Your friendly neighbourhood study buddy part 2

Once again, feel free to ignore this.

TEXTURE

Monophony - a single line of melody without accompaniment (single strand)
Polyphony - two or more independent lines that interweave (multiple strand - eg counterpoint. Don't even get me STARTED on counterpoint!!)
Homophony - two or more parts moving together (parallel strand). These are hierarchically structured (don't ask why, I don't know, they just are): melody and accompaniment, melody and drone or block chords.
Heterophony - several different versions of the same melody played simultaneously

Split aural focus - call and response (alternating strands)

Homogenous textures - textures that rely on a centralised or agreed concept of time or musical gesture (pretty much anything with a time signature, then)

Heterogenous textures - no definition, so I made one up. Ready? A texture without a centralised or agreed concept of time or musical gesture (so just whatever, whenever - pretty random. Edgar Varese, Poem Electronique??)

CHANGING A MUSICAL TRADITION (this should be under syncretism, fixed and mobile tradtions - sorry. See previous study buddy post)
1) Provide a new context/recontextualisation - placing a recognised sound in a new environment.
2) Change the role of the instrument, extend or introduce a new instrumental technique. (Eg Stravinsky, Rite of Spring opening - bassoon in the top of its register. Like, who does that? :-p)
3) Changing the instrument's traditional mode of performance (see John Cage and his wacky prepared piano. This guy put lots of junk in his piano - pieces of fabric around the hammers, nails in the strings. We did it at school once to an old piano - it never worked properly again after that. And boy does it make a hideous noise!!!!)

DYNAMICS
They indicate loudness or softness in the music. They're relative - you can't say "Well, this many decibels equals mf."

ff - fortissimo (very loudly)
f - forte (loudly)
mf - mezzo forte (moderately loudly)
mp - mezzo piano (moderately softly)
p - piano (softly)
pp - pianissimo (very softly)

One dude (Tchaikovsky??) used SIX p's in one of his pieces!

pppppp - pianissississississimo. (just pack up and go home, cos no one'll be able to hear you anyway it's that quiet)

(no, I'm not making it up - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamics_%28music%29)

crescendo, diminuendo, decrescendo - yeah yeah yeah.
Dynamics add colour and interest. Canned music (music played at a constant mf) is boring. If you can't play dynamics, why are you playing, is the general idea. (Guess I'd better work on mine)

Cool, I think I'm done. Yay :-)

P.S. If you read this, you deserve a medal. Or I could shout you a drink??? (heh, now let's see how many ppl read and comment ;-)