Masterworks: A Musical Discovery - Holoman - Intro to Music All Vocab
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| a | for. The indications a2 or a3 mean the line is to be played by both or all three members of the section.
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| a cappella | Without instrumental accompaniment; applied to choral music, particularly of the Renaissance.
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| absolute music | Instrumental music without illustrative or programmatic intent.
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| accelerando | Growing faster; accelerating.
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| accent | Emphasis of a musical event, typically by increased volume or sharper attack.
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| accidental | Notational symbol used to raise or lower a pitch.
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| accompagnato | Accompanied; as in recitativo accompagnato (recitative with orchestral accompaniment).
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| acoustics | Science of sound and its perception.
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| ad libitum | At will, or at the pleasure of the performer; typically an optional part that may be left out.
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| adagio | Slow. Also used generically to describe a slow movement.
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| Agnus Dei | Last movement of a choral mass.
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| Alberti Bass | Accompanimental figure for the left hand in keyboard music, named after the composer Domenico Alberti (c. 1710-40), where the triads are broken into patterns of short note values.
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| alla breve | Time signature indicating progress by half note.
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| allargando | A broadening (and often slowing and swelling), usually at the end of a movement.
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| allegretto | Somewhat slower than allegro, and by extension somewhat lighter.
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| allegro | Fast. Allegro assai = Quite fast. Allegro con brio = Fast and bright. Allegro ma non troppo = Not too fast. Allegro moderato = Moderately fast. Allegro molto = Quite fast. Allegro vivace = Fast and spirited.
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| alto | (1) The second highest of the four customary voice parts, below the soprano and above the tenor. (2) Singer with that vocal range. (3) [in scores] Viola. The term alto is also used to describe models of the flute and clarinet lower than the usual one.
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| andante | At moderate speed.
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| andantino | Term that has come to mean a little faster than andante, but which once meant a little slower than andante.
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| animato | Animated; typically suggesting getting faster.
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| answer | Response in a new voice to the subject of a fugue, usually a fifth above it.
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| antecedent | thus the first half of a two-part phrase, where the second seems to be an appropriate outcome of the first.
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| anthem | English sacred choral composition for the Anglican service, often accompanied by organ. Also, any solemn hymn.
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| antiphony | Referring to music by multiple performing groups separated by space.
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| arabesque | Florid turn of melody.
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| arco | Cancels the instruction "pizzicato" ("pizz.").
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| aria | Composition for solo voice, usually a movement of a larger work.
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| arioso | Lyrical manner midway in style between recitative and aria, esp. in operatic solo scenes.
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| arpeggio | Chord where the pitches are played in succession rather than simultaneously.
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| assai | Very; as in Allegro assai (very fast).
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| atonality | Having no allegiance to tonality; not having a key.
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| attacca | Attack, i.e., go on to the next movement without pause.
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| augmentation | Stating familiar melodic materials in longer-than-ordinary note values.
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| augmented interval | Intervals a half step wider than the corresponding major or perfect interval.
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| avant-garde | Term that describes the most progressive or radical element of an artistic movement.
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| baguette | Drumstick; usually part of a direction to the timpanist or bass drum player to use an alternative kind of stick. Baguettes d'éponge = sponge-headed drumsticks. Baguettes de bois = wooden drumsticks.
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| ballad | Self-contained narrative (i.e., storytelling) song. Also, any singable or popular tune.
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| ballade | Title given by Chopin to four major one-movement works for piano solo. Later composers, notably Brahms, also used the title.
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| bar | Same as measure; the basic unit of meter.
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| bar line | Vertical line separating measures (or bars) of music in a score.
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| baritone | (1) Voice part midway between tenor and bass. (2) Brass instrument having the appearance of a small tuba. (3) Member of an instrument family between tenor and bass; as in baritone saxophone.
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| bass | (1) Lowest-sounding voice part. (2) Double bass viol, lowest of the orchestral string instruments. (3) Lowest-sounding line of a score, or the lowest pitch in a chord. (4) Lowest-sounding member of a family of instruments, as in bass clarinet.
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| basso continuo | In Baroque music, a continuously sounding bass part over which the rest of the composition is built.
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| beat | Prevailing metrical pulse.
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| bebop | Jazz style that emerged in the 1940s, an alternative developed by black musicians to the white big bands.
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| bel canto | Prevailing vocal ideal in solo vocal music from the Baroque forward.
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| binary form | Musical forms in two sections (graphed as A and B), very often repeated (AABB).
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| bitonality | Use of two keys at once.
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| blue note | Flattened inflection of scale degrees 3 and/or 7 in a major key.
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| blues | Musical style at the heart of the music of black Americans and permeating jazz and popular forms.
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| boogie-woogie | Fast jazz style that developed in the 1930s, featuring a driving ostinato bass.
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| bop | See bebop.
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| bourrée | Lively Baroque dance movement in duple meter, usually with prominent upbeat.
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| bridge | (1) In sonata form, passage in the exposition that takes the harmony away from tonic and to dominant, arriving at the second group. Used interchangeably with, but more often than, the term transition. (2) Component of string instruments that raises the s
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| BWV | Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, or index of Bach's works, organized by genre.
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| cadence | (1) Arrival at harmonic rest. (2) In parade music, the drumbeat.
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| cadenza | Passage of improvisatory display for the soloist, especially in a concerto.
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| canon | Musical procedure where a second voice is generated by following a rule (or "canon").
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| cantabile | Singingly; in lyric fashion.
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| cantata | Genre of vocal composition originating in the Baroque, sacred or secular, for soloist or chorus.
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| cantus firmus | Melody from some other work borrowed to serve as the basis for a new polyphonic composition.
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| cantus firmus mass | See cantus firmus. A Renaissance mass in which all the movements are based on the same cantus firmus is termed a cyclic mass (see cyclicism).
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| capriccio | A caprice, usually a light, fanciful, and imaginative solo work, darting about from segment to segment.
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| celesta | Keyboard instrument of the orchestral percussion section where metal plates are struck by hammers. Invented in the late nineteenth century.
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| chaconne | Work built on an ostinato bass (or ground bass). See also passacaglia.
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| chamber music | Originally, music not intended for the church, theater, or concert hall. Now the term implies a performing group of small size.
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| chanson | Song.
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| chant | Monophonic liturgical repertoire of the Catholic church. See also plainchant, plainsong, Gregorian chant.
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| character piece | Descriptive miniature composition of the Romantic period, usually for piano.
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| chorale | Congregational hymn of the Lutheran church.
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| chorale prelude | Work for organ based on a Protestant chorale and serving to introduce its singing.
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| chord | Group of pitches sounding simultaneously; often a triad (three notes) or seventh chord (four notes).
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| chromatic scale | Scale that includes all 12 pitches.
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| chromaticism | Style of composition that makes pointed use of chromatic melodies and harmonies. (See also semitone.)
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| circle of fifths | Diagram in which the 12 pitches and associated keys are set around a circle where each member is a fifth higher.
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| clavier | Keyboard. Often used as generic term to describe any keyboard instrument.
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| clef | Sign that associates a line on a staff with a particular pitch and thus serves as a "key" to the system.
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| closing theme | Theme that concludes the exposition in a sonata form.
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| coda | Closing section of a movement.
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| col legno | Hitting the strings with the wood, instead of the hair, of the bow.
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| collegium musicum | Society of musicians performing for their own pleasure.
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| coloratura | Florid embellishment of a vocal line, esp. for soprano in the high register; a soprano who specializes in such parts.
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| compound meter | Meter containing triple (instead of duple) subdivisions of the beat (e.g., , , and ).
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| con brio | With spirit, lively; as in Allegro con brio.
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| con fuoco | With fury, furiously; as in Allegro con fuoco.
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| con moto | With motion; as in Allegro con moto.
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| con sordino | With mute, muted. Cancelled by the indication "senza" (without).
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| concert overture | Overture intended to stand alone in a concert, not to go before a theater piece.
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| concertante | Concerto-like composition for more than one solo instrument and orchestra, popular in France in the eighteenth century.
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| concertino | Soloists in a concerto grosso (often two violins). See also ripieno.
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| concertmaster | Principal first violinist in an orchestra.
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| concerto | Work for soloist(s) and orchestra.
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| concerto grosso | Instrumental ritornello form from the Baroque, where a small group of solo players (the concertino) alternates with the large orchestra (ripieno).
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| consequent | Musical material that follows the antecedent and gives it balance and closure.
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| consonance | Musical stability as perceived in certain intervals and chords. The opposite is dissonance.
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| continuo | Bass line of a Baroque work with instruments, and the instruments that play it. Same as thoroughbass. Provides the underpinning for Baroque composition. See also figured bass.
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| contralto | Lowest female voice.
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| contrapuntal | Adjectival form of counterpoint.
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| counterpoint | Manner in which two or more melodic lines are combined and juxtaposed to produce pleasing and technically correct intermingling.
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| countersubject | In fugue, the melodic material that accompanies statements of the subject.
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| crescendo | Growing louder. See decrescendo.
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| cyclicism | Use of a theme in more than one movement.
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| da camera | Type of Baroque sonata or concerto more secular than its counterpart, the sonata or concerto da chiesa.
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| da capo | On reaching this instruction (or its abbreviation, D.C.) in the score, the performers go back to the beginning of the movement and play until the word fine ("end").
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| da chiesa | Type of Baroque sonata or concerto somewhat more rigorous than its counterpart, the sonata or concerto da camera, in that it emphasizes fugal counterpoint.
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| decrescendo | Growing softer.
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| development | Section in sonata form, between the exposition and the recapitulation, which investigates the possibilities inherent in the material stated thus far.
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| diatonic | (1) Succession of whole tones and half steps that make up a major or minor scale. (2) Interval drawn from that succession.
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| Dies irae | Gregorian plainchant for the dead; the sequence from the Requiem Mass.
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| diminished interval | Interval a half step narrower than the corresponding minor or perfect interval .
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| diminuendo | Growing softer; same as decrescendo. Abbr. dim.
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| diminution | Technnique generally accomplished by stating familiar melodic materials in shorter-than-ordinary note values. See also augmentation.
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| dissonance | Unpleasantness or instability perceived in certain intervals and chords. The opposite is consonance. In classical Western music dissonant intervals require resolution to consonance before closure.
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| divertimento | A light work for chamber ensemble, popular as entertainment music in the Viennese Classical period.
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| divisi | Indication in an instrumental part that the section is to divide the lines between or among them. Abbr. div.
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| Dixieland | New Orleans-style jazz for small combo; favored by white musicians.
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| dolce | Sweet.
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| dominant | Fifth scale degree and/or the triad or seventh chord built on it.
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| double fugue | (1) Fugue where the subject and countersubject are of equal importance, thus suggesting simultaneous subjects. (2) Fugue where two subjects are treated independently, then together.
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| double stop | Playing two strings at once on a stringed instrument.
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| downbeat | The initial, and strongest, beat in a measure. See also upbeat.
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| drone | Line of constant pitch, or the instrument that plays it.
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| dynamics | Degrees of loudness.
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| embouchure | Shape and position of the mouth at the mouthpiece of wind instruments.
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| entr'acte | Piece to be performed between the acts of an opera or play.
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| episode | Subsidiary passage other than the main thematic material.
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| equal temperament | Technique of adjusting tunings that divides the octave into 12 equal half steps.
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| espressivo | Expressive; expressively.
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| ethnomusicology | Branch of study that treats musics of the world, particularly emphasizing music and culture, and music and oral transmission.
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| étude | Composition meant to investigate a particular problem of technique.
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| euphonium | Tenor brass instrument, lying in a range between the trumpet and the tuba.
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| exposition | (1) In sonata form, the first section, where the main thematic material is presented, always with a modulation to a second key area. (2) In fugue, the stating of the subject (or answer) in each of the voices, especially the opening statement.
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| Expressionism | Term (borrowed from literary and art history) used rather loosely to describe the music of Schoenberg and his school. The artist portrays not simply an object but his or her internal reactions. What results is (in art) exaggerated, distorted, internalize
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| falsetto | Abnormally high register of the male voice, in the range of the female voice.
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| fantasia | Free-form composition, a flight of fancy.
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| fermata | Held out. At the fermata sign, the perfomer holds the pitch or chord at will (or at the will of the conductor).
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| figured bass | Baroque notational practice where numbers below the bass line indicate chords to be played by the continuo keyboard artist.
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| finale | Typically the last scene in an act of an opera.
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| fine | Marking in a score that shows where to stop after having made a da capo or dal segno repeat.
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| Five, the | The Russian Five, or Mighty Handful (moguchaya kuchka).
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| forte | Loud.
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| fortissimo | Very loud.
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| fragmentation | Common way of treating thematic material, esp. in the development.
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| French overture | Baroque form favored by the French composers and their imitators; the kind of movement that begins stage works and instrumental suites of the period.
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| fret | On certain kinds of string intruments (guitar, lute, viols), a raised position on the fingerboard that shows where to stop the string in order to produce the appropriate pitch.
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| frog | The hair-tightening mechanism on a bow, and the portion of the bow the player holds in the hand.
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| fugato | Imitative, fugue-like passage in a non-fugal movement.
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| fugue | One-movement work in imitative counterpoint, where the theme is stated in each voice as a series of subjects and answers.
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| G. P. | Everybody pauses. Abbreviaiton in orchestral scores for general pause.
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| gavotte | Baroque dance in moderate duple meter with prominent upbeat.
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| genre | Kind, type. Genre in music terminology is typically related to performing force.
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| Gesamtkunstwerk | Wagner's theory of opera wherein all branches of art-poetry, narrative, design, architecture, etc.-are harnessed in a global art form opera.
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| Gewandhaus | Building in Leipzig, the cloth merchant's guild hall. A celebrated series of concerts began there in 1781, and eventually the Leipzig orchestra took the name of the hall.
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| glissando | Slide across the specified range of the instrument.
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| Gloria | Second movement of a choral mass.
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| grace note | Ornamental pitch, usually the upper neighbor, played rapidly and without fixed rhythmic value.
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| grave | Slow, solemn.
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| grazioso | Graceful, gracious.
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| Gregorian chant | Name commonly given to the plainsong of the Catholic church, setting the Latin liturgy. Its connection with Pope Gregory the Great (r. 590-604) is uncertain.
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| ground bass | Repeating bass pattern over which there is continuous variation in the upper parts; same as Ital. basso ostinato.
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| harmonic | (1) High, fluty sound produced on a string instrument by touching the string gently rather than fully stopping it, forcing it to vibrate at a higher position in the harmonic series. (2) Position in the harmonic series.
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| harmony | Technique of organizing pitch simultaneities (chords), and its study. Generally speaking, harmony concerns vertical sonority, and melody concerns the horizontal.
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| hemiola | Rhythmic/metric device where two bars in triple meter are made to sound like three bars in duple, usually just before the cadence in Baroque dance music.
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| homophony | Musical texture in which all the parts move simultaneously, with simple chord progressions.
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| hymn | Strophic religious composition, generally for the congregation to sing.
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| idée fixe | Berlioz used this term to describe the motto theme of his Symphonie fantastique (1830), and said in the printed program that it had to do with the artist's vision of his beloved.
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| imitation | Compositional practice where motives and melodies are taken up, once stated, by the other voices successively, while originating voices go on in counterpoint.
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| imitative counterpoint | Polyphonic practice based on imitation.
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| Impressionism | Term used primarily to describe the work of the painters Monet, Renoir, etc., where loosely articulated images are fashioned from blotches of color the goal was a particularly powerful brilliance. The term is used by extension to describe the work of the
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| improvisation | Free, live invention of music, usually without notated parts.
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| incidental music | Music for use with a play, consisting of an overture and any necessary entr'acte; music for any pageantry (a wedding march, for example); and perhaps music for any songs sung onstage.
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| intermezzo | Orginally, music or light music theater to go between the acts of a serious theater piece. In the nineteenth century the term was used, notably by Brahms, as the title of free piano compositions.
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| interval | Distance between two pitches.
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| inversion | Vertical reversing of a musical relationship, either by switching a pair of voices or by turning a theme in the opposite direction.
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| isorhythm | Use of a single, unvarying rhythmic module throughout a voice part, usually the tenor. Principle of construction in the 14th- and early 15th-century motet.
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| K. numbers | Numbers attached to Mozart's works refer to a thematic catalog for Mozart written by Ludwig von Kšchel (1862; rev. through 1964).
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| Kapellmeister | Chapelmaster, a court composer-conductor who would compose music for and lead the palace opera company, orchestra, and church services.
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| key | Tonal center in a piece of music, toward which the music seems to gravitate. It is defined by a particular tonic pitch and its quality of major or minor. There are 12 major and 12 minor keys.
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| keyboard | White-and-black key mechanism that activates a piano, organ, or similar instrument.
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| Kyrie | First movement of a choral mass.
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| La Scala | The opera house in Milan, built 1778, which took its name from the church, Santa Maria della Scala, originally on the site.
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| langsam | Slow.
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| larghetto | Somewhat faster than largo.
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| largo | Quite slow. The slowest commonly specified tempo.
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| ledger lines | Short lines that extend the staff.
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| legato | Smoothly, without space between the pitches.
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| Leitmotiv | German for "leading motive," a compositional device developed by Wagner.
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| lento | Slow, although not quite as slow as largo.
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| libretto | Text of an opera.
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| Lied | Term for a solo song, especially to a Romantic text of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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| Liederkreis | First applied to Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte, then, in particular, to Schumann (Dichterliebe).
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| l'istesso tempo | The same tempo; keep the beat the same.
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| liturgy | Formalized order of church services. The Catholic liturgy, divided into Mass (Eucharist celebration of the Last Supper) and Divine Office (Matins, Vespers, etc.), specifies certain texts common to each service type (the Ordinary), as well as texts specif
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| ma | But; as in Allegro ma non troppo.
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| madrigal | Most commonly, a Renaissance setting of a secular poem to unaccompanied vocal polyphony.
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| maestoso | Majestic.
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| maestro di capella | Chapel master.
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| major | In tonality, the brighter and more open of the two modes of scales, characterized by half steps between scale degrees 3 and 4 and 7 and 8.
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| Mannheim School | Name given to a school of composers who wrote for the virtuoso orchestra of Duke Carl Theodor in the mid-1740s, and thought to be one of the most significant forerunners of Viennese Classicism.
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| marcato | Marked; emphatically.
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| mass | Central public service of the Catholic liturgy, a celebration of the Last Supper. Same as Eucharist. Mass is celebrated by a cantor and the choir. For musical purposes, the most important parts are the choral components of the Ordinary Kyrie eleison, Glo
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| mazurka | Polish country dance in triple meter, often with accentuation of the second beat.
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| measure | Basic unit of meter, i.e., one complete metric unit, delineated by the bar line. Measure and bar are interchangeable.
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| melisma | Group of several pitches sung to a single syllable.
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| melody | Coherent, pleasing horizontal succession of pitches a tune.
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| meno | Less; as in meno mosso.
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| meter | Organization of rhythmic pulses or beats into hierarchies of weak and strong.
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| mezzo | Half. Used to modify the basic dynamic levels (mezzo forte, mezzo piano) and for the voice part mezzo soprano.
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| Mighty Handful, the | Term first used by a Russian critic to describe an affinity group of five nationalist Russian composers Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov.
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| miniatures | Little pieces; commonly in the Romantic piano and song literature.
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| minor | In tonality, the darker and more enigmatic of the two modes of scales, characterized particularly by the half step between scale degrees 2 and 3.
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| minuet | Dance form in common to the Baroque and Classical periods.
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| M.M. | Abbreviation for Metronome de Maelzel.
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| mode | (1) One of the two subdivisions of tonal scales major or minor. (2) One of the white-note scales, or church modes of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. (3) One of the medieval rhythmic modes.
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| moderato | Moderately.
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| modulation | Process of moving from one key area to another.
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| moguchaya kuchka | Russian for Mighty Handful, the Russian Five.
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| moll | Minor.
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| molto | Very; as in Molto allegro.
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| monody | Term describing Italian accompanied solo song of the early seventeenth century.
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| monophonic | Having a single voice.
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| monothematic | Having a single theme.
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| mosso | Moving, lively; as in pi mosso.
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| motet | In its most general sense, texted vocal polyphony; the term describes highly significant genres from the Middle Ages through the high Baroque.
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| motive | Melodic or sometimes rhythmic cell that retains its character and identity throughout a movement or multimovement composition.
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| movement | Self-contained component of a larger work.
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| music drama | Term applied to Wagnerian opera and related works that tries to suggest a different and by implication more serious treatment of character and plot than found in traditional opera.
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| musicology | Scholarly study of music, particularly the history of music.
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| musique concrète | Term applied to an early technique of electronic music where segments of magnetic tape were manipulated (pitch modification by speed change), cut (loops, etc.) and respliced, and then stored to be used for compositional effect.
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| mute | Device to reduce the volume of an instrument, almost invariably damping its tone quality as well. See sordino.
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| neumatic | Groups of several notes per syllable of chanted text.
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| nocturne | Night music, especially a short Romantic piano piece.
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| non troppo | Not too much; as in Allegro non troppo.
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| obbligato | A part that must not be left out.
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| octave | Interval between a pitch and another of twice the frequency middle C to the C above it, for example.
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| opera | Work of music theater (music, drama, spectacle) where much or all of the text is sung and music plays the most significant part.
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| opus | Used with a number, typically assigned by the publisher, to identify a work in a composer's output.
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| oratorio | Multi-movement setting of a sacred text, usually with emphasis on choral movements.
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| orchestration | The way music is scored for the orchestra.
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| Ordinary | Portion of the liturgy (Mass and Office) that remains the same from day to day.
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| ossia | Alternative version of a reading; usually simpler.
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| ostinato | Repetition of a pattern many times to constitute the structural underpinning of a piece.
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| passacaglia | Work built on an ostinato bass (or ground bass), often a descending chromatic bass.
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| Passion | Extended vocal and instrumental setting of the Crucifixion story from one of the Gospels.
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| pastorale | Movement that expresses a rural atmosphere or describes country characters and scenes.
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| pedal point | Sustained pitch usually in the bass (often the dominant, sometimes the tonic) over which the music continues to move. It is usually a component of final closure.
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| pentatonic | Scale or mode of five pitches, common in folk musics.
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| pesante | Heavily.
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| phrase | Basic unit of musical structure, typically eight measures, that represents a more-or-less complete musical idea.
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| pianissimo | Very soft.
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| piano | Soft.
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| piece | Musical work, implying a complete musical work (with all its movements).
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| pitch | Discrete, identifiable musical sound of a fixed number of vibrations per second.
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| pi | More; as in pi forte or pi allegro.
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| pizzicato | Effect produced by plucking, rather than bowing, the string.
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| plainchant | Term used for the monophonic liturgical repertoire of the Catholic church. Used interchangeably with chant, plainsong, and Gregorian chant.
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| plainsong | See plainchant.
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| poco | Little, a little; as in poco a poco.
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| point of imitation | See imitative counterpoint, imitative polyphony.
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| polka | A couple dance to skipping steps in lively duple meter.
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| polonaise | Aristocratic Polish dance in triple time.
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| polyphonic | Having more than one voice.
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| polyrhythm | Superposition of different rhythms and/or meters.
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| polytonality | Use of several keys at once.
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| ponticello | Bridge of a stringed instrument. Sul ponticello = at the bridge, a thin, nasal, or whiny sound.
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| portamento | Gentle sliding up into a pitch.
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| prelude | Instrumental opening movement, often improvisational in character, that precedes a fugue or, sometimes, a group of movements.
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| presto | Quite fast.
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| program | Literary context of a descriptive ("programmatic") piece, especially in the nineteenth century.
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| progressive jazz | Jazz from the 1940s and 1950s, where the goal was to renew and expand the orchestral jazz tradition.
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| Proper | Portion of the liturgy (Mass and Office) that contains texts specific to the feast day or occasion.
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| quarter tone | Pitch halfway between consecutive semitones.
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| ragtime | American musical style of great popularity at the turn of the twentieth century, characterized by strongly syncopated (ragged) rhythms; the usual form is like that of the American march, involving two strains and a trio.
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| rallentando | Growing slower. Abbr. rall.
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| range | Compass of a musical instrument or voice part, from its lowest note to its highest. See also register.
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| recapitulation | In sonata form, the third main section (after exposition and development), where the main thematic material is presented as it was in the exposition, although with the second group remaining in the tonic key. More generally, any large-scale structural re
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| recitative | In opera and related genres, a vocal passage imitating the rhythms and inflections of speech. Often a recitative is followed by an aria. When crisply delivered and accompanied by simple chords in the continuo, the recitative is considered secco (dry); w
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| register | Division of the range (e.g., high, middle, low) of a voice or musical instrument. Roughly synonymous with tessitura.
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| Requiem | The Mass for the dead of the Roman Catholic church.
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| retrograde | In reverse order. Common procedure in certain kinds of counterpoint and in twentieth-century serial music.
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| réunion des thèmes, grande | Berlioz's term for the simultaneous combining of themes first heard consecutively.
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| rhapsody | Free-form instrumental work, generally carefree and episodic.
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| rhythm | Subdivision of time, principally by establishing length of notes.
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| ripieno | Orchestral ensemble in a concerto grosso, in textural opposition to the concertino.
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| ritard | Lessening in speed; gradual slowing down. Abbr. rit.
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| ritenuto | Held back, implicitly more abruptly than ritard, or for shorter duration. Abbr. riten.
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| ritornello | Recurring passage.
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| rococo | Term used to describe the style in art during the reign of Louis XV of France (1715-74) and by extension to gracefully ornamented music.
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| Romanticism | Emphasis on the spiritual or passionate (as opposed to the intellectual) in literature, art, and music. Used particularly to describe music written from c. 1830 to the end of the century.
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| romanza | Songful or ballad-like movement, often the second in a solo concerto.
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| rondo | Musical form in which the main section recurs between subsidiary episodes, often in an overall sonata pattern (the sonata-rondo).
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| round | Strict canon (at the unison), usually for three voices, that can continue perpetually.
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| row | Pitches, usually all 12, ordered in a succession that serves as the basis of a composition. See series.
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| rubato | Literally, robbed time (tempo rubato) the improvisatory adjustment of strict meter.
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| scale | Ascending or descending series of notes that define a mode or tonality, usually by the terminal pitch.
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| scena | Operatic scene for one character, generally embracing a recitative, aria, and finale close.
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| scherzando | Playful. Abbr. scherz.
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| scherzetto | Short movement or passage in the manner of a scherzo.
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|
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| scherzo | Movement type directly descended from the minuet and trio and, like the minuet, usually appearing as the third movement of a four-movement instrumental work.
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| score | Notation for an ensemble where a staff is given to each part or section.
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| secco | Dry. Recitativo secco is recitative delivered rapidly in speech rhythms and accompanied by the continuo force or a keyboard instrument.
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| secular | Worldly; not having to do with the church.
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| segue | Go on, usually to the next movement.
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| semitone | Distance between two adjacent notes on a keyboard; same as half step.
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| semplice | Simply.
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| sempre | Always, ever; as in sempre pi allegro.
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| senza | Without. Typically cancels con sordino (with mute) indications, thus meaning "remove the mute."
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| sequence | (1) Series of motives restated at ascending or descending pitch levels. (2) The medieval sequence is an important category of Gregorian chant where a series of text couplets, eventually rhymed poetry, was set syllabically.
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| serial | Compositional technique in which elements have been prearranged in a fixed series.
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| series | Ordering of elements of pitch, rhythm, dynamics, etc., that serve as the basis of a composition. Music so constructed is called serial.
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|
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| seventh | Interval bw a pitch & another 6 diatonic steps apart. A semitone less than an octave is a major seventh; a semitone less than that is a minor seventh. Both are strongly dissonant intervals, the major seventh pulling upward, the minor seventh downward
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|
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| seventh chord | Common enhancement to triadic harmony wherein a fourth pitch is added to the triad, up another third, thus root + 3rd + 5th + 7th.
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|
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| sforzando, sforzato | Suddenly forceful or emphasized. Abbr. sfz., sf.
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| sonata | Instrumental composition, usually for soloist or soloist and keyboard. Originally the term sonata (played music) was used as opposed to cantata (sung music) and toccata (keyboard music).
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|
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| song cycle | Group of songs, generally with texts by the same poet, unified by a story line or literary theme.
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|
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| soprano | Highest voice part.
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|
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| sordino | Mute. Abbr. sord. Con sordino = with mute. Senza sordino = without mute.
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|
||||
| sostenuto | Sustained; as in Andante sostenuto. Often a slower-than-usual tempo is implied. The right pedal on a piano is the sostenuto pedal, allowing the strings to vibrate until the pedal is released and lowers the dampers.
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| sotto voce | In an undertone; barely heard.
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| spiritoso | Spirited.
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|
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| Sprechstimme | Speaking voice. Abbr. Sprechst. and notated with X's through the note stems.
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|
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| staccato | Separated; short and sharp.
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|
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| stretto | Concluding episode at increased speed. In fugue, overlapping statements of the subject near the end of the work.
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|
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| stringendo | Quickening; sometimes a lurch forward.
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|
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| strophic | Having the same music for all the units (or strophes) of the text, as in a hymn.
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|
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| Sturm und Drang | Literary movement in eighteenth-century Germany and Austria, applied to stormy, emotional, minor-keyed symphonies of the Classical period.
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|
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| subito | Suddenly; as in subito forte. Abbr. sub.
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|
||||
| subject | Melodic idea or theme on which a composition is based. The theme of a fugue is called its subject.
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|
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| suite | (1) Group of dances in various national styles, usually preceded by an extended prelude or overture, common to the Baroque period. (2) Series of movements extracted from a larger work (often a ballet) to make an effective concert work.
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| suspension | Pitch held over from a previous chord, becoming dissonant in the new chord, and resolving downward.
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|
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| symphonic poem | One-movement work for orchestra with narrative or descriptive intent. See tone poem.
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|
||||
| symphony | Extended work for orchestra, usually in four movements (fast, slow, dance form, fast), the principal form of orchestral composition.
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|
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| syncopation | Placing the accent on the ordinarily weak beats of a measure.
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|
||||
| tempo | Speed, rate of speed. Tempo is indicated by a (rather approximate) direction in Italian (e.g., Allegro non troppo), a metronome marking (M.M.), or both. Tempo primo, Tempo I = at the original tempo.
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|
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| tenor | The higher of the male voices.
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|
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| tenuto | Held, sustained. Abbr. ten.
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|
||||
| tessitura | Prevailing range, or ambitus, of a part-high, middle, low-in relation to the overall compass of that part.
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|
||||
| texture | Term used to describe the vertical character of a musical passage, esp. how the voices interact. One speaks, for example, of monophonic, homophonic, and polyphonic textures.
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|
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| thematic transformation | The recomposition of a theme as it is reused so that gradually its character becomes radically different.
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|
||||
| theme | A principal melody, a basic point of melodic reference in a movement.
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|
||||
| theme and variations | Movement type where the given theme is modified in a series of variations.
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|
||||
| through composed | Music composed from beginning to end without internal repetitions. In general, the opposite of strophic.
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|
||||
| tie | Notational device used to continue a rhythm across a bar line.
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|
||||
| timbre | Tone color that distinguishes the character of an instrumental or vocal sound.
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|
||||
| toccata | Improvisatory showpiece for organ, often an introductory movement preceding a fugue. Originally the term toccata (keyboard music, "touched" with the fingers) was used as opposed to cantata (sung music) and sonata (instrumental music).
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|
||||
| tonality | System of music composition that establishes relationships through use of a tonal center (the tonic) and a major or minor key built from it.
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|
||||
| tone poem | One-movement work for orchestra with narrative or descriptive intent. Same as symphonic poem.
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|
||||
| tonic | Initial scale degree or the triad built on it; thus the most important member.
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|
||||
| tranquillo | Calmly, tranquilly.
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|
||||
| transposition | Moving of a passage of music from one pitch level to another. Composers also notate parts for transposing instruments such that when the player plays the notated pitches the appropriate-sounding pitches come out called a transposed part.
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|
||||
| tremolando | With tremolo.
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|
||||
| tremolo | Effect with string instruments where very quick up/down bowings produce an unsettled effect. Also a similar alternation between two pitches, possible (unlike string tremolo) on other instruments including keyboards.
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|
||||
| triad | Chord built of three pitches in intervals of the third.
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|
||||
| trill | Fast alternating between a main pitch and the diatonic pitch above it.
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|
||||
| trio | (1) Music for three performers; in music that descends from Baroque practice, this implies two treble instruments and basso continuo. (2) The center section of form in the minuet and trio family, generally in somewhat reduced orchestration
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|
||||
| Tristan chord | First chord in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, poignant and inconclusive when first heard; then later becoming identified with unfulfilled desire and, at length, its fateful resolution.
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|
||||
| troppo | Too much; as in Allegro non troppo (not too fast).
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|
||||
| tutti | All; everybody.
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|
||||
| twelve tone | Name given by Schoenberg to his system of composition using a row or series as the basis of a composition.
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|
||||
| unison | Interval (that is, non-interval) that exists between two notes of identical pitch. A chorus of equal voices might well, for example, sing a hymn in unison; choral chant is sung in unison. Abbr. unis.
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|
||||
| upbeat | Beat that precedes the downbeat.
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|
||||
| vibrato | Effect used by woodwind & string players, singers to enhance the tone quality by cycles just above & below the desired pitch, using pulsations of the diaphragm or a backandforth motion of the left hand on the fingerboard (for the strings)
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|
||||
| vivace | Vivacious, bright.
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|
||||
| vivo | Alive, vigorous.
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|
||||
| voce | Voice.
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|
||||
| waltz | Dance in time that developed in the late eighteenth century and became the ballroom rage of the nineteenth.
🗑
|
||||
| whole-tone scale | Scale that progresses only in whole steps instead of the patterns of half steps and whole steps that define major and minor scales.
🗑
|
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To hide a column, click on the column name.
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