83984
| Question | Answer |
| Primary chords | Chords based on the first, fourth and fifth notes of the scale. |
| Quaver | An eighth note; a note that lasts half a crotchet. |
| Note values | The duration of a note, the main ones being: Semibreve - whole note Minim - half note Crochet - quarter note Quaver - eighth note Semiquaver - sixteenth note |
| Octaves | Playing the same tune/melody together at different octaves. |
| Ornamentation | Decorating the written pitch. |
| Ostinato | A repeated musical phrase or rhythm. |
| Piano (dynamic marking) | Quiet. |
| Pianissimo | Very quiet. |
| Pentatonic | A scale based on five notes. The black notes on a piano produce such a scale. |
| Phrasing | Dividing a melody into phrases or short units. |
| Pitch bend | Technique associated with guitar playing, the player frets a string then pushes it sideways to bend the pitch. |
| Pizzacato | Plucking the strings of a stringed instrument instead of using a bow. |
| Polyphonic/contrapuntal | A type of musical texture where different parts sing and/or play different notes using different rhythms layers on to of one another. |
| Polyrhythm | Where several different rhythms are played or sung together. |
| Crotchet | A quarter note, often equivalent to one beat. |
| Disjunct | Melodic movement by leap. |
| Cyclic | A composition where the theme recurs, possibly in different styles, throughout the work. |
| Dissonant | Sounds which clash when played together |
| Dotted notes | A note that is worth one and a half times the original value. |
| Sustained note or notes at a fixed pitch, usually as a bass part. | Drone |
| Drone | Sustained note or notes at a fixed pitch, usually as a bass part. |
| Forte | Loud |
| Fortissimo | Very loud. |
| Falsetto | A male adult singing in a vocal register that is higher than normal. |
| First movement form | Also known as sonata form, this contains three main sections. The first is the main theme, the second is developments of said theme and the third is where the main theme returns. |
| Flat | The lowering of pitch by a semitone. |
| Da capo aria | A solo song in ternary form I.E. the music has three sections where the first an last are similar but the middle is modulated to a relative key. |
| Free rhythm | Where the rhythm of the music is not set by regular bar lines but determined by the performer in response to the flow of the music. |
| Glissando/slide/portamento | Sliding from one note to the other. |
| Ground bass | Music where a bass pattern or melody is repeated several times underneath the melody of the other parts. |
| Harmonic/homophonic | A type of musical texture where different parts sing and/or play different notes but move together in the same rhythm. |
| Diatonic | Music written using the major or minor scale/key. |
| Hemiola | Where two bars of 3/4 are played as three bars of 2/4 or one bar of 3/2. |
| Imitation | Where entries copy, usually exactly, the musical phrase which has just been heard. |
| Imperfect cadence | Tonic, or another chord, to dominant, an incomplete cadence which is like a musical comma, you expect to hear more. |
| Improvisation | To make up or extemporise; in practice, improvisation is generally done on a particular musical feature such as melody, chord sequence or scale. |
| Diminuendo | Gradually getting quieter. |
| Interrupted cadence | Dominant to (usually) submediant rather than the expected tonic. |
| Interval | The distance in pitch between two notes. |
| Inversion | Turning a melody "upside down" but keeping its intervals. |
| Irregular rhythms | Music where the time signature changes or where the accents frequently shift. |
| Key | The tonal centre of the music which is indicated by the presence by one or more sharps or flats unless it's in C major or A minor. |
| Layered | Music built up by several strands. |
| Major | Music based on a major scale: TTSTTTS |
| Diminished | A note that is one semitone less than a perfect fourth, perfect fifth or minor seventh. |
| Metre | Refers to the use of a time signature; the number of beats in a bar. |
| Mezzo Forte | Fairly loud |
| Middle eight | Term given to the contrasting section in a pop song, usually eight bars long. |
| Minim | A half note; a note lasting two crotchets. |
| Minor | Music based on the minor scale |
| Minuet and trio | A dance style written in 3/4 time that uses binary form. |
| Diminution | The shortening of note values in a melody (usually by halving them) or reducing the intervals within a melody. |
| Modal | A type of scale which is essentially starting on a different note of the scale to give it a different feel. |
| Modulation | Moving from one key to another. |
| Mordent | The insertion of the note above or below the written note. |
| Mezzo piano | Fairly quiet |
| Accent | A type of articulation where a particular note needs to be stressed. |
| Acciacatura | Also reffered to as a crushed note, an acciacatura is a note of decoration played in as short a time as possible. |
| Added seventh | This is when you add a further note to a triad that is seven notes above the root. |
| Alberti Bass | An accompaniment played in the left hand of a keyboard part using broken chords to produce a regular rhythmic pattern. |
| Appoggiatura | A note of decoration that takes its value away from the following note, it is accented but not harmonised. |
| Arch shape, arch form | Music in at least five sections in the form A B C B A |
| Arpeggio | Playing the notes of a chord by spreading them out (most commonly from the bottom). This technique is usually found on pianos, guitars and harps. |
| Augmentation | The doubling of note values or the widening of an interval. |
| Bar | A small unbit of music; the number of beats in each bar is shown in the time signature. |
| Binary form | Music in two sections which are similar. There is usually a repetition of each part. |
| Bi-rhythm | The use of two different rhythms being played at the same time. |
| Blue note | An altered or flattened note found in blues music. This is usually the third, fifth or seventh note of the scale being flattened. |
| BMP | Beats Per Minute |
| Broken chords. | A type of accompaniment where the notes of a chord are spread out. |
| Cadence | A progression of two chords at the end of a musical phrase. |
| Cadenza | A solo, vocal or instrumnetal passage using improvisation based on the previouss music. |
| Call and response | A phrase of music which is then changed slightly to sound completed by another musician. |
| Canonic | Imitation where perforers enter with the same tune before the previous entry has finished, producing an overlapping effect. |
| Chamber group | Small group of players or singers for example of a string quartet. |
| Chamber music | Music written for a small group of players or singers. |
| Chord | Two or more notes sounded together. |
| Chord symbol | Used to describe a chord in a simple manner, usually letters e.g. c, Gm |
| Chromatic | Music written using both the black notes of the piano; a scale which moves up by by a smeitone of the notes of a diatonic scale. |
| Coda/codetta | A rounding-off section. |
| Compound time | Time signatures based on a dotted crochet beat, divided into three quavers. E.g. 6/8, 3/4. |
| Con arco | Using a bow to produce a note on a string instrument. |
| Concerto | Music for a featured solo instrument/s and an orchestra. |
| Conjunct | Melodic movement by step |
| Continuo | A bass part written in the baroque period, consisting of a bass line with, sometimes, the addition of figures indicating the harmonies to be played - a fingured bass. Normally played by a keyboard instrument, e.g. the harpsichord. |
| Crescendo | Gradually getting louder. |
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