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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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

  • rigaudon [French] A lively French dance, originally a folk dance but also a court dance and an instrumental form, in duple meter.
  • root position The position of a chord when the base pitch of the chord is in the lowest voice.
  • courante [French] A family of triple meter dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque era.
  • bridge A passage connecting two sections of a composition.
  • quartet A piece for four singers or instrumentalists. Also, a group of such musicians.
  • musico [Italian] Term applied to any musician in the 17th and 18th centuries.
  • demi [French] “Half”.
  • conjunct Smooth, connected, moving in stepwise motion.
  • obbligato [Italian] Literally, “obligatory”. Important part of a music that that should not be omitted.
  • burlesque [French] A humorous composition, usually involving parody or grotesque exaggeration.
  • sonata da chiesa [Italian] A baroque instrumental work intended for performance in a church, generally in four movements, arranged slow, fast, slow, fast.
  • relish An ornament of the English Renaissance and Baroque eras. A single relish consists of a trill with a turned ending or simply a turn. A double relish is a compound ornament, defined differently by different writers, but usually including a trill or an appoggiatura.
  • Rinaldi numbers A numbering system identifying compositions by Antonio Vivaldi.
  • strepitoso [Italian] Boisterous, noisy.
  • variation An altered version of a rhythm, motive, or theme.