a rare exception. By the early fourteenth centuryEnglish music did seem to sound different.The so-called English descant of this time wascharacterized by the use of similar rhythms in allthe voices, often giving a chordal effect, the use ofconsonant harmonies that avoid dissonances onstrong beats, and the employment of full triads.The leading English composers were Leonel Powerand John DUNSTABLE.Although vocal music predominated, there wassome medieval instrumental music, presumablythroughout the entire period. By the tenth centurythere were numerous instruments—stringed instruments,both plucked (harps, psalteries, lutes, andguitars) and bowed (viols and the rebec), percussioninstruments (cymbals, bells, and drums), woodwinds(flageolets, flutes, panpipes, and shawms), brassinstruments (horns and trumpets), as well as bagpipesand organs. Probably the earliest instrumentalmusic was dance music; originally this music wasalso monophonic, but by the late twelfth centurypolyphonic dances were being composed. Theoryand notation developed enormously during thecourse of the Middle Ages. The church modes wereset in order and expanded, and various systems ofnotation were devised, culminating with that ofGuido d’Arezzo, which is essentially the systemused today.The medieval period was followed by theRENAISSANCE. See also BURGUNDIAN SCHOOL.