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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Some random terms

  • con slancio [Italian] With energy.
  • quadrille [French] An early 19th century ballroom dance for four or more couples.
  • fourth An interval of four diatonic scale tones, counting the first and last tone.
  • boogie-woogie A style of piano-based blues that became very popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but originated much earlier, and was extended from piano, to three pianos at once, guitar, big band, and country and western music, and even gospel. Whilst the blues traditionally depicts a variety of emotions, boogie-woogie is mainly associated with dancing.
  • impromptu [French] A single-movement piano composition of the Romantic era, usually short, with a spontaneous character.
  • Zimmerman numbers The numbering system identifying compositions by Henry Purcell.
  • armonioso [Italian] Harmonious, pleasant-sounding.
  • 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.
  • animato [Italian] Animated or spirited.
  • vago [Italian] Vague, indefinite.
  • lullaby A cradle song. A song sung to a child to soothe him to sleep or a gentle, quiet song.
  • liturgy In those churches that use standard written forms of services, the ritual or service of public worship.
  • off-beat A rhythm that emphasizes the weak beats of a bar.
  • pivot [French] A chord that is placed in a transition between two keys, serving a different function in each key and providing smooth movement between them.
  • concert pitch The tuning pitch of an ensemble, typically A440.