The italicized words refer to other definitions in the glossary, which you can look up if necessary. The page numbers refer to fuller explanations in the text.

A cappella (ah kah-pél-la): Choral music for voices alone, without instruments

Accelerando (a-chel-er-áhn-do): Getting faster

Accent: The stressing of a note — for example, by playing it somewhat louder than the surrounding notes

Accidentals: In musical notation, signs indicating that a note is to be played sharp, flat, or natural

Accompanied recitative: See recitative

Adagio: Slow tempo

Alba: Troubadour song about a knight leaving his lady at dawn

Allegro; allegretto: Fast; moderately fast

Alto, contralto: The low female voice

Andante: A fairly slow tempo, but not too slow

Andantino: A little faster than andante

Antiphon: A genre of plainchant usually in a simple melodic style with very few melismas

Aria: A vocal number for solo singer and orchestra, generally in an opera, cantata, or oratorio

Arioso: A singing style between recitative and aria

Arpeggio: A chord “broken” so that its pitches are played in quick succession rather than simultaneously (130)

Ars antiqua, ars nova: Contemporary terms for the “old technique” of thirteenth-century organum and the new polyphonic music of the fourteenth century

A tempo: At the original tempo

Atonality, atonal: The absence of any feeling of tonality

Avant-garde: In the most advanced style

Azan: An Islamic call to worship, issued five times daily by a muezzin

Bar: See measure

Baritone: A type of adult male voice similar to the bass, but a little higher

Bar line: In musical notation, a vertical line through the staffs to mark the measure

Bass (not spelled “base”): (1) The low adult male voice; (2) the lowest vocal or instrumental line in a piece of music

Basso continuo: See continuo

Basso ostinato: An ostinato in the bass

Beam: In musical notation, the heavy stroke connecting eighth notes (two beams connect sixteenth notes, etc.)

Beat: The regular pulse underlying most music; the lowest unit of meter

Beat syncopation: In jazz, the fractional shifting of accents away from the beats

Bebop: A jazz style of the 1940s

Bel canto: A style of singing that brings out the sensuous beauty of the voice

Bel canto opera: Term for early Romantic opera, which featured bel canto singing

Big bands: The big jazz bands (10 to 20 players) of the 1930s and 1940s

Binary form: A musical form having two different sections; AB form

Biwa: A Japanese four-stringed lute; heard in gagaku

Blues: A type of African American vernacular music, used in jazz, rhythm and blues, rock, and other styles of popular music

Blues scale: A scale used in blues, jazz, and related styles that differs in several pitches from the diatonic scale customary in classical music

Break: In jazz, a brief solo improvisation between song phrases

Bridge: In sonata form, the section of music that comes between the first theme and the second group and makes the modulation; also called transition

Cadence: The notes or chords (or the whole short passage) ending a section of music with a feeling of conclusiveness. The term cadence can be applied to phrases, sections of works, or complete works or movements

Cadence theme: In sonata form, the final conclusive theme in the exposition

Cadenza: An improvised passage for the soloist in a concerto, or sometimes in other works. Concerto cadenzas usually come near the ends of movements

Call and response: In African and early African American music, a style in which a phrase by a leading singer or soloist is answered by a larger group or chorus, and the process is repeated again and again

Cantata: A composition in several movements for solo voice(s), instruments, and perhaps also chorus. Depending on the text, cantatas are categorized as secular or church cantatas

Canzona: A lively, fuguelike composition, one of several 16th- and 17th-century genres of instrumental music

Chaconne (cha-kón): Similar to passacaglia

Chamber music: Music played by small groups, such as a string quartet or a piano trio

Chance music: A type of contemporary music in which certain elements, such as the order of the notes or their pitches, are not specified by the composer but are left to chance

Chanson (shahn-sohn): French for song; a genre of French secular vocal music

Chant: A way of reciting words to music, generally in monophony and generally for liturgical purposes, as in Gregorian chant

Character piece: A short Romantic piano piece that portrays a particular mood

Choir: (1) A group of singers singing together, with more than one person singing each voice part; (2) a section of the orchestra comprising instruments of a certain type, such as the string, woodwind, or brass choir

Choral declamation: Chordal recitation by a chorus with free, speechlike rhythms

Chorale (co-ráhl): German for hymn; also used for a four-part harmonization of a Lutheran hymn, such as Bach composed in his Cantata No. 4 and other works

Chord: A grouping of pitches played and heard simultaneously

Chromaticism: A musical style employing all or many of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale much of the time

Chromatic scale: The set of twelve pitches represented by all the white and black notes on the piano, within one octave

Church cantata: A cantata with religious words

Clef: In musical notation, a sign at the beginning of the staff indicating the pitches of the lines and spaces. The main clefs are the treble (or G) clef (&) and the bass (or F) clef (?)

Climax: The high point of a melody or of a section of music

Closing theme: Same as cadence theme

Coda: The concluding section of a piece or a movement, after the main elements of the form have been presented. Codas are common in sonata form

Coloratura: An ornate style of singing, with many notes for each syllable of the text

Compound meter: A meter in which the main beats are subdivided into three, e.g., 6/8 — one two three four five six

Con brio: Brilliantly, with spirit

Concerto, solo concerto: A large composition for orchestra and solo instrument

Concerto grosso: The main early Baroque type of concerto, for a group of solo instruments and a small orchestra

Concert overture: An early nineteenth-century genre resembling an opera overture — but without any following opera

Con moto: Moving, with motion

Consonance: Intervals or chords that sound relatively stable and free of tension, as opposed to dissonance

Continuo (basso continuo): (1) A set of chords continuously underlying the melody in a piece of Baroque music; (2) the instrument(s) playing the continuo, usually cello plus harpsichord or organ

Contralto, alto: The low female voice

Counterpoint, contrapuntal: (1) Polyphony; strictly speaking, the technique of writing polyphonic music; (2) the term a counterpoint is used for a melodic line that forms polyphony when played along with other lines; (3) in counterpoint means “forming polyphony”

Countersubject: In a fugue, a subsidiary melodic line that appears regularly in counterpoint with the subject

Crescendo (kreh-shén-do): Getting louder

Cultivated music: In America, genres and styles of music that were brought from Europe and subsequently nurtured here through formal training and education

Da capo: Literally, “from the beginning”; a direction to the performer to repeat music from the beginning of the piece up to a later point

Da capo aria: An aria in ABA form, i.e., one in which the A section is sung da capo at the end

Dance suite: See suite

Declamation: The way words are set to music, in terms of rhythm, accent, etc.

Decrescendo (dee-kreh-shén-do): Getting softer

Development: (1) The process of expanding themes and short motives into larger sections of music; (2) the second section of a sonata-form movement, which features the development process

Diatonic scale: The set of seven pitches represented by the white notes of the piano, within one octave

Dies irae: “Day of wrath”: a section of the Requiem Mass

Diminuendo: Getting softer

Dissonance: Intervals or chords that sound relatively tense and unstable, in opposition to consonance

Divertimento: An 18th-century genre of light instrumental music, designed for entertainment

Dotted note: In musical notation, a note followed by a dot has its normal duration increased by a half

Dotted rhythm: A rhythm of long, dotted notes alternating with short ones

Double-exposition form: A type of sonata form developed for use in concertos

Downbeat: A strong or accented beat

Duet, duo: A composition for two singers or instrumentalists

Duple meter: A meter consisting of one accented beat alternating with one unaccented beat: one two one two

Duration: The length of time that a sound is heard

Dynamics: The volume of sound, the loudness or softness of a musical passage

Eighth note: A note one-eighth the length of a whole note

Electronic music: Music in which some or all of the sounds are produced by electronic generators or other apparatus

Ensemble: A musical number in an opera, cantata, or oratorio that is sung by two or more people

Episode: In a fugue, a passage that does not contain any complete appearances of the fugue subject

Erhu (ár-hoo): A Chinese low-pitched fiddle; heard in Beijing opera

Espressivo: Expressively

Estampie (ess-tom-pée): An instrumental dance of the Middle Ages

Étude (áy-tewd): A piece of music designed to aid technical study of a particular instrument

Exposition: (1) The first section of a fugue; (2) the first section of a sonata-form movement

Expressionism: An early twentieth-century movement in art, music, and literature in Germany and Austria

Fermata: A hold of indefinite length on a note; the sign for such a hold in musical notation

Festive orchestra: A brilliant-sounding Baroque orchestra with drums, trumpets, and/or French horns, used for gala occasions

Figured bass: A system of notating the continuo chords in Baroque music, by means of figures; sometimes also used to mean continuo

Finale (fih-náh-lay): The last movement of a work, or the ensemble that concludes an act of an opera buffa or other opera

First theme: In sonata form, a motive or tune (or a series of them) in the tonic key that opens the exposition section

Flag: In musical notation, a “pennant” attached to a note indicating that the length is halved (two flags indicate that it is quartered, etc.)

Flat: In musical notation, a sign ( ) indicating that the note to which it is attached is to be played a semitone lower. A double flat ( ) is sometimes used to indicate that a note is played two semitones lower

Form: The “shape” of a piece of music

Forte (fór-teh); fortissimo: Loud; very loud (f; ff)

Fragmentation: The technique of reducing a theme to fragmentary motives

Frequency: Scientific term for the rate of sound vibration, measured in cycles per second

Fuging tune: A simple anthem based on a hymn, with a little counterpoint

Fugue (fewg): A composition written systematically in imitative polyphony, usually with a single main theme, the fugue subject

Functional harmony, functional tonality: From the Baroque period on, the system whereby all chords have a specific interrelation and function in relation to the tonic

Gagaku (gáh-gáh-koo): A group of Japanese orchestral styles, named for the Chinese characters meaning “elegant music,” which were performed in traditional court ceremonies and rituals; includes togaku (tó-gáh-koo) and komagaku (ko-má-gáh-koo)

Gakuso: A Japanese zither with thirteen strings; heard in gagaku

Galliard: A Renaissance court dance in triple meter

Gamelan: A traditional Indonesian orchestra consisting of gongs, metallophones, and other instruments

Gapped chorale: A setting of a chorale melody in which the tune is presented in phrases with “gaps” between them, during which other music continues in other voices or instruments

Genre (jáhn-ruh): A general category of music determined partly by the number and kind of instruments or voices involved, and partly by its form, style, or purpose. “Opera,” “symphonic poem,” and “sonata” are examples of genres

Gesamtkunstwerk (geh-záhmt-kuhnst-vairk): “Total work of art” — Wagner’s term for his music dramas

Gigue (zheeg), jig: A Baroque dance in a lively compound meter

Glissando: Sliding from one note to another on an instrument such as a trombone or violin

Gospel music: Genre of African American choral church music, associated with the blues

Grave (grahv): Slow

Gregorian chant: The type of chant used in the early Roman Catholic Church

Ground bass: An ostinato in the bass

Half note: A note half the length of a whole note

Half step: The interval between any two successive notes of the chromatic scale; also called a semitone

Harmonize: To provide each note of a melody with a chord

Harmony: The simultaneous sounding of different pitches, or chords (28)

Heterophony: Monophonic texture in which subtly different versions of a single melody are presented simultaneously

Hichiriki (hée-chee-ree-kée): A Japanese double-reed wind instrument; heard in gagaku

Homophony, homophonic: A musical texture that involves only one melody of real interest, combined with chords or other subsidiary sounds

Hymn: A simple religious song in several stanzas, for congregational singing in church

Idée fixe (ee-day feex): A fixed idea, an obsession; the term used by Berlioz for a recurring theme used in all the movements of one of his program symphonies

Imitation, imitative polyphony, imitative counterpoint: A polyphonic musical texture in which the various melodic lines use approximately the same themes; as opposed to non-imitative polyphony. See also point of imitation.

Impressionism: A French artistic movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries

Interval: The difference or distance between two pitches, measured by the number of diatonic scale notes between them

Introduction: An introductory passage: the “slow introduction” before the exposition in a symphony, etc.; in an opera, the first number after the overture

Inversion: Reading or playing a melody or a twelve-tone series upside down, i.e., playing all its upward intervals downward and vice versa

Isicathamiya (ees-ee-caht-ah-mée-ah): An a cappella song style that is part of the South African choral song tradition

Isorhythm: In fourteenth-century music, the technique of repeating the identical rhythm for each section of a composition, while the pitches are altered

Jazz: A major African American performance style that has influenced all twentieth-century popular music

Jing (cheeng): A male role in jingju, or Beijing opera, enacting a warrior, a bandit, or a god

Jinghu (chéeng-hoo): A Chinese high-pitched, two-stringed fiddle; heard in Beijing opera

Jingju (chéeng-chu): The most famous variety of Chinese musical drama; meaning “theater of the capital,” it is known in English as Beijing (or Peking) opera

Jongleur (jawn-glér): A medieval secular musician

Kabuki (kah-bóo-kee): A Japanese tradition of musical drama involving singing actors, chorus, and orchestra

Kakko: A Japanese two-headed barrel drum; heard in gagaku

Key: One of the twelve positions for the major- and minor-mode scales made possible by using all the notes of the chromatic scale

Key signature: Sharps or flats placed at the beginning of the staffs to indicate the key, and applied throughout an entire piece, in every measure and in every octave

K numbers: The numbers assigned to works by Mozart in the Köchel catalogue; used instead of opus numbers to catalogue Mozart’s works

Largo; larghetto: Very slow; somewhat less slow than largo

Ledger lines: In music notation, short lines above or below the staff to allow for pitches that go higher or lower

Legato (leh-gáh-toe): Playing in a smooth, connected manner; as opposed to staccato

Leitmotiv (líte-moh-teef): Guiding, or leading, motive in Wagner’s operas

Lento: Very slow

Libretto: The complete book of words for an opera, oratorio, cantata, etc.

Lied (leed; pl. lieder): German for “song”; a special genre of Romantic songs with piano

Line: Used as a term to mean a melody, or melodic line

Liturgy: The system of prayers and worship of a particular religion

Madrigal: The main secular vocal genre of the Renaissance

Major mode: One of the modes of the diatonic scale, oriented around C as the tonic; characterized by the interval between the first and third notes containing four semitones, as opposed to three in the minor mode

Mass: The main Roman Catholic service; or the music written for it. The musical Mass consists of five large sections: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei

Mazurka: A Polish dance in lively triple meter

Measure (bar): In music, the unit of meter, consisting of a principal strong beat and one or more weaker ones

Medieval modes: See mode

Mele pule (mél-eh póol-eh): Hawai’ian prayer song

Melisma: In vocal music, a passage of many notes sung to a single syllable

Melody: The aspect of music having to do with the succession of pitches; also applied (“a melody”) to any particular succession of pitches

Metallophone: An instrument like a xylophone, but with keys of metal, not wood

Meter: A background of stressed and unstressed beats in a simple, regular, repeating pattern

Metronome: A mechanical or electrical device that ticks out beats at any desired tempo

Mezzo (mét-so): Italian for half, halfway, medium (as in mezzo forte or mezzo piano — mf, mp)

Mezzo-soprano: “Halfway to soprano”: a type of female voice between contralto and soprano

Miniature: A short, evocative composition for piano or for piano and voice, composed in the Romantic period

Minimalism: A late twentieth-century style involving many repetitions of simple musical fragments

Minnesingers: Poet-composers of the Middle Ages in Germany

Minor mode: One of the modes of the diatonic scale, oriented around A as the tonic; characterized by the interval between the first and third notes containing three semitones, as opposed to four in the major mode

Minstrel show: A type of variety show popular in nineteenth-century America, performed in blackface

Minuet: (1) A popular seventeenth- and eighteenth-century dance in moderate triple meter; (2) a movement in a sonata, symphony, etc., based on this dance

Mode, modality: In music since the Renaissance, one of the two types of tonality: major mode or minor mode; also, in earlier times, one of several orientations of the diatonic scale with D, E, F, and G as tonics

Moderato: Moderate tempo

Modulation: Changing key within a piece

Molto allegro: Faster than allegro

Monophony, monophonic: A musical texture involving a single melodic line, as in Gregorian chant; as opposed to polyphony

Motet: Usually a sacred vocal composition. Early motets were based on fragments of Gregorian chant.

Motive: A short fragment of melody or rhythm used in constructing a long section of music

Movement: A self-contained section of a larger piece, such as a symphony or concerto grosso

Musical comedy, musical: American development of operetta, involving American subjects and music influenced by jazz or rock

Music drama: Wagner’s name for his distinctive type of opera

Musicology: The scholarly study of music history and literature

Music video: Video “dramatization” of a popular song, rock number, or rap number

Musique concrète (moo-zeek kohn-krét): Music composed with natural sounds recorded electronically

Mute: A device put on or in an instrument to muffle the tone

Nationalism: A nineteenth-century movement promoting music built on national folk songs and dances, or associated with national subjects

Natural: In musical notation, a sign (♮) indicating that a sharp or flat previously attached to a note is to be removed

Neoclassicism: A twentieth-century movement involving a return to the style and form of older music, particularly 18th-century music

Nocturne: “Night piece”: title for Romantic miniature compositions for piano, etc.

Non-imitative polyphony: A polyphonic musical texture in which the melodic lines are essentially different from one another; as opposed to imitative polyphony

Non troppo: Not too much (as in allegro non troppo, not too fast)

Note: (1) A sound of a certain definite pitch and duration; (2) the written sign for such a sound in musical notation; (3) a key pressed with the finger on a piano or organ

Octatonic scale: An eight-note scale (used by Stravinsky and others) consisting of half and whole steps in alternation

Octave: The interval between a pair of “duplicating” notes, eight notes apart in the diatonic scale

Opera: Drama presented in music, with the characters singing instead of speaking

Opera buffa (bóo-fa): Italian comic opera

Opera seria: A term for the serious, heroic opera of the Baroque period in Italy

Operetta: A nineteenth-century type of light (often comic) opera, employing spoken dialogue in between musical numbers

Opus: Work; opus numbers provide a means of cataloguing a composer’s compositions

Oratorio: Long semidramatic piece on a religious subject for soloists, chorus, and orchestra

Orchestra: A large group of instruments playing together; it has been configured differently at different periods of Western music ; see festive orchestra, gagaku, gamelan

Orchestra exposition: In Classical concerto form, the first of two expositions, played by the orchestra without the soloist

Orchestration: The technique of writing for various instruments to produce an effective total orchestral sound

Organum: The earliest genre of medieval polyphonic music

Ornamentation: Addition of fast notes and vocal effects (such as trills) to a melody, making it more florid and expressive. Ornamentation is typically improvised in the music of all cultures, and in Western music is often written out

Ostinato: A motive, phrase, or theme repeated over and over again

Overtone: In acoustics, a secondary vibration in a sound-producing body, which contributes to the tone color

Overture: An orchestral piece at the start of an opera, oratorio, etc. (but see concert overture)

Paraphrase: The modification and decoration of plainchant melodies in early Renaissance music

Part: Used as a term for (1) a section of a piece; (2) one of the voices in contrapuntal music; (3) the written music for a single player in an orchestra, band, etc. (as opposed to the score)

Passacaglia (pah-sa-cáhl-ya): A set of variations on a short theme in the bass

Passion: A long, oratorio-like composition telling the story of Jesus’ last days, according to one of the New Testament gospels

Pavan (pa-váhn): A slow, sixteenth-century court dance in duple meter

Pentatonic scale: A five-note scale (familiar from folk music) playable on the black notes of a keyboard

Phrase: A section of a melody or a tune

Piano; pianissimo: Soft; very soft (p; pp)

Piano trio: An instrumental group usually consisting of violin, cello, and piano; or a piece composed for this group; or the three players themselves

Pitch: The quality of “highness” or “lowness” of sound; also applied (“a pitch”) to any particular pitch level, such as middle C

Pizzicato (pit-tzih-cáh-toe): Playing a stringed instrument that is normally bowed by plucking the strings with the finger

Plainchant, plainsong: Unaccompanied, monophonic music, without fixed rhythm or meter, such as Gregorian chant

Poco: Somewhat (as in poco adagio or poco forte, somewhat slow, somewhat loud)

Point of imitation: A short passage of imitative polyphony based on a single theme, or on two used together

Polonaise: A Polish court dance in a moderate triple meter

Polyphony, polyphonic: Musical texture in which two or more melodic lines are played or sung simultaneously; as opposed to homophony or monophony

Polyrhythm: The simultaneous presentation of distinct or conflicting rhythmic patterns, especially in African music

Prelude: An introductory piece, leading to another, such as a fugue or an opera (however, Chopin’s Preludes were not intended to lead to anything else) (129)

Premiere: The first performance ever of a piece of music, opera, etc.

Presto; prestissimo: Very fast; very fast indeed

Program music: A piece of instrumental music associated with a story or other extramusical idea

Program symphony: A symphony with a program, as by Berlioz

Quarter note: A note one-quarter the length of a whole note

Quartet: A piece for four singers or players; often used to mean string quartet

Quintet: A piece for five singers or players

Qur’anic recitation: An Islamic tradition in which the revelations of the prophet Muhammad gathered in the Qur’an (or Koran) are chanted or sung in Arabic

Ragtime: A style of American popular music around 1900, usually for piano, which led to jazz

Range: Used in music to mean “pitch range,” i.e., the total span from the lowest to the highest pitch in a piece, a part, or a passage

Rap: Genre of African American popular music of the 1980s and 1990s, featuring rapid recitation in rhyme

Recapitulation: The third section of a sonata-form movement

Recitative (reh-sih-ta-téev): A half-singing, half-reciting style of presenting words in opera, cantata, oratorio, etc., following speech accents and speech rhythms closely. Secco recitative is accompanied only by continuo; accompanied recitative is accompanied by orchestra.

Reciting tone: Especially in chant, the single note used for musical “recitation,” with brief melodic formulas for beginning and ending

Reed: In certain wind instruments (oboe, clarinet), a small vibrating element made of cane or metal

Requiem Mass, Requiem: The special Mass celebrated when someone dies

Resolve: To proceed from dissonant harmony to consonance

Rest: A momentary silence in music; in musical notation, a sign indicating a momentary silence

Retransition: In sonata form, the passage leading from the end of the development section into the beginning of the recapitulation

Retrograde: Reading or playing a melody or twelve-tone series backward

Rhythm: The aspect of music having to do with the duration of the notes in time; also applied (“a rhythm”) to any particular durational pattern

Rhythm and blues: Genre of African American music of the early 1950s, forerunner of rock

Rhythm section: In jazz, the instrumental group used to emphasize and invigorate the meter (drums, bass, and piano)

Ritardando: Slowing down

Ritenuto: Held back in tempo

Ritornello: The orchestral material at the beginning of a concerto grosso, etc., which always returns later in the piece

Ritornello form: A Baroque musical form based on recurrences of a ritornello

Rock: The dominant popular-music style of the late 20th century

Rondo: A musical form consisting of one main theme or tune alternating with other themes or sections (ABACA, ABACABA, etc.)

Round: A simple type of imitative polyphony, with all voices entering with the same melody

Row: Same as series

Rubato: “Robbed” time; the free treatment of meter in performance

Ryuteki (ree-óo-tay-kée): A Japanese side-blown flute; heard in gagaku

Sampling: Especially in rap, the extraction, repetition, and manipulation of short excerpts from other popular songs, etc.

Sarabande: A Baroque dance in slow triple meter, with a secondary accent on the second beat

Scale: A selection of ordered pitches that provides the pitch material for music

Scherzo (scáir-tzo): A form developed by Beethoven from the minuet to use for movements in larger compositions; later sometimes used alone, as by Chopin

Score: The full musical notation for a piece involving several or many performers

Secco recitative: See recitative

Second group: In sonata form, the group of themes following the bridge, in the second key

Second theme: In sonata form, one theme that is the most prominent among the second group of themes in the exposition

Semitone: Same as half step

Sequence: (1) In a melody, a series of fragments identical except for their placement at successively higher or lower pitch levels ; (2) in the Middle Ages, a type of plainchant in which successive phrases of text receive nearly identical melodic treatment

Serialism, serial: The technique of composing with a series, generally a twelve-tone series

Series: A fixed arrangement of pitches (or rhythms) held to throughout a serial composition

Sforzando: An especially strong accent; the mark indicating this in musical notation (sf or >)

Sharp: In musical notation, a sign ( ) indicating that the note it precedes is to be played a half step higher. A double sharp () is occasionally used to indicate that a note is played two semitones higher

Sho: A Japanese mouth reed organ with seventeen pipes; heard in gagaku

Simple meter: A meter in which the main beats are not subdivided, or are subdivided into two, e.g., 2/4, 3/4, 4/4

Sixteenth note: A note one-sixteenth the length of a whole note

Slur: In musical notation, a curved line over several notes, indicating that they are to be played smoothly, or legato

Solo exposition: In Classical concerto form, the second of two expositions, played by the soloist and the orchestra

Sonata: A chamber-music piece in several movements, typically for three main instruments plus continuo in the Baroque period, and for only one or two instruments since then

Sonata form (sonata-allegro form): A form developed by the Classical composers and used in almost all the first movements of their symphonies, sonatas, etc.

Song cycle: A group of songs connected by a general idea or story, and sometimes also by musical unifying devices

Sonority: A general term for sound quality, either of a momentary chord, or of a whole piece or style

Soprano: The high female (or boy’s) voice

Spiritual: Religious folk song, usually among African Americans (called “Negro spiritual” in the 19th century)

Sprechstimme: A vocal style developed by Schoenberg, in between singing and speaking

Staccato: Played in a detached manner; as opposed to legato

Staff (or stave): In musical notation, the group of five horizontal lines on which music is written

Stanza: In songs or ballads, one of several similar poetic units, which are usually sung to the same tune; also called verse

Stop: An organ stop is a single set of pipes, covering the entire pitch range in a particular tone color

Stretto: In a fugue, overlapping entrances of the fugue subject in several voices simultaneously

String quartet: An instrumental group consisting of two violins, viola, and cello; or a piece composed for this group; or the four players themselves

Strophic song: A song in several stanzas, with the same music sung for each stanza; as opposed to through-composed song

Structure: A term often used to mean form

Style: The combination of qualities that makes a period of art, a composer, a group of works, or an individual work distinctive

Subito: Suddenly (as in subito forte or subito piano, suddenly loud, suddenly soft)

Subject: The term for the principal theme of a fugue

Subject entries: In a fugue, appearances of the entire fugue subject after the opening exposition

Suite: A piece consisting of a series of dances

Swing: A type of big-band jazz of the late 1930s and 1940s

Symbolism: A late nineteenth-century movement in the arts that emphasized suggestion rather than precise reference

Symphonic poem: A piece of orchestral program music in one long movement

Symphony: A large orchestral piece in several movements

Syncopation: The accenting of certain beats of the meter that are ordinarily unaccented

Synthesizer: An electronic apparatus that generates sounds for electronic music

Tempo: The speed of music, i.e., the rate at which the accented and unaccented beats of the meter follow one another

Tenor: The high adult male voice

Ternary form: A three-part musical form in which the last section repeats the first; ABA form

Texture: The blend of the various sounds and melodic lines occurring simultaneously in a piece of music

Thematic transformation: A variation-like procedure applied to short themes in the various sections of Romantic symphonic poems and other works

Theme: The basic subject matter of a piece of music. A theme can be a phrase, a short motive, a full tune, etc.

Theme and variations: A form consisting of a tune (the theme) plus a number of variations on it

Through-composed song: A song with new music for each stanza of the poem; as opposed to strophic song

Tie: In musical notation, a curved line joining two notes of the same pitch into a continuous sound

Timbre (tám-br): Another term for tone color

Time signature: In musical notation, the numbers on the staff at the beginning of a piece that indicate the meter

Toccata: Especially in Baroque music, a written-out composition in improvisational style, generally for organ or harpsichord

Tonality, tonal: The feeling of centrality of one note (and its chord) to a passage of music; as opposed to atonality

Tone: A sound of a certain definite pitch and duration; same as note

Tone color: The sonorous quality of a particular instrument, voice, or combination of instruments or voices

Tone poem: Same as symphonic poem

Tonic (noun): In tonal music, the central-sounding note

Transition: A passage whose function is to connect one section of a piece with another; see bridge

Transpose: To move a whole piece, or a section of a piece, or a twelve-tone series, from one pitch level to another

Trill: Two adjacent notes played very rapidly in alternation

Trio: (1) A piece for three instruments or singers; (2) the second, or B, section of a minuet movement, scherzo, etc.

Trio sonata: A Baroque sonata for three main instruments plus the continuo chord instrument

Triple meter: Meter consisting of one accented beat alternating with two unaccented beats: one two three one two three

Triplet: A group of three notes performed in the time normally taken by two

Troubadours, trouvères: Aristocratic poet-musicians of the Middle Ages

Tsuridaiko (tzóo-ree-díe-koh): A large Japanese barrel drum; heard in gagaku

Tune: A simple, easily singable melody that is coherent and complete

Twelve-tone row (or twelve-tone series): An ordering of all twelve notes of the chromatic scale, used in composing serial music

Twelve-tone system: Method of composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg in which the twelve pitches of the octave are ordered and strictly manipulated

Upbeat: A weak or unaccented beat leading to a downbeat

Variation form: A form in which a single melodic unit is repeated with harmonic, rhythmic, dynamic, or timbral changes

Variations: Sectional pieces in which each section repeats certain musical elements while others change around them

Vernacular music: Music that was developed in America outside the European concert music tradition

Vivace, vivo: Lively

Vocables: Sung syllables that have no precise meaning, e.g., “tra-la-la”

Voice: (1) Soprano, alto, tenor, bass; (2) a contrapuntal line —whether sung or played by instruments — in a polyphonic piece such as a fugue

Waltz: A nineteenth-century dance in triple meter

Whole note: The longest note in normal use, and the basis of the duration of shorter notes (half notes, quarter notes, etc.)

Whole step, whole tone: The interval equal to two half steps (semitones)

Whole-tone scale: A scale, used sometimes by Debussy, comprising only six notes to the octave, each a whole tone apart (i.e., two semitones)

Word painting: Musical illustration of the meaning of a word or a short verbal phrase

Yueqin (yuéh-chin): A Chinese lute; heard in Beijing opera