Ornament (Music) (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. In music, ornaments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody (or harmony), but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central note. The amount of ornamentation in a piece of music can vary from quite extensive (it was often so in the Baroque period) to relatively little or even none. The word agr ment is used specifically to indicate the French Baroque style of ornamentation. A very important function of the ornamentation in early and baroque keyboard music was as a way of creating a longer sustain of the note on a harpsichord, clavichord, or virginal, such instruments being unable to sustain a long note in the same manner as a pipe organ.