Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Pygmy' Terminology Sheet
Pygmy' Terminology Sheet
Hocket: from lati hoquetus, meaning ‘hiccup’, is the a single melody is shared
between two (or occasionally more) voices such that alternately one voice sounds
while the other rests. The alternation is usually between a higher and lower voice.
Ostinato: a brief melodic and rhythmic pattern repeated over and over again.
Pentatonic: built on the pentatonic scale, which is identifiable as the five black
notes of the piano, or the first five notes in the vocal line of Don Mc Lean’s song
‘Vincent’. This scale is a basic scale for many musical cultures from disparate parts
of the world.
Simple metre: Simple metre or simple time is a metre in which each beat of the
measure divides naturally into two equal parts, rather than three which gives a
compound metre.