- Music was extremely expressive using large orchestras (early C20th)
- Composers wrote music based on their national heritage (used folk tunes)- known as nationalism
- New scales invented - whole tone scale eg, C, D, E, F#, G# and A#
- Jazz influences heard in the music
- Traditional rules of harmony are broken - anything goes! Atonality (no key centre), polytonality (many keys played together)
- Use of chord clusters - adjacent notes played simultaneously
- Melodies likely to include wide leaps and unusual intervals and sound strange and fragmented
- Sometimes melodies are missing altogether!
- Rhythms are often vigourous and dynamic and use of irregular patterns and unusual time signatures is common
- Modern music styles include: Minimalism,Serialism,Electronic Music, Microtonal Music, Aleatoric music, Musique Concrete, Chance Music, Impressionist More info
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- Much wider use of percussion instruments in orchestra
- Jazz influences introduce the drum kit to some orchestral pieces
- Use of saxophone in symphony orchestras
- Demanding vocal music written in Wagner's operas
- New instruments developed - Prepared Piano (piano with nuts and bolts placed between the strings!)
- New ways of playing instruments - back of bow (stringed instruments), extremes of pitch / dynamic range, various mutes
- Use of electronic instruments - synthesisers, keyboards
- Use of recorded sounds in music (magnetic tape) - natural and instrument sounds
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Romantic