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

  • quarter tone Half a semitone.
  • theme The musical basis upon which a composition is built. Usually a theme consists of a recognizable melody or a characteristic rhythmic pattern.
  • elegy A funeral song; a mournful or plaintive composition.
  • haut [French] Literally, “high”. Medieval category of loud instruments, used principally for outdoor occasions.
  • comme ci-dessus [French] “As above”.
  • soul A style of composition developed in America in the 1960s conveying strong emotion. This style of music is characterized by dramatic delivery of the vocal line, commonly including wails, sighs, cries, falsetto, whispers, etc.
  • harmonic minor scale A minor scale where the seventh tone is raised by a semitone, both ascending and descending.
  • Hertz [German] The basic unit of measurement of frequency, definable as one cycle per second. Usually abbreviated “Hz”.
  • gaudioso [Italian] Joyous, joyful.
  • serein [French] Serene, calm.
  • spiritoso [Italian] Spirited, lively.
  • stanza [Italian] The division of a poem that consists of a series of lines arranged together. This is usually in the form of a recurring pattern of meter and rhyme.
  • Motown A style of music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the late 1960s.
  • ut [Latin] The syllable first associated with the tonic of the key, now replaced by the syllable "Do" but still used in France. In the fixed Do system, this is always C.
  • Manualiter [German] Organ compositions that are to be performed on the manual alone, i.e. without the pedals.