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

  • attacca [Italian] A musical directive for the performer to begin the next section of a composition immediately and without pause.
  • Minnesinger [German] A poet or musician of the Minnesang tradition in Germany, active during the 12th through the 15th centuries.
  • con disperazione [Italian] Desperately.
  • codetta [Italian] Literally, “little tail”. A passage similar to a coda, but on a smaller scale, concluding a section of a work instead of the work as a whole.
  • Gesamtkunstwerk [German] The integration of all of the arts (music, poetry, dance and other visual elements) into a single medium of dramatic expression. This term was used by Richard Wagner to describe the vision of his later operas in the late Romantic era.
  • tyrolienne [French] A dance form in quick triple meter.
  • litany A prayer or processional of supplication to God, to Mary, or to the saints in which the priest or deacon chants the supplication and the congregation responds with “Ora pro nobis”, “Kyrie eleison”, etc.
  • windway The pathway or duct in the mouthpiece of a edge-blown aerophone that directs the air stream over the fipple and onto the labium where the air is split and vibrates to produce a sound.
  • echo A repetition or mimicking of a certain passage, usually with less force and volume than the original statement.
  • armonioso [Italian] Harmonious, pleasant-sounding.
  • false note A muted or dampened note that has rhythm but often no discernible pitch.
  • dur [French] Literally, “hard”. With a harsh or ungraceful tone.
  • feierlich [German] Solemn.
  • portamento [Italian] Literally, “carrying”. In singing or playing continuous-pitch instruments, the technique of gliding from one note to another without actually defining the intermediate notes: a smooth sliding between two pitches.
  • refrain [French] A verse which repeats throughout a song or poem at given intervals.