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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Found a word you don't know? No problem. Look it up in the Music Glossary!

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

  • geistvoll [German] Spirited, brilliant; with great sound.
  • stentando [Italian] Literally, “having difficulty”. A directive to perform in an ungraceful, heavy manner, holding back each note.
  • 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, for indicating pitches mostly above middle C, and bass, for indicating pitches mostly below middle C.
  • beat A throbbing that is heard when two tones are slightly out of tune.
  • hopak A folk Ukrainian dance, introduced to the orchestra by such composers as Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky.
  • Italian overture The baroque precursor of the classical symphony, evolved during the 17th and 18th centuries; it is characterized by its three movement form, consisting of a fast, a slow, and a fast movement.
  • einschlafen [German] Literally, “falling asleep”. A directive to slacken the time and diminish the tempo and the tone.
  • minimalist music Contemporary musical style featuring the repetition of short melodic, rhythmic and harmonic patterns with little variation.
  • quartet A piece for four singers or instrumentalists. Also, a group of such musicians.
  • resolution In partwriting, the resolving of a dissonant sound to a consonant sound in the following chord. Also, the conclusive ending to a musical statement.
  • crescendo [Italian] A directive to smoothly increase the volume.
  • canto [Italian] Literally, “singing”. The highest vocal part in choral music.
  • motive The briefest intelligible and self-contained fragment of a musical theme or subject.
  • sonata-rondò [Italian] A form of a composition that displays characteristics of both the rondò and the sonata forms.
  • Manualiter [German] Organ compositions that are to be performed on the manual alone, i.e. without the pedals.