Music

Western Music Glossary

Music performed without instrumental background. A Capella is often performed with multiple voices in a choir but can be sung by a single singer as well. The word ‘A Capella ‘  comes from Italian and means ‘in the style of the chapel’.

Accelerando is a term for the change of tempo where the composition is played at an increasing tempo. In other words, the tempo of the song or composition speeds up until the next tempo marking.

Acoustic music consists of instruments that don’t use electronics to produce the sound. These include the acoustic guitar and bass as well as drums, piano, violin, trumpet, and other classical instruments.

In music, the term adagio means played slowly. If a symphony has an adagio movement, it’s a section that’s played at a slow tempo.

In tempo markings, an allegro is a piece of music played quickly (120-156 bpm) or in a lively way.

In tempo markings (73–77 BPM),  andante refers to music played at a moderate tempo or at a walking pace.

An Arpeggio is a type of broken chord in which the notes that compose a chord are individually sounded in a progressive rising or descending order.

In music, an accidental is a note of a pitch (or pitch class) that is not a member of the scale or mode indicated by the most recently applied key signature. In musical notation, the flat (♭), natural (♮), and sharp (♯) symbols, among others, mark such notes—and those symbols are also called accidentals.

The word “alto” is a general term used to describe a lower female voice rather than a specific vocal category.

A ballade is a piece of music, usually for piano. It has several tunes, and one can easily imagine that it is telling a story.

A bar is a unit used to indicate how many beats are in a single segment of music. Bar is a synonym of measure.

Baritone is a male singing voice that is placed between the lowest bass voice type and a higher tenor voice. A baritone is the most common singing voice for men and this includes many well-known singers in popular music.

The acronym BPM stands for “Beats per Minute” and refers to the number of beats that will occur within sixty seconds.

A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice types

In music, Baroque is a particular style of music, composed around the 17th and 18th centuries.

In music, bass can refer either to sounds with low frequency as well as the lowest type of male singing voice in classical music.

In modern popular music, the bridge refers to a musical section that most often connects the second chorus of a song to the third chorus.

The end of a phrase that indicates the end of a passage of music.

A capo is a device a musician uses on the neck of a stringed instrument to transpose and shorten the playable length of the strings hence raising the pitch.

Multiple musical tones are played at the same time, such as playing three or more guitar strings or piano keys simultaneously.

A cadenza is a moment in a musical piece where an instrumentalist or singer is given the opportunity to play a solo freely and with artistic license to go outside of a rigid tempo or rhythm.

11. Canon

A canon is a piece of voices (or instrumental parts) that sing or play the same music starting at different times.

A concept in music theory where the 12 chromatic pitches are ordered as a sequence consisting of perfect fifths. The circle of fifths can be used as a tool for learning the general structure of music and expanding your knowledge of music theory.v

A musical-notation symbol at the beginning of a music staff, a clef indicates the pitch of the notes on the staff.

The coda is the section that concludes a piece of music, such as the ending of a song. In popular music, the coda is also known as an outro. The length of a coda can range from a few measures to an entire segment that concludes the piece.

Consonance is when two or more tones complement each other to produce a sound that is pleasant to the ear. Consonant intervals include the major/minor third, the perfect fourth, the perfect fifth, and the unison/octave.

Crescendo refers to increasing volume and intensity in a piece of music.

Da capo is Italian for ‘from the beginning’. It’s used on a musical score to indicate that the musician should go back to the beginning of the piece and start playing it again as a repeat.

Dissonance in music refers to notes and chords that, when played together, sound harsh and unpleasant. The opposite of dissonance is consonance.

In music, drones are long and sustained sounds, such as notes and chords. 

In music, dynamics refers to how strongly or loudly a piece of music should be played. By indicating the dynamics of composition in sheet music, the composer can express variation in the intensity of playing and the mood of the piece. Examples include ‘piano’ and ‘forte’.

 

The Italian term ‘Dal Segno’ literally means ‘from the sign. ‘ In most music, you will see either D.S. al Fine (which means ‘go back to the 𝄋 sign and play the music again until you come to the bar marked Fine, then stop’) or D.S.

The opposite of a crescendo, a diminuendo is a decrease in dynamic volume during a section of music.

An encore is a performance by a band or an artist at the end of a concert where the players come back on stage at the audience’s request. The audience’s clapping, chanting, or shouting are ways to let the performers know they’re wanted back on stage to play more.

In music, an elegy is a type of sad and mournful song. Common themes in elegies often include the death of someone and lamenting over someone’s death.

Refers to two notes that have different spellings yet sound the same. For example, F# and Gb are the same notes with different spellings.

20. Fermata

An ensemble is a group of people playing and/or singing together.

A fill in popular music is a short instrumental passage, between melody lines of a song.

A fermata is a symbol used in sheet music to indicate that a note should be held longer than its standard duration. The length that the note can be held is up to the artist or conductor.

In music, flat refers to the relative tonal quality of a note. A flat note is one half-step below the same natural note in pitch.

Forte is a  term referring to the dynamics of a piece of music, indicating that a certain piece is to be played loudly or strongly. In musical notation, forte is indicated with ‘f’.

Fortepiano is a dynamic instruction that tells an instrumentalist to initially play a note loudly and then quickly decay to a quiet sustained dynamic.

Giocoso in music implies that the piece should be played in a fun and carefree manner, most often at a higher tempo.

A glissando instructs instrumentalists to slide in pitch from note to note, instead of accentuating each note.

The glockenspiel is a pitched percussion instrument with metal bars that are struck by a hard mallet.

Grave means solemn in Italian. In music, grave marketing indicates an extremely slow tempo below 60 BPM.

Harmony refers to the process where different notes are played together in a way where the notes sound good together. Harmony is one of the most important aspects of music together with rhythm and melody.

A Hook is a musical idea, often a short riff, passage, or phrase, that is used in popular music to make a song appealing and to “catch the ear of the listener”.

Improvisation in music means having the ability to make your music as a performer stand out while playing.

In music, an interval describes the distance between the pitch of two tones.

In music, key refers to the set of notes belonging specifically to a major scale or its relative minor scale. For example, the key of C-Major contains the notes  C  D   E   F   G   A  B   C.

Largo is an Italian tempo marking meaning ‘broadly’ or, in other words, ‘slowly‘.

Legato refers to playing musical notes smoothly and there’s no break between the notes when they’re played.

Leggero means light in Italian. In sheet music leggero means to play lightly, usually at a quicker pace and in a light-hearted manner.

A melody is a collection of musical tones that are grouped together as a single entity. Most compositions consist of multiple melodies working in conjunction with one another.

Motif is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, a musical fragment, or a succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition.

A note is natural when it is neither lowered nor raised by other key signatures or accidentals. Natural notes are the notes A, B, C, D, E, F, and G represented by the white keys on the keyboard of a piano or organ.

In music, a nonet is a chamber music composition that requires nine musicians for a performance. The standard nonet scoring is for wind quintet, violin, viola, cello, and double bass, though other combinations are also found.

An octave is the distance between the 1st and 8th notes of a major scale. For example, the C major scale goes C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C, and the distance between the first C and the final C is called an octave.

Similar to a motif, an ostinato is a rhythmic pattern that repeats throughout a piece of music.

The outro is the ending or conclusion of a song.  The outro can be a gradual decrease in volume as the song fades out or a more abrupt ending.

Overture is a musical introduction to a performance, such as an Opera, play, or even a Movie. An Overture is often played by an Orchestra and its purpose is to set the mood for the performance that’s about to begin.

A Pentatonic scale is a scale with five notes for each Octave. Pentatonic scales are widely used throughout the world, not only in Western music. Pentatonic scales are also used in different musical genres and can be divided into major and minor pentatonic scales.

Pitch is a perceptual property of sounds that allows their ordering on a frequency-related scale, or more commonly, pitch is the quality that makes it possible to judge sounds as “higher” and “lower” in the sense associated with musical melodies.

Pianissimo is a dynamic instruction in music that tells musicians to play very softly or quietly. The dynamic range for a pianissimo passage should be quieter than piano, but louder than pianississimo.

Pizzicato means plucked in Italian, it instructs string sections to pluck their instruments instead of bowing them.

Poco-a-poco means little by little, indicating an incremental change in tempo over a longer period of time either up or down.

Presto means instantly in Italian. In music, presto to a very fast tempo usually above 170 BPM.

Reprise is the repetition of a piece of music within a song, album or performance.

Rhythm is the placement of sounds, rests and emphasis in time. It’s a crucial building block and basis of all music.

A riff is a short passage consisting of notes and chords that is repeated throughout a song.

A root is the base note of a key, scale, or chord. In the key of G major, the root is G.

A ritardando is a music instruction that requires musicians to gradually slow down in tempo.

A rondo is a type of orchestral form or song structure. It usually consists of multiple repeating sections.

Rubato indicates the player may appropriately speed up and slow down the tempo as desired. Usually, rubato is marked during a solo section.

Scherzo refers to a short orchestral piece of music.

Sforzando is a dynamic instruction that requires players to play a note abruptly and loudly. The emphasis put on a sforzando note is usually more than an accent.

A sharp musical note is a semitone higher in intonation than the same natural note.

Solfege is the phonetic set of notes corresponding to the letter note. For example, the notes from a C-Major scale in solfege are “do”, “re”, “mi”, “fah”, “so”, “la”, “ti”, “do”.

A soprano is a range of pitches in the highest register of tones, this range is higher than the alto range of pitches.