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

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

  • andantino [Italian] A moderate tempo marking, which can be faster or slower than andante.
  • sottovoce [Italian] Almost whispering.
  • concert A public musical performance.
  • chromatic scale A scale consisting of all 12 semitones.
  • soprano [Italian] The highest female voice.
  • dolce [Italian] Sweet, soft, with tender emotion.
  • swing A style of jazz playing whose flexible, improvised rhythms resist notation.
  • multiphonics The technique of performing two or more tones simultaneously on an instrument that is designed to produce only one tone at a time, like the flute.
  • overture An introductory movement, as in an opera or oratorio, often presenting melodies from arias to come. Also an orchestral work for concert performance.
  • through-composed Song form that is composed from beginning to end without repetitions of any major sections, each verse having its own, unique melody.
  • bridge A passage connecting two sections of a composition.
  • unter [German] “Below”, “under”.
  • col [Italian] “With the”
  • passing note In part writing, A non-harmonic note that appears between two notes in stepwise motion. Usually it is a link between a melodic interval of a third in one of the voices.
  • Zimmerman numbers The numbering system identifying compositions by Henry Purcell.