A

• acapella – Italian for “in the chapel”; choral music sung without musical accompaniment

 

• accent – emphasis placed on a particular note thru metric placement, dynamic level, articulation, duration, or register; a strong sound

 

• acoustics – the science of sound

 

• adagio – “at ease” or leisurely; a movement with slow tempo

 

• allegro – quick; a movement in lively tempo

 

• alto – low female voice

 

• andante – moderately slow; a movement at a moderate or walking pace

 

• aria – Italian for “air”; a song which is either independent or part of a larger work

 

• arpeggio – the notes of a chord played rapidly one at a time

 

• atonality – the avoidance of a tonic note and of tonal relationships in music

 

• avant garde – leaders in the development of new and unconventional styles

B

• ballads – song like instrumental pieces, particularly for piano

 

• baritone – medium-range male voice

 

• bass – low male voice; lowest line of music

 

• bebop – a complex, highly improvised style of jazz

 

• Bel canto – “beautiful singing”; referring to the Italian vocal style of the 17th-19th centuries; characterized by beautiful tone, florid delivery, shapely phrasing, and effortless technique

 

• brass – wind instruments, including trumpet, french horn, trombone, and tuba

 

• break – a dramatic, unstable, strongly rhythmic section, as in a march

C

• cadence – the conclusion or punctuation point in a musical phrase; the most effective waaay of affirming or establishing the tonality of a passage

 

• cadenza – a virtuoso passage near the end of a concerto movement or aria

 

• cantata -a dramatic vocal work intended for performance in a church service

 

• chamber music – the term applied to instrumental (altho sometimes vocal) music played by an ensemble of usually 3-8 players, with one player per part

 

• chorale – a religious song with a simple tune and vernacular language

 

• chord – the simultaneous sounding of two or more notes

 

• choromaticism – the use of notes that are not in the scale upon which a composition is based

 

• clavier – general term for a keyboard instrument

 

• clef – a sign that fixes the tone represented by each line in space on the staff

 

• coda – “tail”; the last part of a piece or melody

 

• concertmaster – the conductor’s assistant and the orchestra’s first or principle violinist

 

• concerto – a term applied in the 17th century to ensemble music for voices and instruments; since then, it usually denotes a work in which a solo instrument contrasts with an orchestral ensemble

 

• conjunct – smooth or connected

 

• consonants – harmonious sounding together of two or more notes that are “consonant” or pleasing to the ear

 

• consort – an ensemble of several members of the same instrument family

 

• contour – shape or outline of a melody formed by its notes

 

• crescendo – Italian for “growing”; an instruction to become louder; opposite is decrescendo” or “diminuendo”

D

• da capo – from the beginning

 

• decrescendo – to become softer

 

• diminution – doubling the tempo

 

• dissonance – two or more notes sounding together and forming a discord that is not pleasing to the ear

 

• drone – a single tone, sounded continuously or repeated

E

• ensemble – a term for a group of players and/or singers

 

• ethnomusicology – the study of music of certain cultures

 

• ethos – the moral and ethical qualities of music

F

• falsetto – the treble range produced by adult male singers produced by a slightly artificial technique whereby the vocal cords vibrate in a length shorter than usual

 

• fanfare – a flourish of trumpets or other brass instruments, often with percussion for ceremonial purposes

 

• forte – loud

 

• fortissimo – very loud

G

• glissando – an expressive “slide” between pitches

H

• harmony – the combining of two notes simultaneously to produce chords and their successive use to produce chord progressions

 

• hymn – a religious song with a non-liturgical text

I

• impromptus – pieces of an improvisatory character

 

• interval  (2) – the distance between two pitches

K

• key – pitch

L

• libretto – the text of a dramatic vocal work

 

• lieder – means “songs” in German; the term generally used for romantic art songs

 

• lyric – term that is used for the words of a song

M

• measure – an American term, equivalent to the English “bar”, for the metrical units marked off along the staff by vertical lines

 

• melody – a series of musical notes arranged in succession, in a particular rhythmic pattern, to form a recognizable unit

 

• meter – the organization of rhythm into strong and weak beats

 

• metronome – an instrument to measure tempo

 

• mezzo – half, moderate or medium

 

• mezzo forte – moderately loud

 

• mezzo piano – moderately soft

 

• minimalism – a style of music based upon many repetitions of simple melodic and rhythmic patterns

 

• modulation – the movement of one key into another as a continuous musical process

 

• motif – a short musical idea that is melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, or all three

 

• movement – a term applied to any portion of a musical work sufficiently complete in itself to be regarded as a separate entity

N

• notation – written music

 

• note – a tone or specific pitch

O

• octave – the interval of an eighth, as from C to C

 

• opera – a musical dramatic work in which the actors sing some of all of their parts

 

• operetta – a short opera

 

• oratorio – an extended musical setting of a sacred, usually non-liturgical text

 

•  Overture (2) – an orchestral piece introducing an opera or other longer work

P

• percussion – instruments played by shaking or striking

 

• pianissimo – very soft

 

• piano – soft

 

• pitch – the quality of a sound that fixes its position in the scale

 

• pizzicato – the technique of plucking instead of bowing stringed instruments

Q

• Quartet– a piece for four voices or instruments or a group that performs such a piece

R

• requiem – a mass for the dead in the Roman Catholic Church

 

• rhythm – the grouping of musical sounds, principally by means of duration and stress

 

• roulade – a decorative passage, usually in vocal music

S

• scale – a sequence of notes, ascending or descending in order of pitch

 

• secular – non-religious

 

• sonata – a piece of music, almost invariably instrumental and usually in several movements for a soloist or a small ensemble

 

• soprano – a high female singing voice

 

• staccato – short or detached

 

• staff – five lines and four spaces upon which music is notated

 

• suite – an ordered set of instrumental pieces, meant to be performed at a single setting

 

• symphony – an extended work for orchestra, usually in 4 movements. it is traditionally regarded as the central form for orchestral composition

 

• syncopation – the shifting of stressed beats in a measured pattern, ahead of or behind its normal position in that pattern

T

• tempo – the “time” of a musical composition, therefore the speed of its performance

 

• theme – the musical material on which part or all of a work is based

 

• timbre – the term describing the tonal quality of a sound

 

• tutti – in orchestral music, refers to the full orchestra

U

• unison – the same pitch, performed at the same or at different octaves

V

• vibrato – a fluctuation of pitch (less often intensity) on a single note in performance, especially by string players and singers

W

• woodwind – a term for wind instruments