Music Glossary

Question 1

absolute pitch (perfect pitch)

Answer 1

the innate ability to identify pitches by name without using any instrumental aid as a reference

Question 2

arpeggio

Answer 2

– a chord whose individual pitches are played in an upward or downward succession rather than simultaneously, in the manner that one would strum a guitar or harp

Question 3

augmentation

Answer 3

lengthened note values of a melody
heard earlier in a piece

Question 4

Baroque era

Answer 4

– a designation for the period of
western European music history spanning the seventeenth century and the first third of the eighteenth

Question 5

viola de gamba (bass viol)

Answer 5

an instrument with (usually) six strings and frets, played with a bow

Question 6

crotales / antique cymbals

Answer 6

small disks of brass that produce extremely resonant bell-like sounds when struck

Question 7

bodhran

Answer 7

a single-headed drum used in Irish folk music

Question 8

bridge

Answer 8

a nickname for the “B” phrase of a 32-bar
form (A-A-B-A)

Question 9

cadenza

Answer 9

a section during a solo concerto in which
the unaccompanied soloist performs virtuosic (and sometimes improvised) material while the orchestra stops playing

Question 10

call-and-response

Answer 10

performance technique in which a soloist or small group presents a short motif that is answered (with similar or contrasting material) by another musician or a larger group

Question 11

canon

Answer 11

technique in which a single melody
is performed by multiple musicians, but at staggered, overlapping intervals of time, thus producing imitative polyphony; a synonym is round, and an example is the customary performance technique of the childhood tune “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”;

Question 12

celesta

Answer 12

a small keyboard instrument with metal
bars that are struck by felt hammers operated by a piano-like keyboard

Question 13

chant

Answer 13

a single-line (monophonic) melody with
religious text

Question 14

character piece

Answer 14

a composition that conveys a particular image or sensation without trying to depict a programmatic storyline

Question 15

chromatic mediant

Answer 15

an altered version of the mediant or submediant triad, achieved either by reversing the customary mode of that triad (i.e., turning a minor iii triad into a major III) or by building a triad on the chromatic neighbor to the mediant or submediant rather than the normal diatonic scale degrees (i.e., building a triad on E♭ rather than E♮ when in the key of C major)

This is a long way to say you play 3 notes, some of which aren’t in key

Question 16

Classic era

Answer 16

a designation for the period of western European music history spanning the last two- thirds of the eighteenth century and persisting into the early nineteenth century

Question 17

concerto

Answer 17

an instrumental genre that juxtaposes
an orchestra against (most often) a soloist, or possibly a small group of soloists

Question 18

conjunct

Answer 18

a melody in which successive pitches
rise or fall primarily in small, stepwise intervals

Question 19

conservatory

Answer 19

a school that focuses solely on training in a particular discipline in the arts, such as music, theater, dance, or the visual arts

Question 20

cover

Answer 20

a recording or performance of a piece by someone other than the first person to perform the work

Question 21

delicato

Answer 21

an instruction to play a piece “delicately”

Question 22

disjunct

Answer 22

a melody in which successive pitches rise
or fall primarily in large intervals

Question 23

Dorian mode

Answer 23

a scale pattern containing half-steps
between scale degrees 2 and 3 and scale degrees 6 and 7

Question 24

double-stop

Answer 24

a technique used on string instruments in which the player bows (or plucks) two strings simultaneously to produce an interval

Question 25

drop (verb)

Answer 25

to release a recording, whether audio or video, in the popular music world

Question 26

drum roll

Answer 26

a technique of sustaining a drum’s sound by playing it with rapidly alternating beaters or drumsticks

Question 27

ecology

Answer 27

a field of biology that examines the relationships between organisms and their physical environment

Question 28

electronic dance music (EDM)

Answer 28

a heavily percussive electronic musical style designed for dancing at nightclubs, festivals, etc.

Question 29

elegy

Answer 29

a piece with a melancholy or sorrowful character, often intended to mourn for someone who has died

Question 30

encore

Answer 30

a repeated or additional performance of music in response to audience demand; it is the French word meaning “again.”

Question 31

EP

Answer 31

an “extended play” recording with multiple tracks, but not as many as would appear on a full album

Question 32

fauna

Answer 32

a Latin word pertaining to the animal life within a particular environment

Question 33

fermata

Answer 33

a symbol (dot with curve over it) indicating that a note (or silence) should be sustained longer than its notated value, briefly halting the underlying pulse of the music

Question 34

flora

Answer 34

a Latin word pertaining to the plant life within a particular environment

Question 35

fx

Answer 35

artificially created or enhanced sounds. Stands for "effects"

Question 36

glissando

Answer 36

a rapid, sweeping glide up or down through the pitches of an instrument (players of string instruments can slide up or down the strings, parallel with their fingerboard)

Question 37

grace note

Answer 37

a short note played as an embellishment just before a longer pitch

Question 38

guiro

Answer 38

a hollow gourd with notches on one side that produces a raspy sound when the notches are scraped with a stick

Question 39

hemiola

Answer 39

the sensation of temporarily shifting from an established duple meter to the feeling of triple meter, or vice versa

Question 40

intelligent dance music (IDM)

Answer 40

a type of electronic music meant for home listening rather than dancing

Question 41

leitmotif

Answer 41

a melodic idea representing a particular person, object, or idea

Question 42

manuscript

Answer 42

a handwritten document

Question 43

medieval era

Answer 43

a time period in Western music spanning roughly from the sixth century through the fourteenth (also called the Middle Ages)

Question 44

melismatic text-setting

Answer 44

a type of singing in which multiple notes in a melody correspond to a single syllable of poetry

Question 45

Mellotron

Answer 45

an early electronic keyboard instrument (manufactured between 1964 and 1986) that sampled pre-recorded analogue sounds

Question 46

Mixolydian mode

Answer 46

a scale pattern containing half-steps between scale degrees 3 and 4 and between 6 and 7

Question 47

multi-tracking / over-dubbing

Answer 47

the process of taking separate recordings and assembling them to play simultaneously

Question 48

mute

Answer 48

a device that quiets or muffles an instrument’s sound in some way

Question 49

opera

Answer 49

a genre originating in the Baroque era that resembles a play, but which requires characters to sing their roles

Question 50

ornithologist

Answer 50

a scientist who studies birds

Question 51

outro

Answer 51

a synonym for “coda,” frequently used in popular music

Question 52

overture

Answer 52

a short piece for an orchestra; sometimes it precedes a theatrical work, but many overtures are created to be concert compositions

Question 53

pedal tone

Answer 53

a sustained low pitch, similar to long notes played by an organ’s pedals

Question 54

pre-chorus

Answer 54

a transitional section added to many verse-chorus (verse-refrain) forms; it occurs after the verse and before the chorus

Question 55

prepared piano

Answer 55

an acoustic piano which has had objects inserted between its strings to alter its tone color

Question 56

program

Answer 56

1) a description of the events or ideas portrayed by a programmatic composition; 2) a printed listing of the repertory to be performed during a concert or recital

Question 57

programmatic

Answer 57

instrumental music that conveys a sense of a specific storyline but without the use of lyrics

Question 58

progressive (prog) rock

Answer 58

a style of rock with songs that feature multiple sections, a wide array of instruments (especially orchestral), and blended styles; sometimes called “symphonic rock”

Question 59

quintuplet

Answer 59

a group of five notes that occupy the same duration of time that four notes of the same value would normally require

Question 60

Renaissance Era

Answer 60

a designation for the period of western European music history spanning the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

Question 61

Renaissance Man

Answer 61

a person with skills and/or talents in many different areas; similar to “polymath”

Question 62

rhythm and blues (R&B)

Answer 62

an evolving style label that, by the late 1950s, referred to Black music with energetic and hard-swinging rhythms that made it suitable for dancing

Question 63

Romantic Era

Answer 63

a nickname for western European music that emphasized expressivity, encompassing the majority of the nineteenth century

Question 64

rondellus

Answer 64

a medieval polyphonic genre in which two or more voices sing in harmony and then trade parts, with each person singing the line that the other person had previously sung

Question 65

rota

Answer 65

a medieval polyphonic genre in which two or more voices sing in harmony and then trade parts, with each person singing the line that the other person had previously sung

Question 66

round

Answer 66

a vocal genre that employs exact imitative polyphony (each successive voice sings the same melody that the initial vocalist sang); also called canon

Question 67

sacred

Answer 67

an adjective for something that is intended for religious practices

Question 68

sampling

Answer 68

taking a section of audio from another source and then reworking it into the creation of a new track

Question 69

sawari

Answer 69

The japanese musical tradition of trying to imitate sounds of nature as accurately as possible. Often just considered noise in western cultures

Question 70

secular

Answer 70

an adjective for something that is intended for religious practices

Question 71

sforzando

Answer 71

suddenly loud

Question 72

stopped horn

Answer 72

a technique of inserting a fist within the flared bell of a French horn in order to create a nasal, “buzzy” timbre

Question 73

syllabic text-setting

Answer 73

a type of singing in which each syllable of poetry is paired with a single note

Question 74

symphony

Answer 74

an orchestral genre originating in the Classic period, comprised (customarily) of three or four contrasting movements

Question 75

through-composed

Answer 75

a term for a piece of music without clearly repeated sections

Question 76

tremolo

Answer 76

a rapid repetition of a pitch or an oscillation between two pitches that creates a “trembling” effect | done with the bow of a stringed instrument

Question 77

trio

Answer 77

a piece designed to feature three performers

Question 78

Tristan Chord

Answer 78

a four-note dissonant harmony that initially consisted of the pitches F, B, D♯, and G♯, taken from the prelude to Richard Wagner’s "Tristan und Isolde"

Question 79

vibrato

Answer 79

a slight wavering or oscillating sound added in performance by various means (back-and-forth movements of the hand, air support, etc.); the effect adds intensity to the note

Question 80

virtuosic

Answer 80

an adjective to describe technically challenging music

Question 81

waltz

Answer 81

a nineteenth-century ballroom couple’s dance in a moderate tempo and triple meter ## Footnote strong downbeat in lower instruments, two light upbeats in higher with a melodical line over all that

Question 82

word-painting

Answer 82

a compositional technique in which a composer tries to illustrate the literal meaning of a particular word or phrase with musical elements, such as setting the word “mountain” or “sky” on a high pitch