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Music Terms
Important music terms and their meanings
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| A cappella | One or more vocalists performing without an accompaniment. |
| Accelerando | gradually quicken tempo |
| Adagio | slow tempo |
| Allegro | lively and fast tempo |
| Cadence | A sequence of chords that brings an end to a phrase |
| Canon | The melody or tune is imitated by individual parts at regular intervals. |
| Chord | 3 or 4 notes played simultaneously in harmony |
| Chromatic scale | Includes all twelve notes of an octave, all half step intervals. |
| Clef | a symbol at the beginning of the staff defining the pitch of the notes found in that particular staff |
| Coda | Closing section of a movement |
| Consonance | Groups of tones that are harmonious when sounded together as in a chord |
| Dissonance | Harsh, discordant, and lack of harmony. Also a chord that sounds incomplete until it resolves itself on a harmonious chord. |
| Dynamics | Pertaining to the loudness or softness of a musical composition. Also the symbols in sheet music indicating volume. |
| Enharmonic | Two notes that differ in name only. The notes occupy the same position. For example: C sharp and D flat. |
| Falsetto | A style of male singing where by partial use of the vocal chords, the voice is able to reach the pitch of a female. |
| Fermata | To hold a tone or rest held beyond the written value at the discretion of the performer. |
| Flat | A symbol indicating that the note is to be diminished by one semitone. |
| Harmony | Pleasing combination of two or three tones played together in the background while a melody is being played. Harmony also refers to the study of chord progressions. |
| Instrumentation | Arrangement of music for a combined number of instruments. |
| Interval | The distance in pitch between two notes. |
| Key signature | The flats and sharps at the beginning of each staff line indicating the key of music the piece is to be played. |
| Legato | smoothly |
| Major | One of the two modes of the tonal system. Music written in major keys have a positive affirming character. |
| Measure | The unit of measure where the beats on the lines of the staff are divided up into two, three, four beats to a measure. |
| Medley | Often used in overtures, a composition that uses passages from other movements of the composition in its entirety. |
| Minor | One of the two modes of the tonal system. The minor mode can be identified by the dark, melancholic mood. |
| Natural | A symbol in sheet music that returns a note to its original pitch after it has been raised or lowered. |
| Phrase | A single line of music played or sung. A musical sentence. |
| Pitch | The frequency of a note determining how high or low it sounds. |
| Rhythm | The element of music pertaining to time, played as a grouping of notes into accented and unaccented beats. |
| Round | A canon where the melody is sung in two or more voices. After the first voice begins, the next voice starts singing after a couple of measures are played in the preceding voice. All parts repeat continuously. |
| Rubato | It is a style where the strict tempo is temporarily abandoned for a more emotional tone. |
| Scale | Successive notes of a key or mode either ascending or descending. |
| Sharp | A symbol indicating the note is to be raised by one semitone. |
| Staccato | Short detached notes, as opposed to legato. |
| Staff | Made up of five horizontal parallel lines and the spaces between them on which musical notation is written. |
| Tempo | Indicating speed. |
| Timbre | Tone color, quality of sound that distinguishes one verse or instrument to another. It is determined by the harmonies of sound. |
| Time Signature | A numeric symbol in sheet music determining the number of beats to a measure. |
| Tonality | The tonal characteristics determined by the relationship of the notes to the tone. |
| Tonic | The first tone of a scale also known as a home note. |
| Treble | The playing or singing the upper half of the vocal range. Also the highest voice in choral singing. |
| Triad | Three note chords consisting of a root, third, and fifth. |
Created by:
pmbrown001
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