Glossary of Musical Terms

In Western music, Italian words and phrases are commonly used to express musical ideas; within written music notation these words instruct musicians on how to perform the piece. You may encounter words or phrases in other languages throughout your musical life as well.

A cappella - singing without instrumental accompaniment. The Italian words translate to “in the chapel.” You may also see this term spelled acappella, a capella, or acapella.

Accelerando - to gradually speed up, or to increase the tempo. The opposite of accelerando is ritardando, to gradually slow down. This is one of the many terms used to express tempo in music.

Beat - the inner pulse of the music. Often you can feel the beat in a piece of music by tapping your toe or moving your body to the music as you listen. Beats can be fast or slow, or anything in between, and they are organized into measures in order to express the meter and feeling of a song.

Cadence - the end of a musical thought or phrase, normally indicated by a pattern of notes, harmonies, or rhythms that leave the listener feeling as if the phrase is completed, similar to the end of a sentence. A cadence may be considered “partial” or “full” or “deceptive” (etc.) depending on the circumstance, and could occur at the end of a line, a section, the end of a piece, or several times throughout a piece.

Dynamics - the different variations of softness and loudness within a piece of music. Composers indicate with musical symbols the volume that a note, phrase, or passage of music should be, and the musician varies the volume of sound on their instrument – in different ways, depending on the instrument.

Fermata 𝄐 - a marking in music that indicates a pause, hold, or stop. Technically, it indicates that the note over which it is placed should be held longer than its typical duration. Depending on the piece, the context, or the performer, the pause may be long or short, or may leave space for a musical flourish or cadenza.

Forte f - pronounced “four-tay,” the musical word for loud. The opposite of forte is piano - pronounced “pi-ah-no.” This is one of the many terms used to express dynamics in music.

Harmony - what we refer to when we hear more than one pitch or tone occurring at the same time. Different combinations of notes that are heard together can either be perceived as “consonant,” (often considered to be pleasant or beautiful), or “dissonant,” (often considered to be unpleasant or clashing).

Legato – pronounced “leh-gah-toe,” the musical word for smooth. The opposite of legato is staccato, “steh-cah-toe.”

Measure - also known as a “bar,” a measure is a segment of a piece of music that includes a specific number of beats. In written music scores, the measures are divided by vertical lines, referred to as “bar lines". The number of beats in a measure is determined by the meter of a song. For instance, if the meter is 4/4, then there are 4 beats in every measure; if it is 3/4, then there are 3 beats in every measure.

Meter - refers to the recurring beat pattern in a piece or section of music. Many pieces of music are “in 4”, meaning that you count and feel the beat as 1-2-3-4: in this case, the meter is 4/4 (“four four”). Other pieces may be “in 3”, or have a meter of 3/4 (“three four”) if they feel 1-2-3. There are many different meters, some more common in some musical cultures than others: (4/4, 3/4, 2/4, 5/4, 3/8, 6/8, 9/8, 12/8…). 4/4 is the most common in Western music, so it is alternately referred to as “common time.”

“Rhythm is the motion of music. Meter expresses the way in which this motion is measured.”*

Mood - the way that music makes us feel; another way to describe this would be the emotions or ideas that come across when you listen to a piece of music. Many composers and musicians work to create different moods within their pieces, with the goal of sharing an emotional idea or a picture with the listener.

Octave - Oct meaning “eight,” an octave is a distance between pitches, otherwise known as an eighth. In Western music, this is the distance between the first and the last notes of the scale, and they have the same letter name (C and C, D and D, in solfège Do and Do, etc). Technically, the higher note of an octave vibrates at exactly twice the frequency of the lower note of the octave; for example if a note has a frequency of 440 Hz (hertz), then the note one octave above it has a frequency of 880 Hz. You can hear an example of an octave in the song Mr. Frog, during the “Glumph, Ribbit” section, jumping from a lower C to a higher C.

Phrase – short section within a piece of music that is a musical thought. Often, the phrases are the individual sentences within a song.

“Phrasing in music means the grouping of tones into phrases and sentences. The rhythmic element plays a most important part in phrasing, and although the melodic element (the shape of the tune as regards pitch) and the harmonic element (the combinations of tones heard with the melody) are also to be considered”.*

Piano p – pronounced “pi-ah-no,” the musical word for soft. The opposite of piano is forte – pronounced “four-tay.” This is one of the many terms used to express dynamics in music.

Pitch - the highness or lowness of a sound in music. Many musical instruments – not all, but most – can produce different pitches from low sounds to high sounds, and our voices can, too.

Pitch Contour - refers to the direction that the pitches may change in a line or phrase of music. Pitches that are going up or moving higher have a pitch contour that curves upward, while pitches that are going down or moving lower have a pitch contour that curves downward.

Rhythm - refers to the duration of sounds; a passage of music can be comprised of sounds of equal or unequal duration. There is a relationship between the rhythm and the meter, and the rhythm and the beat. In written music notation, the duration of a note is expressed by the way the note is drawn. For instance, a note that has a colored in oval–the part called the note head–with a vertical line–called the stem–is held for 1 beat when the meter is /4.

“Rhythm is the motion of music”.*

Ritardando - to gradually slow down, or to decrease the tempo. The opposite of ritardando is accelerando, to gradually speed up. This is one of the many terms used to express tempo in music.

Score - also known as “sheet music," a piece of written or printed music.

Syncopation - when a rhythm, or rhythms, within a piece occur in an unexpected way, placing a part of, or all of, the melody or theme off of the beat. This can sometimes be an interruption to an expected or regular rhythm, or include stresses or accents in unexpected places.

Tempo, Tempi (plural) - the speed at which a piece or section of music is played. Often tempo is described or indicated by a composer by a musical word, such as allegro, meaning fast, or lento, meaning slow (there are many of these words indicating varying degrees of speed). Other times, tempo can be expressed by indicating the number of beats per minute.

Timbre – pronounced “tam-ber,” this refers to the tone color or tone qualities of instruments, sounds, or voices. In short, timbre is what makes a particular instrument or voice sound different from another.

*from Angela Diller’s First Theory Book (1921)