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

  • no chord A directive placed over a note (or a series of notes) signifying that the note(s) should be performed without accompaniment. Typically found in popular music notation.
  • Rinaldi numbers A numbering system identifying compositions by Antonio Vivaldi.
  • sgarbato [Italian] Rude, unkind, impolite.
  • capriccio [Italian] A piece of music, usually fairly free in form and of a lively character. The typical capriccio is fast, intense, and often virtuosic in nature.
  • ballade [French] A one-movement musical piece with lyrical and dramatic narrative qualities, usually having a text dealing with courtly love.
  • doucement [French] Softly.
  • fortissimo-piano [Italian] A dynamic marking (ffp) indicating that the marked note should be attacked very loudly, instantly diminishing to a much softer volume.
  • countersubject The secondary theme of a fugue, heard against the subject.
  • Longo numbers A numbering system identifying keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti.
  • seventh An interval of seven diatonic degrees, counting the first and last degree.
  • alto flute A flute pitched in the key of G, sounding a 4th lower than the concert flute.
  • ancora [Italian] “Still”, as in “still more slowly”.
  • progressive rock A subgenre of rock that reached its peak in the early 1970s and attempted to blend the visceral style of rock music with outside influences: classical, jazz, folk, and world musics, for example.
  • similar motion In part-writing, similar motion is the situation in which two voices of the composition move in the same direction, either ascending or descending, but they do not necessarily cover the same interval.
  • sacred music Religious or spiritual music, for church or devotional use.