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

  • cori spezzati [Italian] Literally, “broken choirs”. A style of performance with groups of singers placed in different locations of a building.
  • vocal cords The vocal organs in the human being which produce sound.
  • 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.
  • Longo numbers A numbering system identifying keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti.
  • cantoris [Latin] Literally, “of the cantor”. In Anglican church music, referring to the half of the choir sitting on the cantor's side of the church.
  • ostinato [Italian] Literally, “obstinate”. A short melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic pattern that is repeated throughout a composition.
  • meno [Italian] “Less”.
  • motive The briefest intelligible and self-contained fragment of a musical theme or subject.
  • vaudeville [French] A variety show with unrelated acts consisting of stand-up comedy, virtuoso instrumental and vocal performance, and song and dance acts.
  • coda [Italian] Literally, “tail”. The last part of a piece, usually added to a standard form to bring it to a close.
  • morendo [Italian] Literally, “dying away”. Gradually diminishing in volume and tempo, fading away.
  • dodecaphony Ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any.
  • militare [Italian] Military.
  • donna [Italian] Literally, “woman”, or “lady”. In opera, each of the principal female singers.
  • harmonic minor scale A minor scale where the seventh tone is raised by a semitone, both ascending and descending.