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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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

  • voice Either human voice or a melodic layer or part of a polyphonic composition.
  • gebrochen [German] “Broken”.
  • relative pitch The ability to identify any pitch in reference to a given pitch.
  • disco Commercial dance music popular in the 1970s, characterized by strong percussion in a quadruple meter.
  • fine [Italian] Literally, “end”. An indication of where a composition ends when there is a repeat.
  • più [Italian] “More”.
  • well-tempered A term applied to an instrument that is voiced and tuned satisfactorily, with the pitches, tone, and timbre having the desired quality of sound.
  • inversion The position of a chord when the fundamental is not the lowest note. Also, the inversion of the order of the notes of an interval, obtained by raising or lowering either of the notes the necessary number of octaves.
  • bizzarro [Italian] Odd, whimsical, irregular.
  • espressivo [Italian] “Expressive”.
  • rap An American style of rhythmic chanting consisting of improvised rhymes performed to rhythmic accompaniment.
  • portamento [Italian] Literally, “carrying”. In singing or playing continuous-pitch instruments, the technique of gliding from one note to another without actually defining the intermediate notes: a smooth sliding between two pitches.
  • samba [Portuguese] Afro-Brazilian dance, characterized by duple meter, responsorial singing and polyrhythmic accompaniments.
  • erregt [German] “Agitated”.
  • program symphony A multi-movement composition with extra-musical content that directs the attention of the listener to a literary or pictorial association.