Multilingual Music Glossary

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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

  • Schottische [German] A German round dance in duple time.
  • Rinaldi numbers A numbering system identifying compositions by Antonio Vivaldi.
  • Gesamtkunstwerk [German] The integration of all of the arts (music, poetry, dance and other visual elements) into a single medium of dramatic expression. This term was used by Richard Wagner to describe the vision of his later operas in the late Romantic era.
  • larigot [French] A shepherd's flute or pipe.
  • 8vb [Italian] A directive to perform an octave lower than written.
  • melody Succession of single tones or pitches perceived by the mind as a unity.
  • mazurka A lively Polish dance in 3/4 or 3/8 time with the accent usually on the second or third beat of the measure.
  • calma [Italian] Calm.
  • gaudioso [Italian] Joyous, joyful.
  • cantus firmus [Latin] “Fixed melody”, usually of very long notes, often based on a fragment of Gregorian chant that served as the structural basis for a polyphonic composition, particularly in the Renaissance.
  • scale A series of notes in ascending or descending order that presents the pitches of a key or mode, beginning and ending on the tonic of that key or mode.
  • incidental music Music written to accompany dramatic works.
  • martial music Music with a military feeling.
  • new age Style of popular music of the 1980s and 1990s, characterized by soothing timbres and repetitive forms that are subjected to shifting variation techniques.
  • chromaticism Use of tones extraneous to a diatonic scale (major or minor).