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absolute music

(Encyclopedia)absolute music, term used for music dependent on its structure alone for comprehension. It is the antithesis of program music. It is not associated with extramusical ideas or with a pictorial or narra...

Arabian music

(Encyclopedia)Arabian music, classical musical tradition of the Islamic peoples of Arabia, the Fertile Crescent, and North Africa. Little is known of Arabian music before the Hegira (a.d. 622), but afterward unde...

Japanese music

(Encyclopedia)Japanese music, the highly eclectic musical culture of the Japanese islands. Over the years, Japan has borrowed musical instruments, scales, and styles from many neighboring areas. The indigenous musi...

Javanese music

(Encyclopedia)Javanese music, one of the richest and most distinctive of Asian musical cultures. It was and is of enormous importance in religious, political, and entertainment functions. It possesses two separate ...

electronic music

(Encyclopedia)electronic music or electro-acoustic music, term for compositions that utilize the capacities of electronic media for creating and altering sounds. Initially, a distinction must be made between the te...

Doowop Music

(Encyclopedia) Doowop (also spelled doo-wop or doo wop) music, American popular vocal music style, c. late 1940s-early 1960s. Doowop is a form of vocal harmony mu...

computer music

(Encyclopedia)computer music, term used to describe music composed or performed with the aid of a computer. The first substantial piece of music composed on a computer was the Illiac Suite (1956) by the avant-garde...

concrete music

(Encyclopedia)concrete music: see electronic music. ...

aleatory music

(Encyclopedia)aleatory music āˈlēətôrˌē [key] [Lat. alea=dice game], music in which elements traditionally determined by the composer are determined either by a process of random selection chosen by the comp...

Chinese music

(Encyclopedia)Chinese music, the classical music forms of China. Throughout the political and social turmoil following World War I, Western (classical and popular) and Japanese sources dominated Chinese music. At...