Multilingual Music Glossary
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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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Some random terms
- verse A single line in a metrical composition, e.g. a poem. However, the word has come to represent any division or grouping of words in such a composition, which traditionally had been referred to as a stanza.
- monody Term applied to Italian songs written to be performed by one voice with instrumental accompaniment dating from the first half of the 17th century.
- enharmonic Two notes, intervals, or scales having different names but equal pitch.
- tritone A dissonant interval consisting of three whole steps.
- sideman A slang term for a musician in an ensemble who is not the leader of the ensemble.
- attack The method of beginning a phrase.
- modal Having to do with modes; this term is applied most particularly to music that is based upon the Gregorian modes, rather than to music based upon the major, minor, or any other scale.
- symphonic poem A piece of orchestral music in one principal self-contained section called a “movement” in which a program from a poem, a story or novel, a painting, or another source is illustrated or evoked.
- 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.
- litany A prayer or processional of supplication to God, to Mary, or to the saints in which the priest or deacon chants the supplication and the congregation responds with “Ora pro nobis”, “Kyrie eleison”, etc.
- Kantorei The musicians of a Protestant German court.
- tiento A Spanish Renaissance composition resembling the ricercare or the fantasia.
- whole tone An interval of two semitones, a major second.
- patetico “Pathetic”, with great emotion.
- Turmmusik Literally, “tower music”. A term referring to the music, usually performed on wind instruments, which is played from a tower of a town hall or a church tower. Turmmusik was common in Germany from the 16th century to the 18th century.