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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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

  • woodwind quintet Standard chamber ensemble consisting of one each of the following: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and French horn (not a woodwind instrument).
  • dal segno [Italian] A directive to go back to a specific place of a composition, marked by a sign.
  • villanella [Italian] A Renaissance polyphonic vocal form, usually with a simple tune in the top voice, and somewhat homophonic, regular rhythms in the lower voices.
  • scale A series of notes in ascending or descending order that presents the pitches of a key or mode, beginning and ending on the tonic of that key or mode.
  • quarter note A note having the time duration of one fourth of a whole note.
  • new age Style of popular music of the 1980s and 1990s, characterized by soothing timbres and repetitive forms that are subjected to shifting variation techniques.
  • signature Key signature or time signature.
  • audition The term used for the try-outs that a musician must go through before his or her acceptance into an ensemble.
  • Feldmusik [German] Music performed outdoors on wind instruments.
  • basse dance [French] A graceful, stately court dance of the early Renaissance.
  • dramma giocoso [Italian] A kind of comic opera originating around 1750, with sentimental or pathetic plots bordering on tragedy rather than the traditional lighthearted comic plots.
  • calmato [Italian] Calm.
  • tonality The organization of a composition around a tonic.
  • retransition In sonata-allegro form, the last part of the development which leads to the tonic of the main key and usually emphasizes it.
  • niente [Italian] Literally, “nothing”. With almost no sound.