Multilingual 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

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We are currently providing explanations for 2484 terms from 12 languages, including English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Latin…

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Please note: a music glossary is just like a dictionary. It contains explanations to musical terms. If you are looking for a piece, please go here instead: search tunes.

Some random terms

  • affannato [Italian] Anguished.
  • animato [Italian] Animated or spirited.
  • scale A series of notes in ascending or descending order that presents the pitches of a key or mode, beginning and ending on the tonic of that key or mode.
  • dance Any physical movements done to music.
  • prima volta [Italian] “First time”; may refer to the first ending of a repetition.
  • dump A slow, melancholic old English dance, usually in 4/4 time.
  • rhythm section In a popular music band or ensemble, the performers who establish the rhythmic pulse of a song or musical piece, and who lay down the chordal structure.
  • fortissimo-piano [Italian] A dynamic marking (ffp) indicating that the marked note should be attacked very loudly, instantly diminishing to a much softer volume.
  • canticle A sacred hymn or song.
  • raddolcendo [Italian] Growing sweeter and calmer.
  • quintus [Latin] Term used in the 16th century for the fifth voice in a composition having five or more vocal parts. Sometimes it was a countermelody added on top of the usual four voices.
  • one hundred and twenty-eighth note A note having the time duration of one hundred twenty-eighth of the time duration of a whole note.
  • toccata [Italian] Virtuoso composition, generally for organ or harpsichord, in a free and rhapsodic style; in the Baroque, it often served as the introduction to a fugue.
  • accablement [French] Despondency, oppression.
  • variation An altered version of a rhythm, motive, or theme.