Music Glossary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Absolute music Instrumental music with no explicit pictorial or
literal associations. As opposed to program music.
a cappella Music for voices alone, without instrumental
accompaniment.
accelerando Getting faster.
accent A conspicuous, sudden emphasis given to a particular
sound, usually by an increase in volume.
accidental A notational sign in a score indicating that a
specific note is to be played as a flat, sharp, or natural. The most common
accidentals (flats and sharps) correspond to the five black notes in each octave
of the keyboard.
accompaniment The subordinate material or voices that support a
melody.
acoustics (1) the science of sound; (2) the art of optimizing
sound in an enclosed space.
adagio Quite slow tempo.
allegro; allegretto Fast tempo; slightly fast tempo
alto (1) The lowest adult female voice; (2) the second-highest
voice in a four-part texture.
andante; andantino Moderately slow (walking) tempo; a little
faster than andante.
antiphon Originally, a plainchant that framed the singing of a
psalm. The term derives from the early practice of singing psalms
“antiphonally”- that is, with two or more alternating choirs.
appoggiatura A strong-beat dissonance that resolves to a
consonance; used as an expressive device in much tonal music.
aria In opera or oratorio, a set piece, usually for a single
performer, that expresses a character’s emotion about a particular situation.
arioso A singing style between aria and recitative.
arpeggio A chord whose individual notes are played successively
rather than simultaneously.
arrangement An orchestration of a skeletal score or a
reorchestration of a finished composition.
ars nova The “new art” of fourteenth-century France; refers to
the stylistic innovations, especially rhythmic, of composers around 1320.
articulation The manner in which adjacent notes of a melody are
connected or separated.
art song A song focusing on artistic rather than popular
expression.
a tempo At the original tempo.
atonality; atonal The absence of any sense of tonality.
augmentation The restatement of a theme in longer note values,
often twice as long (and therefore twice as slow) as the original.
avant garde In the art, on the leading edge of a change in
style.
ballade (1) One of several types of medieval secular songs,
usually in A-A-B form; (2) a type of nineteenth-century character piece for
piano.
ballad opera A popular eighteenth-century English dramatic form
characterized by spoken dialogue on topical themes interspersed with popular
folk songs.
ballata A type of fourteenth-century italian secular song,
similar to the French virelai.
ballet The theatrical presentation of group or solo dancing of
great precision to a musical accompaniment, usually with costumes and scenery
and conveying a story or theme.
bar Same as measure.
baritone Adult male voice of moderately low range.
basic set The underlying tone row in a serial composition.
bass (1) The lowest adult male voice; (2) the lowest voice in a
polyphonic texture.
bass clef The clef in the upper staff that shows pitches mostly
below middle C
basse danse A popular Renaissance court dance for couples.
blue note In blues singing or jazz, the deliberate offpitch lowering
of certain pitches.
blues (I)A form of African-American folk music, characterized by
simple, repetitive structures and a highly flexible vocal delivery; (2) the
style of singing heard in the blues.
bow In string playing, a bundle of bleached horsehairs stretched
tautly between the ends of a wooden stick. To produce a sound, the bow is drawn
over one or more of the strings.
branle A high-stepping Renaissance group dance.
brass A family of instruments with cup-shaped mouthpieces through
which the player blows into a series of metal tubes. Usually constructed of
brass or silver.
bridge (1) A passage connecting two sections of a composition; (2) on
string instruments, a small piece of wood th I at holds the strings above the
body.
cadence cadential The musical punctuation that separates phrases or
periods, creating a sense of rest or conclusion that ranges from momentary to
final.
cadenza An improvised passage for a soloist, usually placed within the
closing ritornello in a concerto movement.
canon (1) Strict imitation, in which one voice imitates another at a
staggered time interval; (2) a piece that uses canon throughout, such as “Row,
Row, Row Your Boat.”
cantata A Baroque genre for voice(s) and instruments on a sacred or
secular poem, including recitatives, arias, and sometimes choruses.
cantus firmus (”fixed melody”) A pre-existing plainchant or secular
melody incorporated into a polyphonic composition, common from the twelfth
through the sixteenth centuries.
castrato A male singer castrated during boyhood to preserve his
soprano or alto vocal register. Castratos played a prominent role in
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century opera.
CD-ROM Compact disc-read only memory. A compact-disc technology that
enables a personal computer to access digitally text, still images, moving
pictures, and sound.
celesta A small keyboard instrument invented in 1886 whose hammers
strike a series of resonating steel plates to produce a bell-like but veiled
sound. Used by composers from Tchaikovsky to Boulez.
cell In certain twentieth-century compositions,a brief, recurring
musical figure that does not undergo traditional motivic development.
chamber music Music played by small ensembles, such as a string
quartet, with one performer to a part.
chance music A type of contemporary music in which some or all of the
elements, such as rhythm or the interaction among voices, are left to chance.
chanson (French, “song”) The most popular form of secular vocal music
in northern Europe during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.
character piece A short Romantic piano piece that expresses a single overall
mood. choir (1) A vocal ensemble with more than one singer to a part; (2) a
section of an instrumental ensemble, such as a brass choir.
chorale (1) A German hymn, especially popular in the Baroque; (2) a
polyphonic setting of such a hymn, such as those by J. S. Bach.
chord A group of three or more pitches sounded simultaneously.
chordal style An alternate term for homophony. chorus (1) Same as
choir; (2) each varied repetition of a 12-bar blues pattern; (3) the principal
section of an American popular song, following the verse(s).
chromatic A descriptive term for melodies or harmonies that use all or
most of the twelve degrees of the octave.
chromatic scale The pattern that results when all twelve adjacent
semitones in an octave are played successively.
clef In musical notation, a symbol at the beginning of a
staff that determines the pitches of the lines and spaces. The most common clefs
are treble (4) for indicating pitches mostly above middle C and bass (9;) for
indicating pitches mostly below middle C.
closing area In a movement in sonata form, the final stage in an
exposition or recapitulation that confirms the temporary or home key with a
series of cadences.
coda The optional final section of a movement or an entire
composition.
combinatorial A descriptive term for tone rows in which the second
half is a transposed version of the first half.
compound meters Duple or triple meters in which the individual beats
are subdivided into triple units.
concertina The solo group in a Baroque concerto grosso.
concerto An instrumental composition for orchestra and soloist (or a
small group of soloists).
concerto grosso The principal variety of Baroque concerto, for a small
group of soloists (the concertino) and a larger ensemble (the ripieno).
disco A style of popular dance music characterized by slick,
ostinato-like rhythms and propulsive, repetitive lyrics.
disjunct motion Melodic motion by a leap rather than by a step.
dissonance Intervals or chords that sound impure, harsh, or unstable.
dominant (1) The fifth degree of the diatonic scale. (2) the triad
built on this degree; (3) the key oriented around this degree.
dominant seventh chord A dominant triad with an added seventh
degree-for example, G-B-D-F. dotted rhythm The alternation of LONG and short
notes, named after the notation used to record them.
downbeat A strong or accented beat, most frequently the first beat of
a measure.
drone A sustained tone (a kind of permanent pedal point) over which a
melody unfolds.
duet A composition for two performers.
duple meter The regular grouping of beats into twos (STRONG-weak). The
most common duple meters have two or four beats per measure. dynamics The
relative softness or loudness of a note or passage.
electronic music Music in which some or all of the sounds are produced
by electronic generators. embellishment An ornamental addition to a simpler
melody.
ensemble (1) A group of performers; (2) a musical number in an opera,
oratorio, or cantata sung by two or more performers; (3) the extent to which a
group of performers coordinate their performance.
entry In an imitative texture, the beginning of each statement of the
theme.
envelope The graphic representation of a sound’s attack, duration, and
pattern of decay.
episode (1) In a fugue, a freer passage between full statements of the
subject; (2) in ritornello form, a freer concertina passage between ripieno
statements of the ritornello.
espressivo Expressively.
estampie A type of early instrumental (perhaps dance) music consisting
of independent sections strung together.
Etude A musical piece designed to address a particular technical
problem on an instrument.
exposition The first section of a movement in sonata form.
expression (I)The general character of a passage or work; (2) the
blend of feeling and intellect brought to a performance by the performer.
Expressionism A short-lived Austro-German art movement at the
beginning of the twentieth century, marked by a focus on the dark, mysterious
side of the human mind.
Fauvism The French version of Austro-German Expressionism.
fermata In musical notation, a sign (-) indicating the prolongation of
a note or rest beyond its notated value.
figure (1) In Baroque and Classical music, the numbers below a staff
designating the harmonies to be filled in above; (2) a general term for a brief
melodic pattern.
figured bass The Baroque system of adding figures to a bass line,
indicating what harmonies are to be improvised on each beat.
final In plainchant, the concluding note in a mode; corresponds
roughly to the tonic note in a tonal scale.
finale (1) The last movement of an instrumental work; (2) the large
ensemble that concludes an act in an opera.
fine arts The realm of human experience characterized as aesthetic
rather than practical or utilitarian, including music, painting, dance, theater,
and film.
fingerboard A piece of wood extending from the body of a string
instrument; the strings are attached to the end of the fingerboard.
flat (1) In musical notation, a sign (6) indicating that the note it
precedes is to be played a half step lower; (2) the term used to specify a
particular note, for example, B6.
FMsynthesis Frequency-modulation synthesis;a superior version of
electronic synthesis introduced in the consumer market by Yamaha in 1982.
folk music Music indigenous to a particular ethnic group, usually
preserved and transmitted orally.
form A term used to designate standardized musical shapes, such as
binary form or sonata form.
forte; fortissimo Loud; very loud.
fortepiano The wooden-framed eighteenth-century piano used by Mozart,
Haydn, and their contemporaries.
fragmentation The technique of developing a them,, by dividing it into
smaller units, most common in the music of the Viennese Classicists.
frequency In acoustics, the number of times per second that the air
carrying a sound vibrates as a wave. fret A raised strip across the fingerboard
of a stringed instrument, designed to produce a specific pitch when stopped at
that point.
frottola A light, popular Italian song, a precursor of the Italian
madrigal.
fugato A fugal passage within a composition.
fugue A polyphonic composition that makes systematic use of imitation,
usually based on a single subject, and that opens with a series of exposed
entries on that subject.
fundamental The basic pitch of a tone.
gamelan A small Javanese orchestra consisting mainly of metal
percussion instruments.
genre. The term used to identify a general category of music that
shares similar performance forces, formal structures, and/or style-for example,
“string quartet” or ” 1 2-bar blues.”
glissando Rapid sliding from one note to another, usually on
continuous-pitch instruments such as the trombone or violin, but also on
discrete-pitch instruments such as the piano or harp.
ground (bass) A repeating pattern, usually in the bass, over which a
melody unfolds, as in Dido’s lament from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.
half cadence An intermediate cadence, usually on the dominant chord,
within a musical period.
half step (semitone) The interval between any two adjacent notes on a
keyboard; the smallest interval in common use in Western music.
harmonic (1) In acoustics, a synonym for overtone or partial; (2) in
string playing, a high-pitched, whistling tone made by bowing a lightly stopped
string. harmonic minor scale The scale that results from flatting the third and
sixth degrees of the major scale. harmonic rhythm The rate at which harmony
changes and the degree of regularity with which it changes.
harmonize To provide a melody with a chordal accompaniment.
harmony (1) In general, the simultaneous aspects of music; (2)
specifically, the simultaneous playing of two or more different sounds.
harpsichord A Baroque keyboard instrument in which the strings are
plucked by quills.
head The beginning of a theme.
heavy metal A descriptive term for rock bands since the 1970s whose
heavily amplified electric and percussion sounds have been associated with
youthful rebellion and defiance.
heterophony (heter-off-ony) A texture in which two or more variations
of the same melody are performed simultaneously, common in folk music.
hexachord the six usable degrees of the modal scale, often used to
organize Renaissance music.
hocket In late medieval polyphony, the alternation of short melodic
phrases (or even single notes) between two voices.
homophony;homophonic (ho-mof-ony;homo-fonick) Texture in which all the
voices move more or less together (often referred to as the chordal style).
hymn A simple religious song in several stanzas, sung in a church
service by the congregation.
idee fixe (French, “fixed idea”) Term used by Berlioz for the theme
representing his beloved in every movement of his Symphonie fantastique.
imitation The successive repetition in different voices of a single
musical idea.
Impressionism A French art movement of the late nineteenth century
that rejected Romanticism in favor of fleeting, informal scenes from everyday
life. improvisation The spontaneous, on-the-spot creation of music, preserved
today largely in jazz but common in Western music well into the nineteenth
century. incidental music Music performed before and during a play to intensify
the mood.
intermedio In the Renaissance, a musical entertainment between the
acts of a play.
interpretation The manner in which a performer carries out a
composer’s performance directions.
interval The acoustical distance between two pitches, usually reckoned
by the number of intervening scale degrees.
introduction A passage or section, often in a slow tempo, that
prepares the way for a more extended section.
inversion The playing of a melody upside down, with upward intervals
played downwards and vice verse, most common in contrapuntal and serial music.
irregular meter The mixture at a single rhythmic level of more than
one metric grouping.
jazz A style of performance developed largely by African-Americans
after 1900; the most original form of American music in the twentieth century.
jongleur;jongleuress (zhong-ler;zhong-ler-ess)Male and female musical
minstrels of the Middle Ages.
key (1) In tonal music, one of twelve possible tonalities organized
around a triad built on the main note(2) on a keyboard, a lever pressed down to
produce sound.
key signature Sharps or flats placed at the beginning of a staff to
indicate the key of a passage or work.
K. numbers The common method of referring to works by Mozart, after
the chronological catalogue first published by Ludwig Kochel in 1865.
largo; larghetto Very slow tempo; less slow than largo.
legato The smooth, seamless connection of adjacent notes in a melody.
Leitmotiv A term adopted by Wagner’s disciples to designate the
“leading motives” in his operas.
libretto A “little book” that contains the complete text of an opera,
oratorio, and so forth.
Lied (German, “song”) A vocal piece dating back to the polyphonic Lied
of the fourteenth century. The solo German Lied, accompanied by piano, reached
its zenith during the nineteenth century.
line A general term for a discrete voice or part in a vocal or
instrumental composition.
liturgical drama A sung religious dialogue that flourished during the
eleventh and twelfth centuries. Liturgical in spirit even when performed outside
the formal liturgy, liturgical dramas were the most elaborate form of medieval
music.
lyre An ancient plucked string instrument in the shape of a box
(Figure 5. 1), whose association with music especially with the mythological
character Orpheus) is so strong that the word lyric is derived from it.
madrigal A vocal form that arose in Italy during the sixteenth century
and developed into the most ambitious secular form of the Renaissance.
madrigalism An alternate term for wordpainting, reflecting the
frequent use of word painting in the Renaissance madrigal.
major mode One of two colorings applied to a key, characterized by the
major scale and the resulting predominance of major triads. Generally sounds
bright and stable.
major scale A pattern of seven (ascending) notes, five separated by
whole steps, with half steps between the third and fourth and the seventh and
eighth degrees.
major seventh A highly dissonant interval a half step smaller than an
octave.
major third An interval consisting of four half steps-, a major third
forms the bottom interval of a major triad.
major triad A triad consisting of a major third plus a minor third
bounded by a perfect fifth.
march A military style (or piece) characterized by strongly accented
duple meter and clear sectional structures.
Mass (1) The central worship service of the Roman Catholic Church; (2)
the music written for that service.
mazurka Polish folk dance in rapid triple meter with strong offbeat
accents.
measure (bar) The single recurrence of each regular pattern in a
meter, consisting of a strong first beat and weaker subsidiary beats and set off
in musical notation by vertical lines known as bar lines. melisma;melismatic
(muh-liz-muh;mel-iz-mat-ic) Technique of singing in which a single syllable
receives many notes.
melody (1) The aspect of music having to do with the succession of
single notes in a coherent arrangement; (2) a particular succession of such
notes (also referred to as tune, theme, or voice).
meter The organization of strong and weak beats into a regular,
recurring pattern.
metronome Mechanical (or, today, electrical) device that ticks (or
blinks) out regular tempos from about 40 to 208 beats per minute.
metronome marking A number, usually placed at the top of a piece, that
indicates tempo by telling how many beats of a certain note value will be heard
per minute, for example, J = 60.
mezzo (met-zoh) Medium, as in mezzopiano (medium soft).
microtones Intervals smaller than a half step.
MIDI Acronym for “musical instrument digital interface,” the
industry-wide standard adopted in 1982 that permits personal computers and
synthesizers to talk to one another.
miniature A descriptive term for a short Romantic piece, usually for
piano.
minimalism A contemporary style marked by steady pulse, simple triadic
harmonies, and insistent repetition of short melodic patterns.
minor mode One of two colorings, generally dark and unstable, applied
to a key, characterized by the minor scale and the resulting predominance of
minor triads.
minor scale The scale in which the third and sixth degrees are the
lower of two options. The melodic minor scale raises the sixth and seventh
degrees in ascending passages and lowers them in descending passages.
minor third An interval consisting of three half steps; a minor third
forms the bottom interval of a minor triad.
minor triad A triad consisting of a minor third plus a major third
bounded by a perfect fifth.
minuet A seventeenth-century court dance in moderate triple meter that
later served as the model for the third movement of Classical instrumental
works. mode (1) In the Middle Ages, a means of organizing plainchant according
to orientations around the seven-note diatonic scale (corresponding to the white
notes on a keyboard); (2) in the tonal system, one of the two colorings, called
major and minor, that may be applied to any of twelve keys.
modulation The process of changing keys in a tonal work, as in “the
modulation from C major to F minor.”
molto allegro Very fast tempo.
monody A style of accompanied solo singing that evolved in the early
Baroque in which the meaning of the text was expressed in a flexible vocal line.
monophony;monophonic (mo-nof-ony;mo-no-fonick) A musical texture
consisting of a single voice, as in plainchant.
Moog Robert, American inventor of early synthesizers. During the 1970s
his most popular synthesizer was itself known as “the Moog.” morality play In
the Middle Ages, a monophonic drama set to music to illustrate a moral point,
such as the struggle between good and evil. An example is Hildegarde of Bingen’s
Play of the Virtues (pages 7982).
motet A descriptive term for the several varieties of polyphonic vocal
music, mostly sacred, from the Middle Ages to the present.
motive The smallest coherent unit of a larger musical idea.
movement A self-contained, largely independent portion of a larger
piece, such as a symphony or concerto.
multimedia Rapidly developing technology that enables information of
all kinds-text, still images, moving pictures, sound-to be stored and retrieved
on a single digital medium, such as CD-ROM or videodisc.
multi-timbral A descriptive term for the ability of a synthesizer to
record different timbres simultaneously.
music Broadly speaking, sounds organized to express a wide variety of
human emotions.
musical theater (musical) A hybrid form of twentieth-century American
musical entertainment that incorporates elements of vaudeville, operetta, jazz,
and popular song.
music drama Wagner’s designation for his operas. musicology The
scholarly study of music and its historical contexts.
musique concrete Natural sounds that have been recorded
electronically.
mute A mechanical device used with string and brass instruments to
muffle the tone.
nationalism A nineteenth-century political movement that led in music
to the frequent use of national folk songs, styles, and historical subjects.
natural (1) In musical notation, a sign – alt=natural src=”Glossary_files/ftp24(1).tmp” mce_src=”Glossary_files/ftp24(1).tmp” width=21>– indicating that the
preceding accidental applied to this note is to be cancelled; (2) the name given
to such a note, for example, C src=”Glossary_files/ftp24(1).tmp” mce_src=”Glossary_files/ftp24(1).tmp” width=21>.
neoclassicism A twentieth-century movement characterized by a
selective and eclectic revival of the formal proportions and economical means of
eighteenth century music.
neumatic In plainchant, a style in which each syllable of text
receives several notes.
neume The stemless symbols used in medieval sources to notate
plainchant (see Figure 4.12).
nocturne (”night piece”) A nineteenth-century character piece for
piano.
non-imitative counterpoint Same as unequal-voiced counterpoint.
non-legato The slight separation of adjacent notes.
note (1) A sound with a specific pitch and duration; (2) in musical
notation, the symbol (e.g., J) for such a sound; (3) a single key on a keyboard.
octave The interval in which one pitch is doubled (or halved) in
frequency by another pitch. The octave is found in virtually all music systems.
Office (Divine) The eight daily worship services, apart from the Mass,
in the Roman Catholic Church.
ondes martenot An early electronic instrument invented in the late
1920s by Maurice Martenot.
opera A drama set to music; the dominant form of Western music from
the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries.
opera buffa A comic form of eighteenth-century Italian opera featuring
everyday characters involved in outlandish plot intrigues.
opera seria A serious, heroic form of eighteenth century opera
featuring historical or mythological figures in stereotypical plots stressing
the tension between love and duty.
operetta A light, entertaining version of Romantic opera with spoken
dialogue between numbers.
opus A “work”; opus numbers were introduced by publishers in the
seventeenth century to identify each of a composer’s works.
oratorio (English) A musical entertainment usually on a sacred subject
and including recitatives, arias, choruses, and an overture.
orchestration The designation of what instruments are to play what
voices or notes in a composition. The process of orchestrating is often referred
to as scoring.
Ordinary of the Mass In the Roman Catholic liturgy, the five items
(Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) that arc part of every celebration of
the Mass.
organ An instrument in which air forced through pipes by mechanical
means is controlled by one or more keyboards, including a foot-operated pedal
keyboard.
organum The earliest type of medieval polyphonic music, in which
voices were added above a plainchant.
ornament An embellishment, such as a trill, used to decorate a melodic
line.
ostinato A brief pattern repeated over and over again at the same
pitch, often in the bass.
overtones The spectrum of the higher-pitched frequencies that
accompany the fundamental of any pitch and determine its tone color (also
called harmonic or partials).
overture An instrumental piece that precedes a dramatic work such as
an opera (some overtures are nevertheless independent compositions).
paraphrase The practice by Renaissance composers of embellishing or
elaborating a cantus firmus in polyphonic vocal works.
parlante Nineteenth-century operatic style in which the voices declaim
in a rapid, speechlike manner against a backdrop of melody and accompaniment.
part (1) One of the voices in a polyphonic work; (2) the written music
for a single player in an ensemble.
partial Same as overtone.
passacaglia Baroque technique in which a brief melodic idea repeats
over and over while the other voices are varied freely.
passage work Descriptive term for figuration consisting of rapid runs
and scales, common in keyboard music.
patch chords On early synthesizers, the cables required to connect
various components.
PCM Pulse-code modulation. A more sophisticated method of
sampling introduced into the consumer synthesizer market in the late 1980s.
pedal board An organ’s foot-operated keyboard.
pedal point Long-held tones, usually in the bass of a polyphonic
passage.
pentatonic scale A five-note scale found in numerous non-Western
musics and adopted as an exotic element by many twentieth-century Western
composers.
percussion Instruments, either tuned or untuned, that produce sounds
by being struck, rattled, or scraped. Common percussion include drums, cymbals,
and bells.
performance directions Words or symbols provided by composers to
instruct performers in how their music is to be played, including articulation,
dynamics, expression, and phrasing.
period The musical equivalent of a paragraph. period instrument An
instrument of a type that was in use at the time a work was originally
performed. phrase The coherent segments that make up a melody; roughly
equivalent to a sentence in prose.
phrasing The manner in which a performer organizes and presents the
parts of a composition.
piano A keyboard instrument whose tone is produced by hammers striking
strings tightly stretched over a large soundboard. A foot pedal controls the
damping of the strings.
piano; pianissimo Soft; very soft. piano trio A chamber work for piano
and two other instruments, usually violin and cello. pitch (1) The high and low
of sounds, measured in acoustical frequencies; (2) a particular note, such as
middle C.
pizzicato Playing a string instrument that is normally bowed by
plucking the strings with the finger.
plainchant (plainsong, Gregorian chant) Monophonic unison music sung
during Catholic church services since the Middle Ages.
poles of attraction A term introduced by Stravinsky to describe the
harmonic equilibrium of his neoclassical works.
polyphony;polyphonic (po-lif-ony;poly-fon-ick)A musical texture in
which the individual voices move independently of one another.
polyrhythm A texture in which the rhythms of various voices seem to
exist independently of one another.
pop A generic term for popular music in contemporary America,
overlapping but not identical with rock.
postmodern A term adopted around the mid- 1970s to describe our
current eclectic, experimental age.
prelude An introductory piece (though Chopin and other
nineteenth-century composers wrote independent preludes).
premiere The first public performance of a musical or dramatic work.
prepared piano In contemporary music, the modifying of a traditional
grand piano by such techniques as placing various objects between the strings.
presto; prestissimo Very fast; extremely fast.
primary area In a movement in sonata form, the first stage in an
exposition; establishes the tonic key with one or more themes.
program music An instrumental work associated explicitly by the
composer with a story or other extramusical idea.
Proper of the Mass The parts of the Mass that vary from day to day
according to the church calendar.
punk A descriptive term adopted by the most rebellious heavy metal
bands and their followers.
quarter tone Half a semitone.
quartet (1) A piece for four singers or instrumentalists; (2) a group
of four singers or instrumentalists.
quintet (1) A piece for five singers or instrumentalists; (2) a group
of five singers or instrumentalists.
ragtime A type of popular American music, usually for piano, that
arose around 1900 and contributed to the emergence of jazz.
range The pitch distance between the lowest note and the highest note
of an instrument, a composition, or an individual part.
recapitulation The third principal section of a movement in sonata
form whose function is to resolve the harmonic conflicts set up in the
exposition and development.
recitative A flexible style of vocal delivery employed in opera,
oratorio, and cantata and tailored to the accents and rhythms of the text.
reduction The compression of a complex, multi-stave score onto one or
two staves.
reed In wind instruments such as the clarinet and oboe, a small
vibrating element made of cane that serves as all (double reed) or part (single
reed) of the mouthpiece.
register The relative location within the range of a voice or an
instrument, such as “the piercing upper register of the oboe. ”
resolution A move from a dissonance to a consonance.
rest (I) In music, a brief silence; (2) in musical notation, a sign
indicating such a silence.
retransition In sonata form, the passage that leads from the harmonic
instability of the development to the stability of the recapitulation.
retrograde Playing a theme backward.
rhythm (1) The pattern in time created by the incidence and duration
of individual sounds; (2) used more loosely to refer to a particular rhythm, for
example, “a dotted rhythm.” rhythm & blues (R&B) A term coined in 1949
to describe the heavily rhythmic urban blues cultivated mainly by Midwestern
African-American musicians.
rhythmic background The subdivisions of beats within a regular meter.
rhythmic foreground The regular beats provided by meter.
ripieno The largest of the two instrumental groups in a Baroque
concerto grosso.
ritard; ritardando Slowing down the tempo.
ritornello (Italian, “the little thing that returns”) A recurring
theme in eighteenth-century arias and concertos.
ritornello form Baroque instrumental form based on recurrences of a
ritornello.
rock’n'roll(rock) Style of popular vocal music, often for dancing,
that developed in the United States and England during the 1950s, characterized
by a hard, driving duple meter and amplified instrumental accompaniment.
Currently the most widespread musical style in the world.
rondo A musical form in which a main theme alternates with other
themes or sections, for example, A-B-A-C-A.
round A simple sung canon in which all voices enter on the same note
after the same time interval.
rubato “Robbed” time; the subtle pressing forward and holding back the
tempo in performance.
sampling The capacity of a synthesizer to extrapolate from a single
example a homogeneous timbre over a wide pitch range.
scale An array of fixed, ordered pitches bounded by two notes an
octave apart. The common Western scales contain seven notes; in non-Western
cultures, scales may contain fewer or more than seven notes.
scherzo (Italian, “joke”) A faster, often humorous transformation of a
minuet, introduced into symphonies by Beethoven.
score The complete musical notation of a composition, especially for
an ensemble; the individual parts are lined up vertically.
scoring The process of orchestration.
secondary area In a movement in sonata form, the theme or group of
themes that follows the transition and establishes the new key in the
exposition.
semitone Same as halfstep.
sequence (1) The repetition of a musical idea at progressively higher
or lower pitches; (2) a form of medieval chant.
sequencing On a synthesizer, programming a series of sounds.
serialist The technique, introduced by Schoenberg, of basing a
composition on a series, or tone row. Boulez and others have extended serialism
to rhythm and timbre.
shape The interrelationship through time of the parts or sections of a
piece. Standardized shapes are commonly referred to as forms.
sharp In musical notation, a sign (#) indicating that the note it
precedes is to be played a half step higher.
simple meter A meter in which the main beats arc subdivided into twos,
such as 2/4 or 3/4.
Singspiel (”sung play”) German folk or comic opera in which arias,
ensembles, and choruses arc interspersed with spoken dialogue.
slur (1) In musical notation, a curved line connecting notes that are
to be played legato; (2) in performance, the playing of legato.
sonata A chamber work in several movements; in the Baroque, typically
for three parts (the continuo part normally requiring two instruments); in later
periods, for one or two instruments.
sonata-concerto form A hybrid of Baroque ritornello form and sonata
form often used in the Classical concerto.
sonata form A musical form or style, originating in the eighteenth
century, based on successive stages of stability, tension, and resolution; the
most influential form developed during the age of tonality.
sonata-rondo form A synthesis of sonata and rondo forms, especially
popular in finales of Classical instrumental works.
song cycle A collection of poems set to music and tied together by
mood or story line.
sonority A general term for sound quality, either of a brief moment or
of an entire composition.
soprano (1) The high woman’s (or boy’s) voice; (2)the highest voice in
a polyphonic texture.
spinning-out A translation of the German Fortspinnung, in reference to
the single-minded use in Baroque music of a brief motive to generate a long,
continuous phrase.
Sprechstimme A vocal delivery, developed by Schoenberg, intermediate
between speech and song.
staccato In musical notation, a dot placed above a notehead to
indicate that it is to be played crisply, with a short duration of sound.
staff (plural, staves) In musical notation, the five horizontal lines
on which one or more voices are notated.
stem In musical notation, the vertical line attached to a notehead.
stop On the organ, hand-operated levers that activate different means
of sound production, thereby varying the tone color.
stop (double, triple, quadruple) In string playing, the sounding of
two, three, or four strings at once.
string quartet (1) Ensemble consisting of two violins, viola, and
cello; (2) a work composed for this ensemble.
strings Family of bowed or plucked instruments in which thin strings
are stretched over a wooden frame.
strophic form Vocal form in which each stanza of a poem is set to the
same music. structure A term often used in music to mean shape or form.
style The result of the interaction among rhythm, melody, harmony,
texture, color, and shape that gives the music of a particular period or
composer its distinctiveness.
subdominant (1) The fourth degree of the diatonic scale- (2) the triad
built on this degree; (3) the key oriented around this degree.
subject The main theme of a fugue.
suite (I) A work consisting of a collection of dances, popular in the
Baroque; (2) an abbreviated version of a longer work, for example, the suite
from the film Star Wars.
swing (I)A style of jazz playing whose flexible, improvised rhythms
resist notation; (2) name used to describe big band jazz from the 1930s and
1940s.
syllabic In plainchant, a style in which each syllable of text
receives a single note.
symphonic poem Same as Tone Poem.
symphony A large orchestral composition in several movements- a
dominant form of public music in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
syncopation The accenting, within a well-defined meter, of weaker
beats or portions of beats.
synthesizer An electronic device that can create a wide variety of
sounds in response to the user’s instructions.
system A group of staves connected by a brace, indicating that they
are to be played simultaneously.
tail The end of a theme.
tailpiece The holder to which the strings are attached at the lower
end of the body of a string instrument.
tango A duple-meter dance from Argentina that was popular in Paris in
the early twentieth century.
tempo (Italian, “time”) The speed of a piece of music, usually
reckoned by the rate of its beats. tenor (1) The high male voice; (2) the
second-lowest voice in a four-part texture; (3) the long-held voice in a
medieval organum.
ternary form A three-part musical structure (A-B-A) based on statement
(A), contrast (B), and repetition (A).
texture The musical weave of a composition, such as homophonic or
contrapuntal
thematic anticipation The Romantic practice of introducing fragments
of a theme before presenting it in its entirety.
thematic transformation A Romantic technique that preserves the
essential pitch identity of a theme while altering its rhythm or character.
theme A self-contained melodic idea on which musical works are
frequently based.
theme and variations Popular form in which a theme is followed by
variations that preserve the phrase lengths and harmonization of the theme while
varying its rhythms, melodies, and textures.
through-composed A descriptive term for a song or an instrumental
movement in which there is no largescale repetition.
timbre (tam-burr) Same as tone color.
time signature The two numbers that appear in a score immediately
after the clefs. The upper number indicates how many beats each measure is to
receive; the lower number indicates the value of the note that receives each
beat.
toccata An improvisatory style of keyboard music especially popular
during the Baroque.
tonality; tonal A harmonic system in which triads are arranged
hierarchically around a central triad called the tonic.
tone A more general term for pitch or note.
tone duster The simultaneous sounding of adjacent pitches.
tone color (timbre) The acoustical properties of a sound, including
its envelope and the distribution of overtones above the fundamental. tone poem
(symphonic poem) A piece of orchestral program music in one long movement. tone
row In serial music, the ordering of all twelve notes of the chromatic scale to
serve as the basis of a composition.
tonic (1) The first degree, or central note, of the diatonic scale;
(2) the triad built on this degree; (3) the key oriented around this degree.
total serialist The application of serial techniques to all aspects of musical
style.
transcription An arrangement, usually for a solo instrument such as a
piano, of an orchestral or vocal work.
transition In a movement in sonata form, the unstable stage in an
exposition that undertakes the modulation from the tonic to the new key.
transpose; transposition To move a passage (or section or entire work)
from one pitch level to another.
treble clef The clef (@) in the upper staff that shows pitches mostly
above middle C.
tremolo In string playing, repetitions of a tone produced by rapid
alternation between up-and-down strokes of the bow.
triad A chord consisting of three pitches constructed around intervals
of interlocking thirds (on the white notes, this amounts to every other note).
trill Musical ornament that consists of two notes a half step or a
whole step apart played in rapid alternation.
trio (1) A work for three performers; (2) the second section of a
Baroque dance such as a minuet.
trio sonata A Baroque sonata for two treble instruments and continuo,
generally requiring four performers.
triple meter The regular grouping of beats into threes, as in a waltz.
triplet The grouping of three notes per beat, usually in contrast to
the standard grouping of two notes per beat.
tritone A dissonant interval consisting of three whole steps, known in
medieval music as “the devil in music.”
trope An addition to the plainchant, usually in the form of new text
set to either existing or new music.
troubadors, trouveres Poet/musicians, usually aristocratic,
active in southern and northern France during the Middle Ages.
tune A less formal term for a melody, especially a catchy melody.
tutti (Italian, “all”) The full ensemble.
under-third cadence A fourteenth-century cadence, closely associated
with Francesco Landini, in which the melody proceeds from the seventh to the
sixth degree of the modal scale before rising a third to the tonic note.
unequal-voiced counterpoint (non-imitative counterpoint) A musical
texture in which independent voices of different character compete for
attention.
unison A descriptive term for music sung or played at the same pitch
by two different voices or instruments.
unit pulse A rhythmic technique in which meter is replaced by a focus
on the shortest rhythmic value.
upbeat A weak or unaccented beat that anticipates a strong downbeat.
variation (1) Generally, an altered version of a rhythm, motive, or
theme; (2) in theme and variations, each regular section following the theme, in
which the phrase lengths and harmonization remain true (or close) to the theme
while the rhythms, melodies, and textures change.
verismo A descriptive term for a realistic, often sensational, type of
late-Romantic Italian opera, whose disreputable characters are caught up in
lust, greed, betrayal, or revenge.
vernacular dramas A sung monophonic play presented in the Middle Ages
by roving minstrels, who freely mixed secular texts, instrumental music, and
plainchant.
verse One of two sections (verse and bridge) of many American popular
songs, especially common in the sequence verse-verse-bridge-verse.
vibrato On string instruments, small but rapid fluctuations in pitch
used to intensify a sound.
virtuosity In a composition, a focus on exceptional technical demands;
in a performance, a focus on exceptional technical display.
virtuoso A performer with exceptional technical skills.
voice (1) The human voice; (2) an independent line in any polyphonic
piece.
walking bass A Baroque pattern in which a bass part moves steadily in
constant rhythms.
waltz A popular nineteenth-century dance in moderate to fast triple
meter.
white noise Sounds containing every audible frequency at approximately
the same intensity.
whole step (whole tone) An interval equal to two half steps.
whole-tone scale An exotic non-Western scale employed by Debussy and
other Western composers.
woodwinds A family of instruments, constructed largely of wood, that
produce sound by means of blowing air across an aperture or through a vibrating
reed.
word painting A technique that became prominent in the Renaissance, in
which musical figures are used to represent specific images-falling, sighing,
weeping, rejoicing, and so forth.
