Dictionary of Music - Birding America

398 S S Aoctave is divided into twelve half tones, in India theoctave is divided into twenty-two or more sruti. Anumber of sruti combined make up a musical tone,and certain such tones are selected to make up aRAGA, or MELODY TYPE. —s’ruti An Indian windinstrument that, like the Western oboe, has a conicalbore (cone-shaped inside) and double reed. It is usedexclusively to provide a steady drone accompaniment(see DRONE, def. 3).S S A Abbreviation for soprano–soprano–alto,used in choral music for women’s voices.sta, come (kô′me stä) Italian: “as it stands.” Adirection to play a passage exactly as written.Stabat Mater (stä′bät mä′ter) Latin. A Latinpoem, written sometime during the thirteenth century,that has often been set to music. It was set inthe form known as sequence, with pairs of lines andthe same music for each line of a pair (seeSEQUENCE). In the sixteenth century the StabatMater was outlawed by the Council of Trent, alongwith most other polyphonic settings (with more thanone voice-part, as opposed to the one-part Gregorianchant), but in 1727 it was readmitted to the officialliturgy, and today it is included in the Proper of theMass for the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of theBlessed Virgin Mary.The Stabat Mater, which tells about Mary’s vigilby the cross on which Jesus died, has been set tomusic for hundreds of years. Among the morenotable settings are those of Josquin des Prez (fifteenthcentury), Palestrina (sixteenth century), Pergolesiand Haydn (eighteenth century), Schubert,Dvořák, Rossini, and Verdi (nineteenth century),Poulenc (1951), and Penderecki (1962).stacc.An abbreviation for STACCATO.staccato (stä kä′tô) Italian. A direction to performa note quickly, lightly, and separated from thenotes before and after it. Staccato performance inpractice reduces the time value of a note by one-halfor more; thus a quarter note, performed staccato,lasts only as long as an eighth note, the rest of itsvalue being replaced by silence. In playing a bowedstringed instrument, such as the violin, slightly differentkinds of detached notes can be produced byvarying the bowing technique; among them areMARTELÉ; PIQUÉ; SPICCATO; SAUTILLÉ.Staccato normally is indicated by a dot over orunder the note to be so performed; sometimes theabbreviation stacc. is used. A series of dots combinedwith a slur indicates a kind of half-staccatocalled PORTATO. A short dash usually indicates amore pronounced staccato, slightly accented. Composersof the eighteenth century indicated staccatowith a wedge (pointed downward) or a dot. Somealso used a straight vertical sign, but its meaning isnot clearly understood.staff pl. staves Also, stave. A set of horizontallines used to indicate the pitch of notes. Both thelines and the spaces between them indicate specificpitches. Since the thirteenth century most music hasbeen written on a five-line staff, although Gregorianchant is still written on the four-line staff devised byGuido d’Arezzo in the eleventh century. A CLEF atthe beginning indicates the pitch of one of the lines,from which the pitches of the others are inferred.Ledger lines are used for pitches higher or lowerthan the top and bottom lines of the staff, along withoctave symbols to indicate a higher or lower octave(see OTTAVA, defs. 1, 2). Music for instruments inwhich the player’s hands each play different pitches,such as pianos, harps, and celestas, is usually writtenon two staves joined by a brace. (See the musicalexample accompanying STRETTO.) Organ music iscommonly written on three staves, the bottom onefor the pedal and the top two for the manuals (onlytwo are used if there is no pedal). The music for percussioninstruments of indefinite pitch, such as cymbalsor drums, is usually written on a single line(one-line staff), showing only the duration (timevalue) of the notes.Although lines were used to represent pitch asfar back as the ninth century, Guido was the first touse a staff of the present-day type; his had threelines, and later he added a fourth. During the Renaissance(1450–1600), keyboard music was sometimeswritten on staves of six or more lines, whereas luteand vihuela music was written on what looks like astaff but is actually a TABLATURE, which represents