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

  • jazz A musical style created mainly by African-Americans in the early twentieth century that blended elements drawn from African musics with the popular and art traditions of the West.
  • trepak A Russian dance in quick duple meter.
  • poco a poco [Italian] Little by little.
  • Übung [German] Exercise.
  • libretto [Italian] A “little book” that contains the complete text of an opera, oratorio, and so forth.
  • yodel A style of singing or calling that involves switching the registers of the voice rapidly from head voice to chest voice (or falsetto and natural voice). Although this type of singing is typically associated with the high warbling of the Swiss and Tyrolean mountaineers, forms of yodeling can be found in several cultures, including African, Persian, and cowboy singers in the United States.
  • misterioso [Italian] Mysterious.
  • performer The musician that brings a composition to reality.
  • vocal range The range of notes that a singing voice can encompass.
  • volte [French] A Renaissance dance for couples in triple meter.
  • art song A vocal music composition, usually written for one singer with piano or orchestral accompaniment.
  • program music Music intended to evoke extra-musical ideas, images in the mind of the listener by musically representing a scene, image or mood. By contrast, absolute music stands for itself and is intended to be appreciated without any particular reference to the outside world.
  • murky A style of keyboard playing in which the bass consists of quick alternating octaves rather than slower, longer notes.
  • bossa nova [Portuguese] Brazilian dance related to the samba, popular in the 1950s and 1960s.
  • lent [French] Slow.