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church music

(Encyclopedia)church music. 1 Music intended for performance as part of services of worship. With few exceptions, music is essential to the ritual of every religion; the singing of prayers and portions of Scripture...

chamber music

(Encyclopedia)chamber music, ensemble music for small groups of instruments, with only one player to each part. Its essence is individual treatment of parts and the exclusion of virtuosic elements. Originally playe...

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...

Indian music

(Encyclopedia)Indian music, of India: see Hindu music. ...

Hindu music

(Encyclopedia)Hindu music. The music of India is entirely monodic. To Westerners it is the most accessible of all Asian musical cultures. Its tonal system divides the octave into 22 segments called srutis, not all ...

Hebrew music

(Encyclopedia)Hebrew music: see Jewish liturgical music. ...

Greek music

(Encyclopedia)Greek music, the music of the ancient and modern inhabitants of Greece. Dormant for nearly two thousand years, Greek music underwent a musical rebirth in the 19th cent. with the works of the opera c...

gospel music

(Encyclopedia)gospel music, American religious musical form that owes much of its origin to the Christian conversion of West Africans enslaved in the American South. Gospel music partly evolved from the songs slave...

folk music

(Encyclopedia)folk music: see folk song.

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...