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

  • arabesque [French] An ornament or an embellished work. The term is taken from the Arabic art and architecture which is very ornate.
  • tasto solo [Italian] Literally, “key only”. A directive indicating that a note is to be performed without harmony, especially used in compositions that use continuo.
  • duration The length of time that a note is sounded or a rest (silence) is observed.
  • non troppo [Italian] Not too much.
  • 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.
  • incipit [Latin] The beginning of a musical composition.
  • Empfindung [German] Feeling, sentiment.
  • swing A style of jazz playing whose flexible, improvised rhythms resist notation.
  • col [Italian] “With the”
  • l'istesso tempo [Italian] Literally, “the same tempo”. An indication that directs that the beat remains constant when the meter changes.
  • orchestra An instrumental ensemble, usually fairly large, with string, brass, woodwind sections, and possibly a percussion section as well.
  • grunge rock Contemporary Seattle-based rock style characterized by harsh guitar chords; hybrid of punk rock and heavy metal.
  • ninth An interval of five diatonic degrees, counting the first and last degree.
  • perfect pitch The ability of certain people to identify a given pitch without reference to any other pitch.
  • motive The briefest intelligible and self-contained fragment of a musical theme or subject.