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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If you are looking for a symbol, check out our Guide to Musical Symbols.

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

  • Leichen-musik [German] Funeral music.
  • legatissimo [Italian] Very legato, extremely smooth and connected.
  • backbeat A style of rhythmic accentuation that puts accents on even beats. In common time this means having accents on beats 2 and 4.
  • natural A symbol placed by a note signifying that the note should be played unaltered, as opposed to the sharp or flat of the note.
  • Hertz [German] The basic unit of measurement of frequency, definable as one cycle per second. Usually abbreviated “Hz”.
  • martial music Music with a military feeling.
  • lento [Italian] Slow.
  • accablé [French] Overwhelmed.
  • tremolo [Italian] A rapid alternation between two notes.
  • signature Key signature or time signature.
  • divertimento [Italian] Instrumental composition intended for entertainment, usually in a number of movements. The term is used particularly in the second half of the 18th century.
  • Cecilia [Italian] Saint honored as the patroness of music.
  • timbre [French] The quality of a sound; that component of a tone that causes different instruments (for example a flute and a violin) to sound different from each other while they are both playing the same note.
  • camminando [Italian] Literally, “walking”. With easy and gentle progression.
  • minimalist music Contemporary musical style featuring the repetition of short melodic, rhythmic and harmonic patterns with little variation.