MODULATION n.
ic becomes established in the new key; a shifting of the tonality of a piece, so that the harmonies all center upon a new keynote or tonic; the art of transition out of the original key into one nearly related, and so on, it may be, by successive changes, into a key quite remote. There are also sudden and unprepared mo…
NATURAL a.
Applied to an air or modulation of harmony which moves by easy and smooth transitions, digressing but little from the original key. Moore (Encyc. of Music). Natural day, the space of twenty-four hours. Chaucer. -- Natural fats, Natural gas, etc. See under Fat, Gas. etc. -- Natural Harmony (Mus.), the harmony of the t…
OPEN a.
e orillon. -- Open-front furnace (Metal.), a blast furnace having a forehearth. -- Open harmony (Mus.), harmony the tones of which are widely dispersed, or separated by wide intervals. -- Open hawse (Naut.), a hawse in which the cables are parallel or slightly divergent. Cf. Foul hawse, under Hawse. -- Open hearth…
OVERTONE n.
One of the harmonics faintly heard with and above a tone as it dies away, produced by some aliquot portion of the vibrating sting or column of air which yields the fundamental tone; one of the natural harmonic scale of tones, as the octave, twelfth, fifteenth, etc.; an aliquot or "partial" tone; a harmonic. See Harmoni…