Music Glossary

Note value of 1/128 of a whole note, notated with five flags or beams.

Rest sign of the value 1/128 of a whole note, notated with five strokes.

Time signature with three eighth notes per bar.

Italian performance direction: “in the style of a ballad” — to be played in a narrative, song-like manner.

“In strict time” — a return to strict, measured tempo after a freer passage.

Vocal music performed without instrumental accompaniment.

“At whim” — free in expression and tempo, without strict adherence to the beat.

French for “for two hands” — a performance direction for two-handed playing, usually at the piano.

"For two" – two instruments play the same part.

A major key with three sharps; relative major of F-sharp minor.

A minor key with no key signature; relative minor of C major.

“At pleasure” — tempo and delivery are left to the performer's discretion.

Sight-read, performed without prior rehearsal.

A string-playing direction to play at the tip of the bow.

Return to the original tempo after a deviation.

Major key with four flats; relative major of F minor.

Minor key with seven flats; relative minor of C-flat major, enharmonically equivalent to G-sharp minor.

Minor key with seven sharps; enharmonically equivalent to B-flat minor.

Italian performance direction calling for devoted, passionate expression.

Shorthand symbol used to simplify recurring figures.

Closing section of the medieval bar form AAB.

Sudden change of key without modulation.

Instrumental music with no extramusical content; the counterpart to program music.

Ability to identify pitches exactly without a reference tone.

A timpani technique: a rapid alternation between the two tuned timpani pitches.

Gradual increase in tempo, abbr. accel.

Accent sign above or below the note; the note is brought out.

The recitative, largely monotone chanting style for liturgical texts in Gregorian chant, opposed to concentus.

Very short crushed grace note written as a slashed flagged note.

A sign that raises, lowers or restores a note.

A recitative accompanied by the orchestra (recitativo accompagnato).

Musical support for a leading or solo voice provided by other voices or instruments.

Subordinate voice to the main melody.

Prescribed standard tuning of a stringed instrument.

Hand-held bellows instrument with keys.

Study of the physical behaviour of sound.

The main division of an opera or other stage work.

At will, in tempo and instrumentation.

Slightly less slow than adagio.

Slow and calm, usually between 66 and 76 beats per minute.

Very slow, extremely sustained.

A triad with an added sixth instead of a seventh — a soft sound, common at endings.

Control curve in sound synthesis made up of four phases: Attack, Decay, Sustain, and Release.

Church mode on A, identical to the natural minor.

A stringed instrument whose strings are set sounding by the wind.

Historic organ or harmonium stop with free-swinging metal reeds and a soft, delicate tone.

Instrument in which vibrating air itself produces the sound (wind instruments).

"Anxious, distressed" – Italian expression marking meaning restless, mournful character.

To be performed with tender feeling.

Hurrying, becoming hastily faster.

Fast dance in triple time that follows a duple-time leading dance.

Agitated, restless.

"Lamb of God" – the final chant of the Mass Ordinary.

Emphasis given to a note through slight lengthening rather than volume, often at the end of a phrase.

Small tempo fluctuations used to enliven a performance.

Greek for "contest"; a musical competition in ancient Greece, as held at the Pythian Games.

French term for the ornaments of Baroque music.

A song-like melody; in the suite, a lyrical, generally calm movement.

Byzantine hymn of praise to Mary, sung standing in the Orthodox Church.

"To the end" – instruction to play through to the close.

Fade away until inaudible.

“To the sign” – repeat up to the segno sign.

Keyboard accompaniment pattern of broken triads.

Compositional principle using deliberate chance elements.

"Tutti", all playing together.

The half note rather than the quarter is the beat; common time is counted in two.

In the manner of a march.

In the character of a polonaise.

Turkish-style march.

“In a limping manner” – a syncopated rhythm with a long note between two short notes of equal duration.

Broadening, growing gradually slower.

A little more moderate than Allegro, cheerfully moving — around 98 to 120 beats.

Italian performance marking for liveliness and joy, often as “con allegrezza.”

Very fast, almost prestissimo.

Fast, lively, cheerful.

“Very fast” — Allegro with an explicit intensifier.

“Fast, but not too much” — a limiting addition to a tempo word.

Fast but moderate; between Allegretto and Allegro.

The jubilant chant of the Mass with the acclamation “alleluia,” sung before the Gospel.

A moderately paced dance in duple meter, usually the opening movement of the Baroque suite.

Alpine natural-tone horn up to four metres long.

Chromatic alteration of a chord tone.

Chord containing raised or lowered tones.

The low female or boy's voice, lying between soprano and tenor.

C clef placed on the third line of the staff.

A trombone pitched in E♭, a fourth higher than the tenor trombone.

A valve trumpet in a lower, alto-like range, usually pitched in B♭.

High male voice, countertenor.

“Lovable” – an Italian performance marking calling for a gentle, endearing expression.

The range of a melody, voice, or mode.

The liturgical chant of the Church of Milan, named after Saint Ambrose.

Plagal cadence IV–I, typical at the end of chorales.

To be performed lovingly, tenderly.

The extent of a vibration; it determines the loudness of a sound.

Longer subject of a fugue.

Walking pace, roughly 76 to 108 beats per minute.

Walking, but a little more restrained than plain Andante.

Slightly faster than andante.

Stylised English dance found in the Baroque suite.

Italian performance direction calling for an anxious, fearful expression.

Becoming animated, growing faster.

Animated, with verve.

First phrase of a musical period.

An English sacred choral composition set to an English text.

Anticipating a note of the following chord.

A liturgical refrain that frames a psalm.

Performed in alternation between two sound groups.

A liturgical book containing the chants of the Divine Office.

"Open" first ending in medieval music.

Passionate, with intense feeling.

“Sorrowful, troubled” – Italian performance direction for a pained, mournful expression.

Long accented grace note that takes half the value of the main note.

Ornate character piece or figure.

Symmetrical form with a mirror axis ABCBA.

Theorbo with additional bass strings.

"With the bow"; cancels pizzicato.

"Bold, daring" — an Italian performance marking for an energetic, spirited delivery.

A solo vocal piece with accompaniment, chiefly in opera, oratorio, and cantata.

A small, song-like aria.

Lyrical, expressive vocal style between aria and recitative.

A function in synthesizers and sequencers that plays a held chord back as a sequence of notes.

Broken chord played harp-like from low to high.

The adaptation of a piece of music for a different combination of performers.

Polyphonic music of 13th-century France, preceding the Ars nova.

New compositional and notational style in 14th-century France (Philippe de Vitry, Machaut).

Upbeat in the rhythmic rise and fall of a measure.

Clearly articulated.

The way successive notes are connected or separated, such as legato or staccato.

A vocal fault: an unintended "h" before a vowel, usually in fast runs or melismas.

"Very"; intensifies the following tempo word.

Music without reference to a tonal center or home key.

Move on to the next movement or section without a pause.

Morning serenade performed in the open air.

Lengthening of a theme's note values, usually to double their original duration.

Dotting a note.

Interval enlarged by a semitone.

Six semitones, the fourth widened by a semitone. It sounds like the diminished fifth but is written differently.

Three semitones within a step of a second; arises in harmonic minor between the sixth and seventh degrees.

A chord with an augmented sixth above the bass; called Italian, French or German by construction.

Triad built from two major thirds.

Ancient Greek reed instrument, usually played as a pair of pipes.

Dominant to tonic; with the root in the bass and the tonic on top, the strongest ending.

A church mode whose range extends an octave upward from the final.

Automatic pitch correction of an audio signal, usually vocals, without changing the tempo.

Composer's handwritten manuscript.

Organ stops that sound not the fundamental but fifths, thirds, or mixtures and reinforce overtones.

Major key with five sharps; relative major of G-sharp minor, enharmonically equal to C-flat major.

Key with two sharps, the relative minor of D major.

Key with two flats in its key signature.

Minor key with five flats; relative major is D-flat major.

High valved trumpet of the 19th/20th century used to perform Bach's Baroque natural-trumpet parts.

Emphasis on beats 2 and 4 in 4/4 time, typical of rock and pop.

Short, light piano piece.

Turkish long-necked lute (saz) with movable frets and three courses of strings.

Wind instrument with an air bag, chanter, and drone pipes.

West African xylophone with gourds as resonators.

Russian plucked string instrument with a triangular body and usually three strings.

Ensemble dance in ballet, made up of several individual dances in different rhythms.

Narrative vocal or instrumental piece.

18th-century English musical stage genre using popular tunes, e.g. The Beggar's Opera.

Dance work with musical accompaniment.

In opera, an additional wind and percussion ensemble, often stationed visibly on stage (“banda sul palco”).

A lute- or mandolin-like plucked instrument with steel or gut strings, still common today in Latin American folk music.

Square-shaped concertina central to tango music.

A historical Renaissance plucked instrument built like a cittern but strung and tuned like a lute, with steel strings.

Ukrainian plucked instrument with many strings.

A plucked instrument with a round, skin-covered resonating body.

An Indian bamboo transverse flute without a mouthpiece, with six or seven finger holes.

A strophic form from Meistersang: two identically built Stollen forming the Aufgesang, followed by a differently built Abgesang (AAB).

An ancient Greek stringed instrument for accompanying song, similar to the kithara and lyre but with more strings.

Gondolier's song in 6/8 or 12/8 time.

A poet-singer of the Celtic peoples who sang of heroic deeds and served as an early keeper of his people's history.

Rapid string crossing on a repeated pitch.

Middle male voice between tenor and bass.

An F clef placed on the third line of the staff.

The vertical line separating bars; the stressed first beat follows it.

Musical era between 1600 and 1750.

Baroque wooden transverse flute.

A technique where one finger presses down several strings at once (guitar, lute).

The short, bulging joint of the clarinet and basset horn that connects the mouthpiece to the rest of the instrument.

Mechanical organ driven by a crank with a pinned barrel or perforated card.

A pizzicato in which the string is plucked so forcefully that it snaps back against the fingerboard.

A historical bowed instrument with additional resonating strings, similar to the viola da gamba; the subject of many works by Haydn.

Lowest human singing voice.

Low-pitched member of the clarinet family in B♭.

The typical bass motion at a full close: usually a fifth down or a fourth up, from dominant to tonic.

F clef placed on the fourth line of the staff.

Deep, double-headed drum of large diameter.

A low trombone with a wide bore, usually fitted with a valve for a fourth lower.

A low-pitched brass instrument of the trumpet family, used among other places in opera orchestras.

Lowest brass instrument in the orchestra.

Low bass with a baritonal colour.

A slow, courtly processional dance of the 15th and 16th centuries.

A low clarinet in F with an extended range, valued especially by Mozart.

Continually repeated bass pattern.

Low double-reed woodwind instrument.

The S-shaped metal tube connecting the bassoon's mouthpiece (reed) to the body of the instrument.

An instrumental piece that depicts a battle in sound, such as Beethoven's "Wellington's Victory."

The rapid breaking up of a chord in a fixed pattern, usually light or detached, distinct from an evenly ordered arpeggio.

"Beat"; ritmo a battuta = strictly on the beat.

Bar connecting the flags of several notes.

Individual time unit within a measure.

A stick or clapper of wood or metal used to strike a bell, timpani, drum or other percussion instrument.

The periodic swelling and fading heard when slightly detuned pitches sound together.

A virtuosic jazz style of the 1940s with fast tempos and complex harmony (Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie).

A scale used in modern jazz, formed by adding a chromatic passing tone to a seven-note scale.

A vibrato technique on the clavichord produced by varying finger pressure on a held key.

Anguished, oppressed, melancholy.

The flared opening at the end of a wind instrument that radiates the sound.

French for the flat sign ♭.

Pitch bend, e.g. glissando or string bending.

Section of the Mass following the Sanctus.

A lullaby, or an instrumental piece with a rocking accompaniment.

A folk dance from the region of Bergamo, also a fixed bass model used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

A sixteenth-century dance and song form related to the basse danse, usually in 6/8 time.

A small, book-like folding portable regal (a reed organ) from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

A two-voice vocal or instrumental piece, especially from the sixteenth century.

An organ stop with pairs of slightly detuned pipes that create a wavering tone, serving as an alternative to the tremulant.

A large jazz orchestra of trumpet, trombone, and saxophone sections plus a rhythm section.

AB form without a reprise.

Study of a composer's life.

"Whispered" tremolo on the harp.

"Whimsically, capriciously" – a bizarre, unpredictable manner of performance.

An African American dance craze of the 1920s.

Chord whose tones sound simultaneously.

A slightly lowered third, fifth, or seventh, characteristic of blues and jazz.

American 12-bar song form.

The minor pentatonic with an added diminished fifth, the blue note.

Spanish dance in triple meter with a characteristic accompanying rhythm.

Late medieval double-reed instrument.

A pair of small, joined Cuban hand drums of different sizes.

A blues piano style with a continuous, rolling eighth-note bass figure.

A Brazilian music style from the late 1950s blending samba and cool jazz (João Gilberto, Tom Jobim).

A slow American waltz in which only the first beat of the bar is stressed.

Sustained low drone, often on the tonic.

Fast French dance in 2/2 time.

A Greek long-necked lute with paired metal strings, played with a plectrum.

Stick with stretched horsehair used to bow strings.

Bow used to play strings.

Change of bow direction at note boundaries.

The stick of the bow.

Played with the bow.

Type and direction of bow technique.

A bracket that joins several staves together.

Renaissance French round dance.

Family of lip-vibrated wind instruments.

A virtuosic aria with extended coloratura passages.

A brief interruption of the accompaniment in which a soloist plays alone.

Comma above the staff indicating a breath or short pause.

Medieval note value, equal to two whole notes.

A transitional section in jazz, pop, and rock that stands apart melodically and harmonically from its surroundings.

Brilliant, technically sparkling.

A mocking name for bass figures of two slurred half notes a third or sixth apart, whose notation resembles spectacles; typical of Rossini's accompaniment style.

With vigour and fire (con brio).

Successive sounding of chord tones.

"Rough, brusque" – a performance direction calling for an abrupt, forceful character.

An organ division placed directly above the console, in the case's "breast."

An ancient Roman wind instrument, coiled in a circle and carried over the shoulder; regarded as a forerunner of modern brass instruments.

Comic vocal role in opera.

A trumpet-like wind instrument used for giving signals.

A playful, coarsely comic piece of music.

Clef fixing the position of middle C.

The major key with no sharps or flats; relative major of A minor.

The minor key with three flats; relative minor of E-flat major.

A major key with seven flats; enharmonically equivalent to B major.

A major key with seven sharps; enharmonically equivalent to D-flat major.

Key with four sharps.

Fast closing section of an operatic aria.

Art song with politically satirical text.

A fourteenth-century Italian canonic form depicting hunting and everyday scenes.

Discord, unpleasant simultaneous sound.

Chord progression that produces formal closure.

Soloistic interlude featuring virtuoso improvisation.

Two slanted strokes ("railroad tracks") indicating a brief general pause.

A box drum from Peru; the player sits on it and strikes the front panel.

Diminishing in both volume and tempo.

An exchange between a leader (call) and a group (response), central to African American music.

Artistic music handwriting.

Calm, collected.

Calming, growing calmer.

A song form from Trinidad with witty, often socially critical lyrics.

An unprepared changing note resolved by a leap, used in contrapuntal writing.

Bell-like figuration, often using harmonics.

A fast Baroque dance movement in triple or compound time, closely related in style to the gigue.

Multi-voice form in which all voices perform the same melody offset in time.

In a singing manner, with a soft attack.

Multi-section composition for soloists, chorus and orchestra.

A Latin song of praise, specifically a biblical song outside the Psalms used in the liturgy (e.g. the Magnificat).

Song-like melodic line.

Half-sung, half-spoken liturgical delivery of sacred texts, for instance in synagogue or church.

Director of church music.

Pre-existing melody used as the basis of a composition.

Gregorian chant, monophonic plainsong.

Italian Renaissance strophic song.

Short, light canzona.

Clamp used to shorten the strings of a guitar.

A free, whimsical instrumental piece.

“Capricious” – a lively, whimsical manner of performance with unexpected turns.

Church-tower bell instrument played from a keyboard.

Multi-movement entertainment composition of the 18th century.

Spanish wooden hand percussion.

Singer whose boyish voice was preserved by castration; flourished in the 17th/18th century.

Comic canon of the English Renaissance.

Cleansing effect of tragedy.

Short, simple aria without repetition.

A keyboard instrument whose hammers strike steel plates set above resonators.

A unit for measuring intervals: an equal-tempered semitone equals 100 cents, the octave 1200.

“Seeking the note” – a singing technique in which the target pitch is subtly anticipated before it is due.

Cuban dance in 4/4 time.

Variation form built on a recurring bass pattern.

Trill running through several adjacent tones.

A simple single-reed instrument, forerunner of the clarinet; also the clarinet's low register.

Music for small ensembles.

Opera for small forces and a small performance setting.

Symphonic work for a small, soloistically scored instrumental group; the genre shaped especially by Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony (1906).

French art song or folk song.

The highest string of a string instrument, for example the violin's E string.

A short instrumental piece that expresses a mood or an image.

A small ten-string Andean lute, traditionally built with a body of armadillo shell or wood.

An American fad dance of the 1920s in fast duple time.

Bright, light.

An ancient and medieval way of directing singers through hand gestures showing tempo and melodic shape.

A low vocal register with resonance felt in the chest.

High clef combination of the Renaissance.

Choir of children and adolescents.

Half-stopped organ stop with a small tube in the cap, brighter than a fully stopped flute.

A large bass lute with an extended neck for open bass strings; a basso continuo instrument.

Pattern made visible by vibration (e.g. sand on a vibrating plate) that shows the nodal lines of sound production (Chladni figure).

A vocal ensemble with multiple singers per part; also a term for a piece written for such an ensemble.

Large-format manuscript containing polyphonic music.

Boys' choir.

Damping a cymbal immediately after striking it.

Group singing by a choir.

Unaccompanied liturgical chant (Gregorian chant) or a Lutheran hymn tune.

A collection of hymn tunes, usually with bass, for organists to accompany congregational singing.

A cantata whose movements are all based on the text and tune of a single hymn.

A composition built on a chorale tune, such as a chorale prelude or chorale fantasia.

Gregorian composition in chant style.

The simultaneous sounding of at least three different notes.

Rearrangement of chord tones into a different voicing.

The notes belonging to the chord, as opposed to passing and neighbour notes.

Written in note-against-note chordal texture.

An instrument that produces sound through vibrating strings (Hornbostel-Sachs classification).

Designed dance to a composition.

A singer who is a member of a choir, for example at an opera house or in concert.

The historical organ pitch standard, usually higher than chamber pitch.

Refrain of a song, or a complete chorus in jazz.

Greek for “color”: a chromatic half-step alteration, or a note sign that alters a pitch chromatically.

All twelve semitones of the octave in sequence; no note is privileged.

Melodic motion by semitones.

Cantata composed for the worship service.

Historical term for sacred concert music in church, e.g. the Baroque “concerto da chiesa.”

Mode of medieval and early modern music.

A Baroque ornament: an appoggiatura falling into the main note from above, similar to the long appoggiatura.

Figured, marked with thoroughbass numerals.

A low brass instrument of Italian opera; in Verdi's scores the name for a bass trombone.

Arrangement of keys a fifth apart with increasing accidentals.

Semicircular ornamental figure.

Medieval plucked instrument.

Plucked instrument with a flat, pear-shaped body and metal strings.

Woodwind instrument with a single reed and cylindrical bore.

The mouthpiece of the clarinet and similar reed instruments.

High Baroque trumpet register.

Musical era between 1750 and 1820.

Medieval cadential formula or organum section.

Cadential formula in vocal writing.

Keyboard instrument whose strings are struck by metal tangents.

Historical keyboard instrument: an upright harpsichord with vertical stringing.

Sign that fixes pitch reference on the staff.

Click sound in speech.

Two-note descending neume.

Chord tones placed as close together as possible.

A motif attached after a cadence that confirms or varies its sense of closure.

Tone cluster of closely spaced pitches.

Closing section of a piece or movement; also the sign that directs a jump to it.

Short coda or small concluding passage.

“With the wood” – the string is struck or drawn with the stick of the bow.

Playing instruction: play the indicated part doubled an octave higher or lower.

The accompanist follows the soloist's tempo.

Combination of music with color and light, for instance through color organs or synaesthetic concepts.

Improvised embellishment of a melody with figurative ornaments, especially in 15th- and 16th-century organ arrangements.

Virtuosic, rapid vocal embellishment.

An additional audible tone produced when two tones sound together, such as a difference tone.

As before, as at the start.

The answer to a fugue subject, usually on the dominant.

Smallest audible interval difference.

“Comfortable” – an easy-going, unhurried tempo.

Rhythmically free chordal accompaniment of a soloist by piano or guitar.

The interval that completes a given one to the octave — fourth and fifth, for instance.

Artistic creation of a musical work.

Composition fixed in writing.

Method of musical construction.

A metre whose beat divides into three, such as 6/8 or 9/8.

Wind supply driving the organ pipes.

An effects device that reduces the dynamic range of an audio signal by evening out level differences.

With love, tenderly.

With soul, soulfully.

With fire, with verve.

With expression.

With fire, fiery.

With grace.

With motion, slightly pressing forward.

Played with mute.

With spirit, lively.

A self-contained, concert-style aria written outside an opera or larger work.

A flute held transversely.

Performance space for classical music.

Reference pitch, today a' = 440 Hz.

In concertante, virtuoso style.

Solo group in a concerto grosso.

English term for the leader of the first violins.

A work for solo instrument(s) and orchestra; also a public music performance.

Baroque concerto with solo and tutti groups.

Agitated style featuring tone repetitions, coined by Monteverdi.

Leading an ensemble through beat patterns and gesture.

Medieval Latin song, monophonic or polyphonic, freely composed throughout.

An earlier medieval part-writing style (organum/conductus) in which all voices declaim the same text syllabically together.

Tall, barrel-shaped Afro-Cuban hand drum.

Melodic motion by steps.

Second part of a period that answers the antecedent.

Higher music school.

Organ console containing manuals and pedalboard.

Pleasant simultaneous combination of tones.

English instrumental ensemble of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Baroque thoroughbass part.

The octave range from contra C to contra B, notated C₁–B₁.

Lowest clarinet.

Lowest tuba in the orchestra.

Low double-reed instrument an octave below the bassoon.

Contrapuntal piece, e.g. in Bach's "Art of Fugue".

Voices moving in opposite directions.

Medieval voice between tenor and discantus.

French round dance.

A restrained, chamber-music-like jazz style from around 1950 (Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan).

"Covered"; drum muffled with a cloth.

Alto oboe in F with a pear-shaped bell (bulb bell).

A polychoral style with spatially separated choirs answering one another, typical of Venice around 1600.

Renaissance capped double-reed instrument.

French term for a soft-toned brass instrument.

Renaissance wind instrument played with a lip-reed mouthpiece.

Italian for horn.

Liturgical feast with processional music.

A sociable French round dance with changing figures, often danced to close a ball.

Fugue whose answer is the inverted subject.

Accompanying voice to the main melody.

English term for contrapuntal writing.

A recurring counter-melody paired with a fugue subject.

Ornamentation table after François Couperin.

Strophic section of a rondo or song.

Baroque dance in triple metre; a fixed movement of the suite following the allemande.

A canon whose following voice performs the melody backwards.

Ratchet, loud percussion instrument.

Profession of faith; third chant of the Mass Ordinary.

Gradually growing louder, symbol <.

An interchangeable curved section of tubing used to retune a natural horn or natural trumpet to a different key.

Natural horn with interchangeable crooks (inventions), improved around 1750 to allow retuning into different keys.

Singer in the smooth microphone style.

Alternative fingering on wind instruments (or piano) for producing otherwise missing notes.

Chromatic contradiction of a note between two voices in successive chords.

Antique cymbals with definite pitch.

Renaissance capped double-reed instrument.

A medieval Welsh bowed lyre.

Hungarian dance with slow and fast sections.

Closing section of the Gloria in the Mass.

A small sign at the end of a staff line showing the pitch of the next line's first note.

The French term for the barred half-circle sign indicating alla breve (cut time).

Sharp, incisive.

Metallic percussion plate.

Small cymbal.

A percussion instrument made of one or two curved metal discs.

Major key with two sharps (F sharp, C sharp); relative major of B minor.

Minor key with one flat; relative minor of F major.

Major key with five flats; relative major of B-flat minor, enharmonic to C-sharp major.

Minor key with eight flats, including one double flat; in practice almost always notated enharmonically as C-sharp minor.

Major key with nine sharps (two of them double sharps); in practice almost always notated enharmonically as E-flat major.

Minor key with six sharps; enharmonically equal to E-flat minor.

"From the beginning"; repeat from the start, abbr. D.C.

"From the sign"; repeat from the marked spot, abbr. D.S.

Music with clear metric pulse for dancing.

An early-medieval tenth-century pitch notation system with its own signs for pitch, a forerunner of modern staff notation.

"Digital Audio Workstation" – usually software for recording, editing, and mixing audio and MIDI data.

"Weak" – an Italian expression marking, also found as debole.

The dominant moves not to the tonic but usually to the sixth degree — the expected ending fails to arrive.

Italian performance direction calling for firm, energetic playing.

Italian marking for an expressive, speech-like delivery that highlights the text's declamation.

Text-appropriate stress and rhythm in vocal setting and singing.

Growing softer, symbol >.

A rhythmic figure of ten equal notes in place of the regularly expected subdivision of a note.

To be performed delicately.

"Half stop" – partial registration on the organ.

Highest voice part; also the term for the high, unbroken boy's voice.

Bowing technique with separated but even strokes.

Italian performance marking for firm, resolute playing.

Unintentionally drifting from correct pitch while singing, either flat or sharp.

Middle section of sonata form where themes are worked out.

With inner concentration and humility.

"The devil in music", historical name for the tritone.

A composition for two or more voices led in alternation and combination like a conversation.

Greek for octave; in French also used for the reference pitch and the tuning fork.

Medieval term for early forms of polyphony (organum); originally Greek for discord or dissonance.

System of the seven natural tones of a scale.

Notes or chords formed exclusively from the degrees of the underlying scale; opposite: chromatic/non-diatonic.

A chord built only from notes of the scale; every degree carries one.

A seven-note scale that moves from a root tone to its octave in a fixed pattern of whole and half steps.

A wind instrument of the Australian Aboriginal peoples, made from a branch hollowed out by termites.

Sequence from the Requiem, "Day of Wrath".

A very small interval, among other things the difference between an octave and three pure major thirds; in Italian also the word for a sharp sign.

Closing formula of a psalm tone.

Noble, maestoso.

A person who pursues music for pleasure rather than as a profession; derived from the Italian dilettare (to delight).

Italian performance direction: con diligenza means "with diligence," calling for a careful, precise execution.

An Italian performance direction for a fading or dying away of the tone.

Perfect or minor interval reduced by a semitone.

Six semitones, the fifth narrowed by a semitone — in sound, the tritone.

Three superimposed minor thirds.

Triad built from two minor thirds.

Growing softer, synonymous with decrescendo.

Reduction of note values.

Medieval repeat sign.

Custos, guide sign at the end of a line.

Contrapuntal cadential formula of older part-writing theory in which the top voice, often ornamented with a suspension or syncopation, moves to the final note.

1970s dance music in quadruple metre.

Melodic motion proceeding by leaps.

A combination that calls for resolution; its frequency ratios are complex.

Modal scale built from equal intervals.

Sound distortion through overdrive.

Ancient Greek choral song in honor of Dionysus.

Cheerful multi-movement light music.

A dance interlude in opera or ballet; also an entertaining instrumental piece.

"Divided"; a part is split among several players.

The English term for improvised variations of an upper part over a repeating ground bass, mainly in the 16th and 17th centuries.

An early jazz style from New Orleans built on collective improvisation by trumpet, clarinet, and trombone.

West African goblet-shaped drum with a goatskin head, played with bare hands.

First syllable of solfège.

Baroque theory holding that music depicts and arouses specific emotional states (affections) in the listener.

Sweetly, gently.

Very gentle, extremely sweet.

Sorrowfully, plaintively.

Sorrowful, plaintive.

Fifth scale degree and principal chord to the tonic.

Dominant with an added minor seventh.

Double the speed — the beat becomes half as long.

Church mode on D.

The dot to the right of a note lengthens it by half its value.

Ornament of two small grace notes above and below the main note.

Lowest bowed string instrument.

Contrapuntal combination of two canons sounding at the same time.

Concerto for two solo instruments.

Note-value extension by three-quarters using two dots.

Lowering by two semitones, symbol ♭♭.

Double pipe with two playing tubes.

Fugue with two independent subjects.

F and B♭ horn combined in one instrument.

Raises the natural note by two semitones; needed when an already sharpened note rises further.

Simultaneously stopping and bowing two strings.

Tonguing technique (roughly "t-k") for fast note repetitions on wind instruments.

Simultaneous execution of a trill on two different notes.

A voice played by more than one performer.

Downward stroke of the bow, symbol ⊓.

The downward conducting stroke that marks the strong beat; counterpart of the upbeat.

Liturgical formula of praise, e.g. "Gloria Patri".

Italian term for early opera, coined by the Florentine originators of the stile rappresentativo around 1600.

The last complete rehearsal before the performance.

Guitar tuning in which the lowest string is lowered a whole step (D instead of E).

Percussion instrument with a drumhead.

A combination of drums and cymbals for one player (drum set), central to jazz, rock, and pop.

Electronic device that produces programd drum rhythms.

Electronic music style with shifted bass.

Characteristic flow or expressive shape of a melody or musical performance.

Slavic folk instrument, usually either a bagpipe or a simple reed pipe with finger holes.

Armenian double-reed instrument made of apricot wood, with a warm, soft tone.

Vocal or instrumental piece for two voices.

Composition for two performers, or an ensemble of two musicians.

Rhythmic figure of twelve equal notes in place of the regularly expected subdivision of a note.

Two notes performed in the time of three.

Length of time a tone sounds.

First entry of the fugue subject in the home key.

Very softly, to die away.

Study of volume and its gradations.

Major key with four sharps; relative major of C-sharp minor.

Minor key with one sharp; relative minor of G major.

Major key with three flats; relative major of C minor.

Minor key with six flats; relative minor of G-flat major.

Training of musical perception.

The music of the early Christian era, arising from a mixture of Near Eastern, Jewish, and Greek traditions.

Escape tone that does not return to the main note.

Softer repetition of a phrase as a reverberation effect.

Conscious or unconscious borrowing of foreign stylistic elements without fusing them into an independent personal style.

Scottish dance in 2/4 time.

Note with the value of one-eighth of a whole note (quaver).

A rest lasting an eighth note.

Electrically amplified bass guitar, usually with four strings tuned E-A-D-G.

Guitar whose string vibrations pickups convert into electrical signals for an amplifier.

Music whose sounds are electronically generated or processed; coined as a compositional approach at the Cologne WDR studio from 1951.

Instrument with electric or electronic sound generation.

Lament or mourning piece.

Omission of the expected regular resolution of a dissonance; the harmony instead takes another path.

French for ornament.

Lip placement at the mouthpiece.

Opening in the head joint of the flute over which the air stream is blown.

Emphatic, insistent.

Encore performed after the concert.

Energetic, forceful.

Piano action in which the hammers are not mounted directly on the keys but on a separate rail.

Obsolete string instrument with sympathetic resonance strings beneath the fingerboard, related to the viola d'amore.

Identical-sounding pitches with different notation.

Reinterpretation of a note at the same pitch, e.g. C-sharp to D-flat.

Multi-voice Spanish genre of the 16th century with a comic character and multilingual text, related to the quodlibet.

Group of musicians; in opera, a vocal number for several soloists.

Music played between the acts of an opera or play.

A character’s first aria on entering in an opera, especially the prima donna’s.

Opening dance or entrance music.

Beginning of a voice; also a conductor's cue.

Sign (e.g. §, cross, asterisk) in a round marking where the imitating voices enter; also a conductor's cue for an entrance.

To be performed calmly, composedly.

Funeral lament for a deceased person, especially in Renaissance and Baroque music.

Closing formal section that, e.g. in sonata form, leads calmly into the end of a movement after the second theme.

Ancient Greek victory ode.

Intermediate section in a fugue or rondo.

Wedding song or wedding music, a genre of song from antiquity honouring a newly married couple.

Closing section of an ancient lyric choral song, following strophe and antistrophe.

Tuning that divides the octave into twelve equal semitones.

Choral scoring for only one voice type, i.e. only male or only women's/boys' voices (“voces aequales”).

Funeral music for four like trombones.

Electronic filter for selectively boosting or cutting individual frequency ranges of an audio signal.

Chinese two-string spike fiddle; the bow hair runs between the strings.

Piano-action mechanism that releases the hammer after the strike before the key fully returns, enabling fast note repetition.

Beginning of a work or movement.

Expressively.

Medieval instrumental dance.

Muted, "smothered" playing.

Practice piece for developing a particular playing technique.

Pleasant-sounding.

Low B♭ flugelhorn, tenor tuba.

Balanced, harmonious relationship of movement in music, dance and speech; a basic concept of rhythmics.

Passage drawn from a larger work.

Baroque musical-rhetorical figure expressing an exclamation through a striking leap or a marked melodic turn.

Musical funeral service or lament for a deceased person, known among others through Heinrich Schütz's “Musikalische Exequien.”

First section of a sonata movement or fugue.

Fine nuancing of tempo, dynamics, and tone color in performance that goes beyond the written notation.

Artistic movement of about 1910–1925 expressing inner experience by extreme means.

Extemporised, improvised.

Lengthening phrase structure.

Contrapuntally elaborate composition whose learnedness is visible only on the page and fails to convince the ear.

Major key with one flat (B-flat); relative major of D minor.

Minor key with four flats; relative minor of A-flat major.

F-shaped sound holes in the top of string instruments.

Key with six sharps.

Minor key with three sharps; relative minor of A major.

Fourth syllable of solfège.

Easy, effortless.

Portuguese song, mostly melancholic, accompanied by Portuguese and classical guitar.

Small bassoon in a higher tuning.

Medieval designation for chromatic notes.

High male head voice, falsetto.

Renaissance chordal psalm-setting style.

“Fanatically, enthusiastically” – Italian performance direction.

English instrumental fantasia of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Spanish dance in 3/8 or 3/4 time.

Signal-like piece for brass, mostly on notes of the triad.

Free, improvisatory composition.

“Exuberantly, fantastically” – Italian performance direction.

Character piece in Schumann's manner.

Provençal chain dance in 6/8 time.

“Magnificently” – Italian performance direction.

Medieval three-voice texture with parallel sixths.

Historical name for E-flat major as the basic key of military brass (trumpets, horns).

Hold sign placed above a note ⌒.

“Wildly, fiercely” – Italian performance direction.

“Solemnly, festively” – Italian performance direction.

Folk term for the violin.

With fire, passionate.

Small military transverse flute.

Interval of seven semitones.

Polyphonic vocal music with embellished voice-leading.

Ornamental accompanying figures.

A group of notes arising from the dissolution of main notes of a melody into smaller note values.

The figured bass model of the Baroque.

Numerals placed above or below the bass line that specify the chords of a figured bass.

To sustain a tone evenly.

Short rhythmic filler figure.

Parts that are not led independently melodically but only complete the harmony.

Music composed for or used in a film.

The concluding close of a movement or piece in the home key.

Last movement of a multi-movement work.

Principal closing tone of a mode.

“End” – the closing point of a piece after a repeat (da capo al fine).

A finger crossing over the thumb at the piano.

Board on the neck on which the strings are pressed to shorten them.

Indication of which finger plays a note.

Position of the fingers on fingerboard or keys.

Playing the guitar without a plectrum.

“Hoarsely, dully, weakly” – Italian performance direction.

Embellished melodic figure, coloratura.

First inversion: the third is in the bass. Lighter and more buoyant than root position.

The first bracket at repeats.

Asymmetrical metre of 2+3 or 3+2 quarter notes.

Do always names the same pitch, whatever the key — the normal case in Romance-speaking countries.

Ornamented stroke with a short grace note.

Andalusian art of music and dance made of song (cante), guitar (toque), and dance (baile).

Flute-like, bowed over the fingerboard.

Plaintive, mournful.

Execution in which the notes follow each other unforcedly without noticeable breaks in key or rhythm.

An organ pipe that produces sound through an air stream at the mouth, unlike a reed pipe.

Conical brass instrument in B♭.

Family of conical brass instruments.

Concert flute (English/French term).

One of the oldest woodwind instruments; the sound arises from blowing across an edge.

Historical term for a small organ (positive) containing only flute stops (flue pipes).

Wind-playing technique in which the tongue produces a rolled “r” while playing.

International art and music movement of the 1960s that places the idea above the finished work.

Sound synthesis method in which one oscillator modulates the frequency of another.

Iberian dance and bass model (“La Folia”), varied many times.

Traditional music of a region.

Orally transmitted traditional song.

Length measurement of organ stops in feet.

Lively dance from Friuli in 6/8 time.

Italian synonym for form.

Loud. The basic level on the loud side, written f.

Loud then immediately soft; symbol fp.

Early form of the modern piano.

Very loud, one step above Forte.

Extremely loud; louder is rarely prescribed.

Historical term for instruments that realized the bass part harmonically in the age of figured bass, such as organ, harpsichord, or theorbo.

Organ stop that sounds the note c, or one of its octaves, on the key c (foundation stops, e.g. 8'/16').

Four quarter notes per bar, by far the commonest metre. Stresses on one and three.

Interval of five semitones.

American ballroom dance in 4/4 time.

Lively French round dance in 6/8 time, popular in Germany in the 19th century.

“Frankly, boldly” – Italian performance direction, usually with “con.”

Franco-Flemish composers of the 15th and 16th centuries, such as Ockeghem, Josquin and Lassus.

Italian for phrase.

“Cold, frosty” – Italian performance direction.

Without strict tempo, rubato.

Jazz style from about 1960 that abandons fixed harmonic, metric, and formal schemes (Ornette Coleman).

Brass instrument with tightly coiled tubing, funnel mouthpiece, and wide bell.

Baroque overture with slow introduction and fugue.

Historical G clef on the lowest staff line, no longer in use today.

“Fresh” – Italian performance direction for a fast, lively execution.

Raised ridges across the fingerboard of instruments such as the guitar, lute, and viol.

Clavichord in which several keys share a single string course (as opposed to unfretted).

Vocal production with audible friction.

The grip end of a string bow with the device for tightening the hair.

Italian Renaissance strophic song.

Italian for fugue.

Fugue-like section without strict fugal form.

Small, short fugue.

Full tone, without restraint.

Authentic cadence ending on the tonic on a strong beat.

Symphony orchestra in full instrumentation.

Symbol for harmonic function (T, S, D).

Harmonic analysis after Hugo Riemann.

Rameau's imagined sequence of chord roots (basse fondamentale).

Slow march for funerals.

Afro-American style with syncopated groove.

Fast Bohemian dance.

Furious, stormy.

Early 20th-century movement embracing noise music.

Major key with one sharp (F-sharp); relative major of E minor.

Minor key with two flats; relative minor of B-flat major.

Major key with six flats; enharmonically equal to F-sharp major.

Minor key with nine flats (two of them double flats); in practice usually notated enharmonically as F-sharp minor.

Major key with eight sharps (one of them a double sharp); in practice usually notated enharmonically as A-flat major.

Key with five sharps.

Classical Japanese court music.

Graceful, courtly.

Light, pleasing compositional style of about 1720–1770 between Baroque and Classical.

Lively Renaissance dance in 3/4 time.

Fast 2/4 dance of the 19th century.

Indonesian percussion ensemble.

Popular, widely known song; originally sung in the street.

French dance in duple metre with a half-bar upbeat.

Vessel flute made of an animal horn; also a conical organ stop.

Rest in all parts, symbol G.P.

Upbeat of a higher order that does not belong to the following motif but leads into a new idea.

Letter-based notation for keyboard and lute.

A very soft, muted stroke or note that adds extra groove to a rhythm.

Fast dance closing the suite, usually in 6/8.

Playful, jocular.

Joyful, cheerful.

Historical form of upright grand piano with vertically running strings.

Exact, in strict tempo.

Glass harmonica, glass-music instrument.

Instrument of rotating glass bowls rubbed with moist fingers (B. Franklin).

English part song, mostly for male voices (17th–19th century).

Gliding through the tonal space between two notes.

Metal-bar percussion instrument with bright timbre.

Second main section of the Mass.

Instrumental variations on well-known melodies in Spanish lute and organ music of the 16th century.

Opening between the vocal folds in the larynx; central to tone production in singing.

Suspended bronze disc with definite pitch.

Italian vocal ornamentation of the 16th century with coloraturas, trills, and runs.

African American sacred music with chorus, soloists, and call and response.

Ornamental anticipatory note.

Chant of the Mass after the reading; also the book of Mass chants.

Stop on the harmonium (or organ) that brings the full works to sound.

Piano with horizontal strings and action.

Grand, lofty.

Form of notation that uses symbols, texts, or colors instead of or alongside classical staff notation.

Heavy, very slow.

Gracefully, charmingly.

Octave range from C to B.

Monophonic Latin liturgical chant of the Roman Church.

West African professional musician and storyteller who passes knowledge on orally across generations.

Compelling rhythmic interplay of a band that invites movement.

Old, mordent-like ornament of four quick notes of equal length that circle around a main note.

English variation form over a constantly repeated bass.

Medieval mnemonic device assigning the solmization syllables to the joints of the fingers.

Plucked instrument with six strings tuned E–A–d–g–b–e¹.

Single-string bowed instrument of the Balkans, accompanying epic songs.

Russian board zither with plucked strings.

Strings made from animal gut, mainly for string instruments; today used chiefly in historically informed performance.

Chinese zither with a curved soundboard and movable bridges, usually 21 strings.

Medieval two-part singing in thirds or sixths.

Cuban dance in 2/4 time.

Wedge-shaped sign for a crescendo or decrescendo across several bars.

Hunting horn signal announcing that the quarry is brought to bay or taken.

A progression coming to rest on the dominant — open, questioning, unfinished.

A resting point within a melody where a musical idea comes to a partial close before a new one begins.

Old time signature from which today's C sign for common time developed.

Note worth two quarter notes (minim).

Rest equal in value to a half note.

A diminished triad with a minor seventh. Softer than the fully diminished one and with a clear root.

A horn tone with the hand only partly closing the bell — half-stopped.

String instrument whose strings are struck with mallets.

Electromechanical organ with tonewheel generators and drawbars (Laurens Hammond, 1935).

Played with the hand inside the bell for a brassy tone.

Jazz style of the 1950s that combines bebop with blues and gospel elements.

Overtone produced by lightly touching the string.

Possibility of assigning a note, interval, or chord to different keys depending on context, for instance enharmonically.

Music-theoretical concept, shaped mainly by Hugo Riemann, that treats major and minor sonorities as mirror-related modes.

Minor scale with raised seventh degree.

Overtone series used as a scale.

The harmonic series as a scale.

Mouth organ or accordion.

Keyboard instrument with free reeds.

Study of the simultaneous combination of tones.

String instrument with vertical strings and pedals.

Keyboard instrument with plucked strings.

Guitar laid across the knees and played with a steel bar.

A high vocal register felt to resonate mainly in the head.

The top section of a flute or oboe, carrying the embouchure hole or reed socket.

With heart, with courage.

Low baritone oboe.

Dramatic, powerful tenor.

Circularly wound tuba carried over the shoulder.

Reinterpretation of two triple-time bars as three groups of two.

Seven-step diatonic series of notes, like today's major scale.

Heroic, powerful.

Holding back, ritenuto.

Simultaneous performance of one melody in slightly differing variants.

Six-note tone series after Guido of Arezzo.

Pair of cymbals of the drum kit opened and closed with a foot pedal.

Upper range of an instrument.

Music culture from the Bronx of the 1970s with rap, DJing, and samples.

Medieval vocal technique with short rests dividing the melody.

Soft-toned organ stop.

Texture with a leading melody and chordal accompaniment.

Especially memorable musical or textual phrase that sticks in the memory.

Characteristic progression of natural-horn writing.

Classification of musical instruments by the way sound is produced (1914), e.g. idiophones, membranophones.

English dance, often in 3/2 time.

Acclamation in the Mass.

Music made in the domestic setting.

French for octave.

Wordless singing with a closed mouth, producing a muffled, nasal tone.

Humorous character piece.

In the style of Hungarian folk music.

Valveless natural horn.

Historical courtly wind music (especially horns) that musically accompanied the start, end, and kill of the quarry in a hunt.

String instrument whose strings are bowed by a crank-turned wheel.

Festive song of praise.

Collection of liturgical songs.

Rhetorical figure of exaggeration; in music, affect heightened by extreme intervals or dynamics.

Plagal form of the Dorian mode (2nd church mode).

Plagal form of the Lydian mode.

Plagal form of the Mixolydian mode.

Plagal form of the Phrygian mode (4th church mode).

Iambic metre, short-long.

Recurring principal motive used by Berlioz.

Leitmotif used for characterisation.

Self-sounding percussion instrument.

Cadence of supertonic, dominant, and tonic; a basic building block of jazz harmony.

Rhythmically confusing texture in which the stresses of several parts are shifted so that the metre seems unclear.

Imitation of a motif or theme in another voice.

In mensural notation, the twofold (instead of threefold) value of an otherwise perfect note.

Early 20th-century style focused on tone colour.

Character piece for piano that seems improvised.

Spontaneous tone-creation in performance.

Pressing, growing faster.

Music that sounds as part of the plot on or behind the stage, also called incidental music.

Pitch change in a psalm tone.

An accidental valid only within the current bar — unlike the key signature.

Inner parts of a polyphonic texture between the top and bottom parts, such as alto and tenor.

Restless, agitated.

Tool for producing musical sound.

Music performed by instruments alone, as opposed to vocal music.

Transcription of vocal music into tablature.

Physical superposition of sound waves in which vibrations can reinforce or cancel each other.

Interlude.

Interlude between acts or movements.

Cadence occurring within a formal section.

Artistic rendering of a work.

Pitch distance between two notes.

The lower note moves up an octave. A third becomes a sixth, major becomes minor, and the numbers always add to nine.

Accuracy of pitch; also the opening of a chant.

Festive opening piece, especially of the 16th and 17th centuries.

“Intrepid” – bold, fearless in delivery.

Slow opening of a movement or work.

Opening chant of the Mass.

Inventio, polyphonic keyboard piece by Bach.

Inversion of a chord or interval.

Counterpoint whose voices can be swapped.

Antiphon opening the first nocturn (Matins) in the Roman Divine Office.

Church mode on C, identical with major.

A metre with unequal groups, such as 5/8 or 7/8; common in Balkan folk music.

Medieval compositional technique in which a rhythmic pattern is repeated independently of the melody (esp. 14th-century motets).

Spanish solo dance in 3/8 time with a typical castanet rhythm.

Turkish military music with cymbals, drums, and triangle; model for the “alla turca” fashion.

Mexican folk dance in two parts: an instrumental introduction followed by a sung section.

Instrument with a springy metal tongue whose sound is shaped by the mouth cavity.

Afro-American musical tradition since around 1900.

Musical style since the 1960s that combines jazz with funk rhythm and rock energy.

Widely known piece of the jazz repertoire often used as a basis for improvisation.

Thrown, bouncing bow stroke.

Organ stop; "play".

Fast English-Irish dance, forerunner of the gigue.

Traditional song of the Sámi that evokes people, animals, or landscapes.

Medieval minstrel.

Spanish folk dance in triple time.

Melismatic closing cry of the Alleluia.

Connecting tone or melodic bridge between two chant phrases.

Tuning by pure intervals, for example fifth 3:2 and major third 5:4.

Hungarian folk dance in 2/4 time, often with singing.

Honorary title for outstanding opera and concert singers.

Finnish plucked instrument of the zither family, central to Finnish folk music.

Historically a singing or instrumental ensemble at churches and princely courts; origin of the term “Kapellmeister.”

Director of a court chapel or opera house.

Term for the last dance of a dance gathering.

Defined scale with a fixed key signature.

Mechanical pitch control on a wind instrument.

The accidentals at the start of the staff; they hold for the whole piece until changed.

Arrangement of keys on a keyboard instrument.

Instrument played from a keyboard.

Historical brass instrument with keys.

Historical trumpet with keys for chromatic notes (Weidinger, 1801); forerunner of the valve trumpet.

Ancient Greek plucked instrument in lyre form.

Distribution of a line across changing timbres, so that the timbre itself acts melodically (Schoenberg).

Instrumental festive music of Eastern European Jews, marked by clarinet and violin.

Folk bowed instrument held on the knee.

Hand shapes for the scale degrees; they make the melody visible in space.

A South Slavic and Balkan round dance, often accompanied by singing.

Concerting, virtuoso.

A West African bridge harp with usually 21 strings and a calabash resonator.

A Japanese arched-board zither with usually 13 strings and movable bridges.

Energetic, powerful.

Polish dance in 2/4 time.

A Polish folk dance in triple metre.

A historical school choir that sang sacred songs in the street for alms, ancestor of choirs such as the Thomanerchor.

First section of the Ordinary of the Mass.

A direction that the beat stays the same speed despite a change of time signature.

Sixth syllable of solfège.

Lamenting, mournful.

A setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah for Holy Week.

Lament featuring a descending bass line.

Austrian folk dance in 3/4 time.

The sharp edge at the mouth of a flue organ pipe against which the air stream produces the tone.

German for growing weary: calmer and softer.

Broadly, expansively.

Somewhat less broad than largo.

Extremely broad and slow, slower than Largo.

Very broad, slow.

An organ stop at 1 1/3 foot pitch, named after an old French fipple-flute instrument.

Vocal organ; the vibrating vocal folds act as a “cushioned pipe” producing the fundamental tone of the human singing voice.

Sacred language of the Western Church.

Italian devotional song in the vernacular (13th–16th century).

Score with melody and chord symbols used as a playing basis in jazz and pop.

Dissonant chords (e.g. seventh chord, diminished triad) that require resolution to a consonant sonority.

Semitone below the tonic, the leading note.

A chord formed by shifting the root of a major triad down a semitone, or the fifth of a minor triad up a semitone (C major → E minor).

Additional line above or below the staff.

Designation for the lower piano part.

Bound: notes joined without an audible gap.

Legato, played with a slur.

Slur that joins notes into legato.

Instrumental piece of epic-lyrical character based on a legend of a saint or of folklore.

Light, weightless.

A recurring motif that identifies a person, idea or situation (Wagner).

Gradually becoming slower.

Extremely slow, the superlative of Lento.

Slow, calm.

“Group of Six” – association of six young French composers formed in Paris in 1918.

A historical notation system representing pitches with letters (A–G); a forerunner of modern staff notation.

A low frequency oscillator used to cyclically modulate sound parameters such as pitch or volume.

Text book of an opera.

A short, memorable melodic phrase used in improvisation.

Strophic art song.

A nineteenth-century men's choral society, the first founded in 1809 by Zelter.

Joined group of notes in mensural notation.

Liturgical cycle with associated musical feasts.

Order of worship.

Electroacoustic music whose sound production takes place in real time during performance.

Animated, fast, vigorous.

"In place" – cancels a preceding octave transposition instruction.

Mode on B with a diminished fifth.

A note value in mensural notation, usually twice the length of the breve.

Vibrations in which particles move parallel to the direction the wave travels, as with sound in air.

Repeated, self-contained musical sequence played back continuously.

Several notes in one bow stroke, each gently articulated.

Lowering a note by a semitone (flat) or a whole tone (double flat), e.g. from E to E-flat.

Performance direction: mournful, dirge-like, usually at a slow tempo.

Cradle song.

"Long", especially a long-held fermata.

Coaxing, caressing.

Plucked instrument with bent-back neck and frets.

Historical registration device on harpsichord or early piano that gave the tone a muted, lute-like color.

Lute player.

In the style of Lutheran church music.

Major with a raised fourth degree; open and wide in sound.

Ancient stringed instrument.

Song-like, expressive character.

Polyphonic vocal piece of the Renaissance.

Tone painting that depicts the text in a madrigal.

Majestic, dignified.

Master, conductor.

Italian for major.

Mary's song of praise (Luke 1:46–55), part of Vespers.

The main keyboard of the organ intended for playing with the hands, with the most powerful stops.

First theme in sonata form.

Most important theme of a movement.

Tonal mode with a major third above the tonic.

Sequence whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half.

Two semitones, the whole-tone step of the scale.

Eleven semitones, a semitone below the octave — tense and floating.

Nine semitones, the inversion of the minor third.

Four semitones, ratio 5:4. It makes a triad major.

Root, major third, perfect fifth — the brightest of the four triad types.

A male singer in the soprano range.

Cuban dance with syncopated rhythm.

Fading, dying away.

Small plucked instrument with a rounded body.

Small type of lute with a shorter neck, fewer frets and fewer strings than the large lute.

Style between Renaissance and Baroque.

Italian for "hand"; mano destra (right hand) and mano sinistra (left hand) assign a part to a hand in piano scores.

The organ's hand-played keyboard.

Direction for organ pieces to be played on the manuals alone, without pedal.

Melodic model of Arabic, Persian and Turkish music, combining a fixed scale with characteristic melodic turns.

Strongly accented, each tone emphasised.

Marching music in 4/4 or 2/4 time.

Mexican ensemble and music style with violins, trumpets, guitars and singing.

Mallet instrument with wooden bars and resonator tubes, lower and mellower than the xylophone.

"Hammered" stroke with a sharp bow stop.

Hammered, with a sharp attack or bow start.

Ornament on the harp made by repeatedly striking one note on two strings; in older keyboard music also a name for the mordent.

Martial, march-like.

English court masque with music, dance and poetry (16th/17th century).

Principal liturgical work of the Catholic Church.

The unchanging parts of the Mass: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei.

The chants of the Mass that change with the church year.

Technical final processing of a sound recording as the last step before release.

Largest mensural note value, two longas.

Polish dance in triple time with the accent on the second or third beat.

Metrically organised time unit.

Third scale degree, mediant of the tonic.

Medieval bowed string instrument, a forerunner of the violin.

Bourgeois poet-singers in German towns of the 15th and 16th centuries.

Parent scale of South-Indian Carnatic music.

Melancholy, gloomy.

Several notes sung on a single syllable.

F horn used in marching bands.

Minor with raised sixth and seventh ascending.

Study of melodic construction.

Spoken text accompanied by music.

Succession of tones that makes musical sense.

Instrument in which a stretched membrane produces the sound, such as a drum (Hornbostel–Sachs).

“Less motion” — slower from this point on.

Notation of polyphonic music from the late thirteenth to the early seventeenth century.

Ratio of note values in mensural notation.

Cheerful, jolly.

Swell and decrease in volume on a sustained tone.

Sad.

Organization of strong and weak beats.

A new metre in the middle of a piece; it appears after the barline.

Study of metre and verse measure.

Tempo measuring device calibrated by Maelzel.

Tempo marking in beats per minute, referred to a note value.

With half voice, subdued.

Moderately loud, symbol mf.

Dots under a slur: sustained, yet slightly separated.

Middle female voice.

Moderately soft — between Piano and Mezzoforte.

Third syllable of solfège.

Music with intervals smaller than a semitone, such as quarter tones or sixth tones.

Industry standard for exchanging musical control information between electronic instruments.

Snare drum with tightened snares.

"Threatening": a performance direction for a strongly accented, menacing expression.

Historic note value of mensural notation, roughly equal to today's half note.

Repetitive musical style since the 1960s.

High medieval German courtly love poetry.

Mode with a minor third above the tonic.

One semitone, the narrowest step in the system — the basis of every leading tone.

Ten semitones. It turns a major triad into a dominant seventh chord.

Eight semitones, the inversion of the major third.

Interval of three semitones.

Root, minor third, perfect fifth. A single semitone separates it from major.

Marks a minor-key section within an otherwise major-key movement, for example in variations or dances.

French dance in 3/4 time; movement of the suite, symphony and sonata.

Membrane sound-modifier, kazoo.

Fugue in retrograde or inversion.

Setting of the penitential Psalm "Miserere mei, Deus" (Psalm 51), known through Allegri's version.

Solemn, large-scale setting of the Mass.

Major with a lowered seventh. Without a leading tone the cadence does not aim — the sound of folk and rock.

Organ stop with several pipes per key that reinforces the overtones.

Jazz that improvises over long stretches on modes rather than fast chord changes (Miles Davis, Kind of Blue).

Scale type or church mode; in mensural notation also the ratio of longa to brevis.

Moderately, moderato.

Moderate tempo.

Change of key within a piece.

"Very"; intensifies the tempo or expression word.

Short, lyrical piano piece (Schubert).

Instrument with a single string for determining interval ratios.

Accompanied solo singing around 1600.

Single-voice music.

Quick alternation with the lower neighbour note.

Dying away: growing softer and slower at once.

In motion, fast.

Polyphonic vocal work on a liturgical text.

Smallest meaningful musical unit.

Continuously running mechanical rhythm.

Blowing device of a wind instrument.

Do is the tonic of whatever key you are in, not a fixed pitch. The more productive route for ear training.

Liturgical chant of the Christians in medieval Spain, closer to the Gallican than to the Roman rite.

Fingering or blowing techniques that make an instrument produce more than one note at once.

Galician dance in duple metre, moderately fast.

18th-century keyboard style with continuous broken octaves in the bass as an accompaniment figure.

French dance imitating the bagpipe.

A mechanical musical instrument in which a pinned cylinder or disc plucks metal teeth.

Expert assessment of music and performances, mediating between work, interpretation and audience.

An ancient idea that the movement of the celestial bodies produces sounds, still received today as a musical-philosophical motif.

Stand to hold sheet music.

Medieval term for accidentally altered tones.

Late-Renaissance style of refined text expression.

Entertaining stage work with singing, dancing and spoken dialogue (Broadway, West End).

Philosophical study of musical beauty, distinct from music theory and acoustics.

An aleatoric composition through a roll of dice.

Music composed from recorded sounds.

Direction for wind or percussion players to change the tuning, for example for timpani or horns.

Change from one hexachord to another by reinterpreting a note in solmisation.

A device for softening and altering the tone of strings, winds, and piano.

Medieval sacred drama with music on biblical subjects, first performed in churches, later in marketplaces.

Trill or ornament ending.

Postlude, a closing piece.

Stopped organ stop with a flute-like, horn-like tone that emphasises fundamental and overtone.

Singing fault in which too much air escapes through the nose and the tone sounds nasal.

Fundamental frequency of a vibrating body.

Valveless horn of the early Classical era.

A white piano key.

Aeolian minor scale.

Symbol ♮ cancelling a preceding accidental.

The notes of the harmonic series playable on a valveless wind instrument.

Trumpet without valves, limited to the natural tones.

Organ stop sounding the twelfth (2⅔ foot) with a nasal tone, built open or stopped.

Opera composers of the 18th century from Naples, such as A. Scarlatti and Pergolesi.

A major triad on the lowered second degree, usually in first inversion, before the dominant.

Narrow part of a string or lute instrument over which the strings run to the pegbox.

Performance direction "negligent": to play casually, without effort or emphasis.

A non-chord auxiliary note.

Post-1920 style reviving older forms.

Early notational sign placed above the Latin text.

Circle of composers around Liszt and Wagner; program music and music drama.

Umbrella term for advanced art music since about 1910.

Compositional attitude in new music since the 1970s that stresses emotional intelligibility and traditional elements.

"Nothing"; to fade away to silence.

Nine eighth notes per bar in three groups of three.

Interval of a second plus an octave.

Chord with an added ninth.

Noble, dignified.

Notturno for piano.

Pitchless sound event.

Neither slurred nor detached — notes slightly separated.

A note that does not belong to the sounding chord, e.g. passing tone or suspension.

A note or chord that lies outside the diatonic scale of a key, usually produced by chromatic alteration.

Composition for nine instruments.

"Note against note": the simplest form of counterpoint, in which all voices move in the same rhythm.

System for writing down musical tones.

Written symbol for a musical tone.

Flag attached to a note stem.

Letter name of a tone.

Vertical line attached to the note head.

Duration of a written note.

The oval main part of a note, whose position shows the pitch.

Narrative piano piece (Schumann).

The strip at the top end of the fingerboard over which the strings run.

Essential, soloistic in character.

Organ division above the Hauptwerk.

One voice holds its pitch while the other moves.

Soprano double-reed woodwind instrument.

Low Baroque tenor oboe.

Interval of twelve semitones.

Clef with a small 8, transposed by an octave.

Work for eight players.

Emphasis between the beats, that is, on the unstressed parts of the bar.

Chant of the Mass during the preparation of the gifts.

Electronic instrument by Maurice Martenot (1928) with keyboard and ribbon for gliding tones.

Octave range from c' to b'; contains standard concert pitch a'.

Organ stop whose pipes are not closed at the top (opposite: stopped).

Unfingered, freely vibrating string.

Introductory movement or section.

Opening choral movement, e.g. of a cantata.

First movement of a cyclic work.

Stage work set continuously to music.

Italian comic opera.

"Half-serious" opera: a serious plot with occasional comic scenes.

Serious Italian opera of the 18th century.

Light musical stage genre.

Work, numbered as op.

Multi-movement work for soloists, choir and orchestra on a mostly sacred subject, not staged.

Large instrumental ensemble.

Distribution of parts among instruments.

Mechanical musical instrument that imitates the sound of an orchestra with reeds and additions.

"Ordinary": an instruction to return to normal playing after a special technique (for example sul ponticello).

Keyboard instrument with pipework.

Tin-lead alloy used to make metal organ flue pipes; a higher tin content gives a better sound.

Three-part organ writing, often distributed over several manuals and pedal; no fixed form.

Medieval hurdy-gurdy.

"With full organ": playing on the organ with the plenum of stops.

Study of musical instruments.

Early polyphony in which further voices are added to a chant melody.

Alternative reading offered in the score.

A constantly repeated melodic or rhythmic figure.

To be played an octave higher (8va) or lower (8vb).

Arabic short-necked fretless lute.

The highest and lowest voice of a multi-part texture.

Introductory instrumental music.

Sustained sonic texture in electronic music.

Model a cappella writing after Palestrina; the basis of counterpoint teaching.

Guitar technique in which the strings are damped with the heel of the picking hand.

Free use of diatonic tones outside functional harmony.

A row of joined pipes of different lengths, closed at the bottom.

Stage work without spoken text.

Forbidden parallel fifth motion in strict counterpoint.

Two voices moving in parallel a fourth apart; judged acoustically unfavorable by older theory.

Voices moving in the same interval.

Parallel octaves between two voices, forbidden in strict part-writing.

Two voices progressing at a constant interval of a seventh.

Permitted parallel motion in thirds.

Free, often virtuosic arrangement of a well-known work (Liszt).

Sung in a speaking, lightly scanned manner.

Reuse of a work with new text.

Component of the harmonic spectrum.

A bass line as a practice basis for improvisation and composition.

Baroque variation cycle or suite.

Variation form over a constantly repeated bass theme, usually in triple time.

A fast run of notes developed from the working-out of a motif, usually in scale or chord form.

Transition register of the singing voice.

Italian dance and bass pattern of the 16th century.

Fast French dance in 3/8 or 6/8 time.

Melodic note connecting two chord tones.

Musical setting of the story of Jesus' suffering.

With great feeling, appassionato.

With passion.

Opera assembled from pieces by different composers.

Pastoral piece, often in 6/8 time.

Slow processional dance in duple time, 16th century.

Bach's secular cantata in a folk-like style.

Foot keyboard of the organ or piano mechanism.

Concert harp whose strings can be retuned by pedals.

Sustained bass tone beneath changing harmonies.

Seven-note gamelan scale with unequal steps, usually used as five notes.

Contemplative, introspective.

Five-note scale common in folk music.

Percussion instrument group.

Losing itself — growing softer and less defined.

Authentic cadence with the tonic in both soprano and bass.

Seven semitones, ratio 3:2. After the octave, the most stable interval.

Five semitones, ratio 4:3. Sounds open and presses for resolution.

Unison, fourth, fifth, octave.

The sounding realization of a musical work before an audience, including performing forces, venue, and direction.

Eight-bar phrase with antecedent and consequent.

"Ever-moving", a virtuoso piece in constant note values.

Heavy, weighty.

Caesura, melodic interruption.

Slur grouping a phrase together.

Articulation of music into phrases.

Minor with a lowered second degree; the semitone right above the tonic carries the flamenco sound.

Half cadence with a falling fourth in the bass (iv6 → V in minor), named after the Phrygian mode.

Pleasing, agreeable.

Very soft, one step below Piano.

Extremely soft, at the edge of audibility.

Soft, symbol p.

Keyboard instrument with hammer action.

Solo concerto for piano and orchestra.

Method book for learning piano.

Art music for the Scottish bagpipe (piobaireachd).

A piece in minor ends on a major triad — a sudden brightening at the last moment.

Smallest, octave-transposing flute.

Electromagnetic pickup.

French term for mordent.

Chinese short-necked lute with a pear-shaped body and four strings.

Basic form of a sound-producing wind instrument: an air stream is split at a flue and sets an air column sounding.

Staccato bowing for strings in which several notes are played briefly separated within one bow stroke.

Highness or lowness of a tone.

Italian for "more": strengthens a preceding direction, for example più allegro = faster, più forte = louder.

“More motion” — faster from this point on.

Strings plucked with the finger.

Calm, placid.

Subdominant to tonic, without a leading tone. Known as the amen ending of chorales.

Mode whose range extends below the finalis.

Small piece used to pluck strings.

Medieval ornamental notational sign.

Breath; also long melismas in chant.

"A little".

"Little by little", gradually.

Serial music with isolated tone-points.

Bohemian dance in 2/4 time.

Polish dance in 3/4 time.

Style featuring multiple choirs.

A sonority of two or more chords stacked on top of each other, notated with a horizontal line.

With several simultaneous voices.

Simultaneous use of different rhythms.

The simultaneous sounding of several keys.

Pompous, festive.

A sliding transition between two notes, chiefly in voice and strings.

A small, portable organ of the Middle Ages.

Carried, between legato and staccato.

Position of the left hand on the fingerboard.

A small non-portable organ; also a division of a large organ.

Valveless signal horn of mail coaches.

Closing piece, postludium.

Medley of popular melodies.

Root and fifth only, without the third. It survives heavy distortion and fits over major and minor alike.

Prayer scene in opera.

Introductory piece, often before a fugue.

Introductory instrumental piece.

Consonant preparation of a dissonance.

Piano whose sound is altered by objects placed between the strings (John Cage).

Organ stop, usually equivalent to the 4-foot principal; the large visible pipes in the organ case.

As fast as possible.

Very fast, around 168 to 200 beats per minute.

Leading female singer in an opera.

Triad on the I, IV, or V degree of a key (tonic, subdominant, dominant).

"First" player in piano four-hands.

The open main stop of the organ.

Instrumental music that depicts extra-musical content.

Characteristic succession of chords.

The movement of notes or voices from one degree to the next.

Mensural notation using numerical ratios.

Biblical song text from the Book of Psalms.

Liturgical psalm singing.

Historic harp-like plucked instrument with a triangular frame, played with the fingers.

Mensural dot of augmentation.

Difference between twelve pure fifths and seven octaves (about 23.5 cents).

Zither-like plucked instrument with numerous strings, common in Arabic, Turkish, and Greek music.

Ecstatic Sufi singing from Pakistan and northern India (Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan).

Four-part piece; also the name for the four voices of a choral setting.

French dance in five sections.

Four notes in the time of three.

Chord construction in fourths.

A quarter of a whole note; in most metres it is the beat.

A rest lasting a quarter note.

Work for four players.

"Almost, as if", often used in comparisons.

Organ stop (stopped flue) in which the fifth sounds softly along with the fundamental.

Historic lute- or zither-like plucked instrument with several string courses and a flat body.

Composition for five performers.

Five notes in the time of four.

Fifth voice of 16th-century polyphonic vocal compositions, scored as soprano, alto, tenor or bass depending on the work.

A humorous combination of well-known melodies or texts.

The melodic framework of Indian classical music.

Syncopated piano music of African American origin around 1900 (Scott Joplin).

Raising a note by a semitone (sharp) or a whole tone (double sharp), e.g. from C to C-sharp.

Gradually becoming slower.

A Swiss herding melody used to call cattle, also known by its French name Ranz des vaches.

Rhythmic speech-song, a central element of hip-hop.

Tool with five parallel pens for drawing all five staff lines at once by hand.

Noise instrument in which a cogwheel catches a wooden tongue.

Fairly, rather; slightly strengthens a marking.

The second degree of solfège, a major second above Do.

Writing out the figured bass in full.

The return of a formal section, above all of the exposition in sonata form.

Solo passage in French organ music.

Solo concert by a single artist, usually at the piano; the term goes back to Liszt.

Italian for recitative.

A duct flute with seven finger holes and a thumb hole.

Bohemian dance in triple time and fairly fast tempo; variant Rejdovačka in 2/4 time.

Vibrating tongue of cane used on woodwind instruments, single or double.

Collective term for the reed stops (reed pipes) of an organ.

Organ pipe with a reed.

Fast Scottish-Irish dance in duple time.

Refrain, recurring song section.

Small organ with reed pipes.

Jamaican music style with stressed offbeats and slow tempo (Bob Marley).

A rank of pipes of the same tone color in the organ; also a range of a voice.

Preparatory practice for a performance.

Rinforzando, louder.

A key closely related to the home key of a piece, such as the relative or dominant key.

Major/minor pair sharing the same key signature.

Devout, religious in character.

Unconscious echoes of other works in a composition, as opposed to conscious imitation.

Double bar line with dots.

Reciting tone in plainchant.

The totality of works that a musician or ensemble has ready for performance.

Restatement of tones or sections.

Mass for the dead.

Scholarly engagement with music.

Bellows in an organ or harmonium that store wind rather than generating it.

Resolution of a dissonance.

Remaining sound after a tone ends.

How promptly and cleanly a tone speaks when playing an instrument or singing.

Alternating chant between a cantor and a choir.

Sign for a voice's silence over a certain note value.

With restraint.

Crab motion, reversed order.

Combination of retrograde and inversion.

Continuous reflections of sound waves in a room, as opposed to the discrete echo.

Doctrine of musical affect and expression.

African American popular music of the 1940s and 50s combining blues, jazz and gospel.

Study of rhythmic motion.

Baroque ornament: repeated, accelerating alternation of a note with its upper neighbour, often as a preparation for a trill.

Pre-classical imitative instrumental piece.

A canon whose performing instructions (entries, intervals) are deliberately not notated and must be worked out by the performer.

Repeated rhythmic figure.

Lively French dance in duple time.

Strict, exact.

Reinforced, suddenly louder.

The tutti string group in the concerto grosso.

Resolute, energetic.

Holding back, gradually slowing.

Held back at once — unlike Ritardando, which slows gradually.

Rhythmically accented.

Recurring refrain in the concerto.

Popular music style of the 1950s combining rhythm and blues with country (Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry).

Popular music descended from rock and roll, built on electric guitar, electric bass and drums.

Compositional tradition from the mid-16th century centerd on Palestrina, marked by a strict a cappella church style.

Lyrical character piece.

Musical era 1820–1900.

Medieval French song and poetic form; ancestor of the Baroque rondo with its refrain.

Medieval technique of strict voice exchange, in which parts trade their phrases in rotation.

Form with a refrain and contrasting couplets.

The note on which a chord or scale is built.

The root is in the bass — the most stable position of a chord.

Repeated stepwise sequence of a short phrase, criticised by older theory as a compositional flaw.

Openwork, round sound hole in the soundboard of lutes.

Resin rubbed onto the bow hair of a string instrument.

Medieval term for a round (a vocal canon), the ancestor of the English round.

Ornamented rapid run of notes.

Traditional dance in a circle.

Organ division positioned behind the organist's back.

Afro-Cuban music and dance genre built on drums, clave and song.

Light 19th-century entertainment music.

Caribbean-derived dance music shaped in 1960s/70s New York, built on the clave.

Bouncing, springing bow stroke.