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

  • stentato [Italian] Labored, heavy, in a dragging manner, sluggish. Alternatively, strong and forced.
  • giusto [Italian] A directive to perform in an equal, steady, exact tempo.
  • popular music Music of the common people.
  • Minnesang [German] A tradition of Medieval courtly and secular music in Germany, cultivated by the nobility. The main focus of the music of this tradition was the idea of Minnedienst, servitude to love, often illustrated as the devoted knight entirely loyal to an unattainable lady with no hope of her love in return.
  • con furia [Italian] “With fury”.
  • sereno [Italian] Serene, calm.
  • rasch [German] Rapid, swift.
  • turn An ornament consisting of four notes, alternating the main note with the one above it and the one below.
  • unison Interval between two notes of the same pitch; the simultaneous playing of the same note.
  • concert A public musical performance.
  • zu [German] Shown as zu2, zu3, etc., it is a directive to indicate the number of musicians to perform the indicated passage of music.
  • chest voice The lowest register of the voice.
  • affabile [Italian] Affable, pleasant.
  • ionian In the system of modes, the ionian mode is the one based on C; therefore, it is the modern major scale.
  • voce piena [Italian] “Full voice”.