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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Some random terms

  • threnody A poem, a song, or an instrumental composition that expresses lament for the dead.
  • piano [Italian] Softly, quietly.
  • foot joint The last section of a flute, played farthest towards the right.
  • cent A logarithmic unit used in measuring the difference between two pitches in an equal-tempered scale. One cent is one one-hundredth of an equal-tempered semitone.
  • innigster [German] “Sincere”.
  • compound harmony Regular harmony with an added octave in the bass.
  • 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.
  • console [French] Keyboard, stops and foot pedals of an organ.
  • pochissimo [Italian] “Very little”.
  • florid Rich, embellished.
  • lauda [Latin] Laud, hymn of praise.
  • polyrhythm The simultaneous use of several rhythmic patterns or meters, common in twentieth-century music and in certain African musics.
  • trio sonata [Italian] A baroque sonata for two treble instruments and continuo, generally requiring four performers.
  • yodel A style of singing or calling that involves switching the registers of the voice rapidly from head voice to chest voice (or falsetto and natural voice). Although this type of singing is typically associated with the high warbling of the Swiss and Tyrolean mountaineers, forms of yodeling can be found in several cultures, including African, Persian, and cowboy singers in the United States.
  • estampie [French] A type of early instrumental music of the 13th and 14th centuries, consisting of independent sections strung together.