Welcome to The Mad Logophile. Here we explore words; their origins, evolution, usage. Words are alive. They are born, they evolve and, sometimes, they die. They are our principal tool for communicating with one another. There are millions of words yet only an estimated 171,476 words are in common current use. As a logophile, I enjoy discovering new words, using them and learning about their origins.
Due to some technical difficulties, I was unable to post last week. The problem is still occurring, forcing me to have to break this into two diaries.
Music has been with us since our early ancestors banged two rocks together and discovered that they liked the sound. There are many different genres of music but all of them are an "...arrangement of tones in an orderly sequence so as to produce a unified and continuous composition" (Websters New Riverside University Dictionary).
Like any specialty, music has its own vocabulary. Some of it may be familiar, or at least a familiar word in a new connotation. There's a lot of Italian and French ahead, too. Let's see how much we recognize....
♪ Music performed without instrumental accompaniment is a cappella.
♪ When noted on sheet music, accelerando (accel.) means to gradually speed up the tempo.
♪ An accent is placed above a note to indicate stress or emphasis.
♪ An accidental is a note -- sharp, flat, or natural -- not included in the given key.
♪ Accompaniment is a vocal or instrumental part that supports or is background for a solo.
♪ As a notation, adagio means slow; a speed slower than andante yet faster than largo.
♪ In music, ad lib permits the performer to vary the tempo and/or to include or omit a vocal or instrumental part. Synonymous with a piacere in classical music or jamming in jazz or rock.
♪ Three terms applying to tempo: affrettando tells the performer to play hurriedly, agilmente means to play in a lively manner and agitato, with excitement.
♪ An air is a melody or tune, especially in the soprano or tenor range. It also describes a solo with or without accompaniment.
♪ Albums are full length recordings. The first albums were pioneered by Odeon in 1909 when it released the "Nutcracker Suite" by Tchaikovsky on 4 double-sided discs in a specially-designed package. The album arguably reached its apotheosis in the 60's and 70s before it was replaced with the compact disc.
♪ Aleatoric music or chance music is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer(s). One example is the Musikalisches Würfelspiel or musical dice game; consisting of a sequence of musical measures, each measure having several possible versions, and a procedure for selecting the sequence based on the throwing of dice.
♪ In notation, alla breve is quick duple meter in which there are two beats in each measure and the half note receives one beat (2/2 rather than 4/4).
♪ Allargando indicates a slowing of tempo, usually with increasing volume. It is most frequently encountered toward the end of a piece.
♪ Allegro denotes a quick tempo or in a cheerful manner. Or the Rockettes ;).
♪ Alto can refer to the voice or to instruments. It is the lowest female voice or the highest male voice or the second highest of four parts in a choir. In regard to instruments, alto is the second highest in a family of musical instruments; the viola in the violin family, for example.
♪ A moderate tempo is andante. And andantino is slightly faster than andante.
♪ Not only is an anthem a song of patriotism, it is also a song of praise. Specifically, it is a piece of sacred vocal music, usually with words taken from the Scriptures. It has also come to mean a song symbolic of a group, era or movement as in the Who's My Generation or (your favorite anthem and what it represents).
♪ An appoggiatura is an ornamental note of long or short duration that temporarily displaces, and subsequently resolves into, a main note, usually by stepwise motion.
♪ An arabesque is a term used for various kinds of melodic, contrapuntal, or harmonic ornamentation. The term is taken from the Arabic art and architecture which was very ornate. Several composers including Claude Debussy and Robert Schumann have used this term as a title for compositions.
♪ A favorite device of one of my musical idols is the arpeggio. This word describes the notes of a chord as they are sung or played one after the other rather than simultaneously.
♪ An arrangement is the adaption of a composition, usually to instruments for which it was not originally designed or for some other use for which it was not at first written.
♪ The degree to which notes are separated or connected is the articulation. These characteristics of the attack, duration, and decay (or envelope) of a given note are indicated by symbols and icons on a musical score.
♪ In notation, a tempo is a direction to return to the previous tempo.
♪ Music without tonality, or music that is centered around no central key or scale is said to be atonal. A good example of this style is Schoenberg's Suite for Piano, Op. 25, I. Most people either love atonality or hate it.
♪ A morning concert in the open air performed for a specific individual (such as a member of a royal family) is called an aubade. As opposed to a serenade, which is performed in the evening.
♪ Augmentation is a compositional technique in which the statement of a melody is repeated with longer note values, often twice as slow as the original. The opposite of diminution.
♪Augmented is the term for a major or perfect interval which has been enlarged by one half-step, for example; c-g, (an augmented fifth) or c-d (an augmented second). Any chord that has an augmented interval between its highest and lowest notes is known as an augmented chord.
♪ Backbeat is a term used to describe a continuous heavy accent on beats 2 and 4 in jazz and rock and roll music.
♪ A simple song of natural construction, a ballad is usually in the narrative or descriptive form. It usually has several verses of similar construction and may or may not have a refrain. A ballade, on the other hand, is a medieval form of music and poetry made up of three stanzas of equal length with a recurrent refrain at the end of each. This term is also applied to a Romantic genre, especially a lyric piano composition.
♪ Lines drawn perpendicularly across the staff to divide it into measures are bar lines. The term also means measure in common usage, but the bar is strictly the line itself, and not the measure it defines. The bar came into use in music after 1600.
♪ A barcarolle was originally a Venetian gondolier's song, typically in 6/8 or 12/8 meter to simulate the motion of the boat moving through the waves of the water with the rhythmic rowing of the gondolier. Operas by Rossini, Verdi, and Johann Strauss, among others, featured barcaroles. My favorite is Offenbach's from Tales of Hoffman.
♪ Bariolage is a fancy synonym for melody. Go ahead, show off and use it at your next concert.
♪ The music of the period c. 1600 - 1750 C.E., directly following the Renaissance and preceding the Classical era is known as baroque. This style is characterized by a lot of ornamentation, thus the name. Some composers of this era include Antonio Vivaldi, Dominico Scarlatti, Johann Sebastian Bach, and George Frederick Handel.
♪ Barrelhouse was a slang term for bar rooms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which became synonymous with a style of jazz piano performance from the same period. The barrelhouse music was similar to boogie-woogie and was characterized by a loud, raucous sound with a fast tempo.
♪ Bass clef is another name for the F clef.
♪ Basso continuo, or thorough-bass, is a characteristic of Baroque music consisting of a bass part that runs continuously throughout a work. A good example is Pachelbel's Canon in D -- listen to the cello part.
♪ The tapered stick used by the conductor to define the beat of the music is called a baton. This is also the word for the large ornamented tapered rod or mace used by a drum major in a marching band or military band.
♪ Battuto is another word for beat, bar, or measure.
♪ A beam is a thick horizontal line that is used to replace the flags of a series of two or more notes that form a rhythmic grouping. Beamed notes are easier to read than a series of notes with flags. Beams are typically used in rhythmic groupings that span one beat of the specific meter of the composition.
♪ Berceuse is a French term meaning "cradle song" or lullaby. Specifically, this is a song sung to soothe a child to sleep.
♪ Binary form is two-part (A/B) structure of music; usually each part is repeated. The term can also mean any form with two periods, or sections.
♪ A bisbigliando is a soft tremolo performed on a harp by lightly and rapidly moving fingers back and forth across the strings. Harpo Marx was a master of this technique.
♪ The occurrence of two different tonalities at the same time is, naturally enough, bitonality.
♪ A blue note is slight drop of pitch on the third, seventh, and sometimes the fifth tone of the scale, common in blues and jazz. Also bent pitch.
♪ A bolero is a lively Spanish dance in 3/4 time. It is often accompanied by the castanets and sometimes with singing. Ravel's is probably the best known.
♪ The drone, the pipe or string producing a constant pitch in an instrument like the bagpipes, is called the bourdon.
♪ The bourree is an old French dance in use during the Baroque period. It is very rapid and hearty, usually in 2/4 or 2/2 time.
♪ The brass family are Wind instruments made out of metal with either a cup or funnel shaped mouthpiece. Examples include the trumpet, cornet, bugle, Flugelhorn, trombone, tuba, saxaphone and French horn.
♪ Another term for arpeggio, a broken chord consists of notes of a chord played in succession rather than simultaneously.
♪ The C clef is a clef marking that may sit anywhere on the five line staff, and whichever line its center points to is middle C. This is also called the movable clef because it can signify a number of different clefs. The most common c clefs are the tenor and alto clef, where middle C is on the fourth line and the third line, respectively.
♪ Cadence is a chordal or melodic progression which occurs at the close of a phrase, section, or composition; a temporary or permanent ending. The most frequently used cadences are perfect, plagal, and deceptive. Generally, cadence is the beat of any rhythmic activity.
♪ An ornamental passage performed near the close of a composition, usually improvised, and usually performed by a soloist, cadenzas are mostly to be found in arias or a concertos.
♪ A caesura is the sudden silencing of the sound, a pause or break, indicated by the following symbol: // often referred to as railroad tracks. The break can be of any length at the discretion of the conductor.
♪ The cakewalk is a dance which originated with the slaves on the plantations of the old south. Couples improvised high steps, parading, and lively movements all to highly syncopated music. A prize (usually a cake) was often given to the most innovative dancers, hence the name "cakewalk." The duple meter (2/4) music is characterized by a short-long-short ragtime and marches of the period.
♪ A musical directive to the performer to make the music die away in volume and sometimes in tempo as well is a calendo.
♪ In notation, calmando directs the performer to become calm or quiet in the designated section of a composition.
♪ Cambia is a direction found in scores that directs the performer to change tuning or instruments.
♪ A canon is the strictest form of imitation; it is counterpoint in which each voice exactly imitates the previous voice at a fixed distance. Canonic is used to describe a polyphonic style of music in which all the parts have the same melody but which start at different times.
♪ A cantata is a poem set to music. It is usually meant to be performed in several movements; airs, recitatives, and choruses.
♪ A sacred hymn or song is known as a canticle. This also describes one of the non-metrical hymns of praise in the Bible.
♪ Cantoris is a term applied to Anglican church music which refers to the half of the choir sitting on the cantor's side of the church (North). The other half of the choir is referred to as the decani and is near the dean (South).
♪ A device for transposing a fretted string instrument such as the guitar, is called a capo. It is fitted in various positions on the neck to facilitate playing in another key.
♪ The term carol was derived from a medieval French word, carole, the name of a circle dance. In England it was first associated with pagan songs celebrating the winter solstice. It then developed into a song of praise and celebration, usually for Christmas.
♪ A castrato was a male singer who was castrated during boyhood to preserve the soprano or alto vocal register. They were prominent in 17th- and early 18th-century opera. This practice was sanctioned by the Vatican because women were not permitted to sing in the church. The last castrato died shortly before the invention of the music recording so we have only descriptions of their bell-like voices.
♪ A humorous composition for three or four voices common in England during the 15th century was called a catch. The parts are written so that each singer catches up to the other parts, giving the words different meanings than if each line was sung alone, usually to a humorous or bawdy effect.
♪ Not just a penny, a cent is a logarithmic unit used in measuring the difference between two pitches in an equal-tempered scale. One cent is one one-hundredth of an equal-tempered half step (semitone).
♪ A chanson is a French polyphonic song of the Middle Ages and Renaissance set to either courtly or popular poetry.
♪ A hymn of the Lutheran church, a chorale is usually written for four voice harmony. The melody is usually in the top voice, with supporting harmony in the lower voices. Many chorales were written by J. S. Bach.
♪ A combination of three or more tones sounded simultaneously is a chord.
♪ The chromatic scale is a scale which divides the octave into its semitones. There are twelve semitones, or half steps, to an octave in the chromatic scale.
♪ The circle of fifths is the succession of keys or chords proceeding by fifths. In the key of C major, the circle of fifths would proceed as follows: C, G, D, A, E, B, F#, C#, G# (Ab), D# (Eb), A# (Bb), F, C.
♪ Even music has its shills... A claque is a group of people employed in a theater or opera house to stimulate applause in the audience. Typically, they are employed by management or individual performers to ensure a positive audience response, but occasionally are employed by those hostile to a performance to ensure a negative audience response. Just like a town hall!
♪ Classical music is music which was written in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The chief composers of this style of music are Haydn, Mozart, and early Beethoven. This music flourished chiefly in Vienna, and is characterized by its periodic structure. The term "classical music" is now also erroneously taken to mean any music of the Baroque through late-Romantic eras.
♪ The clef is a symbol placed at the beginning of the staff to indicate the pitch of the notes on the staff. The most commonly used clefs in choral music are the G, or treble, clef and the F or bass clef. On the keyboard, all the notes above middle C are said to be in the G clef; all the notes below middle C in the F clef.
♪ A coda is the closing few measures of a composition, usually not a part of the main theme groups of the standard form of a composition, but a finishing theme added to the end to give the composition closure. Coda also refers to anything after the last entry of the theme or subject in a fugue.
♪ The 4/4 meter is also known as common time.
♪ In the notation, con means with. So con amore is with love, confuoco is with vehement energy, con brio means with spirit or perhaps with scouring pad. ;)
♪ A concerto is a piece for a soloist and orchestra. A concertino is a short concerto or the group of soloists in a concerto grosso, in which a small group of solo instruments (the concertino) plays in opposition to a larger ensemble.
♪ The concert master is the first chair violinist in an orchestra.
♪ Concert pitch is the international tuning pitch, currently A 440 or 442 Hertz. This is also a term for the pitch for non-transposing (C) instruments.
♪ The conductor uses conducting patterns; arm and hand movements that create patterns to communicate to the performers the specific beat of the music. The common conducting patterns are 2-beat, 3-beat, 4-beat, and 6-beat although there are many others used for special purposes.
♪ Stepwise movement of music is known as conjunct movement. This refers to the movement of music in intervals of steps rather than in leaps (disjunct movement).
♪ Consonance means an accord of sounds sweet and pleasing to the ear as opposed to dissonance. Perfect consonances are the perfect fourth, fifth, and octave, imperfect consonances are the major and minor thirds and sixths.
♪ Consort is a 17th-century term for an instrumental chamber ensemble and for compositions written for these ensembles (left).
♪ A variety of contrasts such as tempo (contrasting fast to slow), timbre (contrasting strings to brass or strings to woodwinds), dynamics (contrasting loud to soft), and meter (contrasting duple to triple) is essential to good composition. Contrast is a means to maintain listener interest.
♪ Cori spezzati is a style of performance with groups of singers placed in different locations of a building. This performance style was developed in the late Renaissance and Baroque eras. Generally the choirs are relatively small, and perform across a cathedral from one another.
♪ A second but subordinate melodic line sometimes found in music is called a countermelody. Counterpoint is the art of combining two or more melodies to be performed simultaneously and musically. In counterpoint, the melody is supported by another melody rather than by chords. The secondary theme of a fugue, heard against the subject is called a countertheme.
♪ Crescendo is a directive to a performer to smoothly increase the volume of a particular phrase or passage. It is designated with the word crescendo at the beginning of the passage or with the crescendo symbol. There is typically a dynamic mark at either end of the symbol indicating the desired volume before and after the crescendo.
♪ A phrase that begins on the downbeat of a measure and ends at the end of a measure is said to be crustic; a phrase that starts and ends in the middle of a measure is said to be anacrustic.
♪ In notation, da capo tells the performer to return to the beginning of the piece.
♪ Dämpfen is a directive to the musician to perform the indicated passage of a composition while muffling, deadening or restraining the tone of the instrument.
♪ The opposite of crescendo, decrescendo tells the player to gradually play softer. Synonymous with diminuendo.
♪ Declamation is a method of setting text or words to music where rhythms and pitches are used to enhance the meaning or sound of specific syllables of the text.
♪ A deploration is a composition of the Medieval and Renaissance eras inspired by the death of a composer, commonly in the phrygian mode.
♪ An early form of harmony used in the Medieval era, a descant was formed by adding parts to the tenor in oblique and contrary motion. In descant, all the voices move at approximately the same speed.
♪ Diatonic describes proceeding in the order of the octave based on five tones and two semitones. The major and natural minor scales are diatonic.
♪ Diminished refers to a perfect interval (perfect fourth, fifth, or octave) or a minor interval (minor second, third, sixth, or seventh) which is made smaller by the subtraction of one semitone.
♪ The shortening of note values is diminution; the opposite of augmentation.
♪ A dirge is a composition designed specifically for a funeral or in commemoration of the dead. The word comes from Dirige, Dominus Deus meus, which is to be found in the Roman Office for the Dead.
♪ Dissonance is two or more notes sounded together which are discordant, and, in the prevailing harmonic system, require resolution to a consonance.
♪ A dithyramb was an Ancient Greek song written in praise of Dionysus. The term was also applied to music that was intended to evoke the exotic emotions associated with Bacchus, used in the 19th century.
♪ Divisi is a directive in ensemble music that instructs one section to divide into two or more separate sections, each playing a separate part.
♪ Dodecaphonic is a method of composition that holds all twelve tones of the chromatic scale available for use, not restricting the music to those notes of major, minor, or other restrictive scale.
♪ A directive to musicians to perform the indicated passage of a composition sweetly, softly, or with tender emotion is dolce. If it's to be played very sweetly, the direction is dolcissimo. In contrast, doloroso means to play sadly or mournfully.
♪ The chord or triad that is based on the fifth tone of the scale is dominant. In the key of C, the dominant triad would consist of G, B, and D. A dominant seventh chord is a dominant chord with a seventh added; in the key of C, the dominant seventh chord would consist of G, B, D, and F.
♪ The double bar is the two vertical lines placed on the staff to indicate the end of a section or a composition. Also, used with two dots to enclose repeated sections. A double flat is the symbol for lowering pitch one step while a double sharp is the symbol for raising pitch one step.
♪ The Dorian mode is used in Gregorian chant. It is based upon the second tone of the major scale. In the key of C, the Dorian mode would be based on D, and would include D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D. It is often called the sad or depressing scale.
♪ The down beat is the first beat, given by the conductor with a downward stroke.
♪ Duple meter is a rhythmic pattern with the measure being divisible by two. This includes simple double rhythm such as 2/2, 4/4, but also such compound rhythms as 6/8.
♪ Durchkomponiert is a term applied to songs which use fresh melodies for each verse rather than the same melody for each.
♪ The loudness or softness of a composition is its dynamics. to indicate softness piano (p) is used and forte (f) to indicate loudness. Also included in dynamics are the crescendo, decrescendo and the sforzando (sudden loudness).
♪ Meaning escaped note, an echappee is an ornamentation between notes in which the ornamental note will go the opposite way of the progression, followed by the proper note in the progression.
♪ An eighth note or rest is a note or rest half the length of a quarter note and an eighth of the length of a whole note.
♪ An embellishment is an ornamentation. Notes, usually of short duration, are added to the main melody of a composition to decorate or ornament the melody. They may either be written in by the composer or improvised by the performer. Also known as a grace note (and IMHO, nobody can sing a grace note like Greg Lake).
♪ Enharmonic is a term describing two separate notations standing for the same sound. For example, the enharmonic spelling of F-sharp is G-flat.
♪ The term referring to the attack, duration and decay of a sound is the envelope.
♪ Equal temperament is a method of tuning that involves tuning the octave exactly, and tuning each of the twelve semitones therein exactly equally in degree to one another. In this system, the thirds will be slightly under pitch. This is the modern tuning system.
♪ A study or an exercise designed to train a musician technically as well as musically is called an etude.
♪ A type of street song and dance of Portugal usually accompanied by a guitar, the fado, also known as fadinho , originated in Lisbon.
♪ A false note is a muted or dampened note that has rhythm but often no discernible pitch. It is often thought of as an implied note in a musical phrase and can be not performed or performed only faintly for effect.
♪ Prevalent in Hawai'ian music, falsetto is a technique in which a mature male voice can reach notes of the soprano or alto range. In falsetto, only the edges of the vocal cords vibrate as opposed to the whole length.
♪ It's not just a great film... a fantasia is an instrumental composition in which a composer yields to his imagination in regard to form and organization. A fantasia follows no particular pattern or form, and is generally of fairly large dimensions. In the Baroque era it often served as an introductory composition to a fugue.
♪ A fermata is a notation mark directing the performer to sustain the note of a composition affecting all parts and lasting as long as the artistic interpretation of the conductor allows. The fermata is marked above the note or rest to be held.
♪ A fifth is an interval of five diatonic degrees, counting the first and last degree. For example, a fifth above C would be G. Also, the interval formed by a given tone and the fifth tone above or below it; for example, c up to g, c down to f. Intervals of the fifth may be perfect, diminished, or augmented.
♪ The finale is the last movement of a symphony or sonata, or the last selection of an opera.
♪ Fine is Italian for the end. In notation, it indicates where a composition ends when there is a repeat of some section of the composition in such a way as to make locating the ending confusing.
♪ Often, repeated sections of a composition will have different endings for each repeat of that section. Although there are normally only first endings and second endings, the composer can choose to have as many different endings as there are repeats of the section. In Italian, these are primo and seconda volta.
♪ A flat is a symbol which tells the performer to lower the pitch of a note one half step.
♪ A full score is an instrumental score in which all the parts for the instruments appear on their own staves in standard instrumental family order.
♪ The fourth degree of the diatonic scale is known as, oddly enough, the fourth. Also, the interval formed by a given tone and the fourth tone above or below it; for example, c up to f; c down to g. Intervals of the fourth may be perfect, diminished, or augmented.
♪ A fugue is a form of composition popular in the Baroque era, in which a theme or subject is introduced by one voice, and is imitated by other voices in succession. Usually only the first few notes of the subject are imitated exactly, then each voice deviates slightly until the next time it enters again with the subject. Generally the voices overlap and weave in and out of each other forming a continuous, tapestry-like texture.
♪ The G-Clef is a symbol located at the beginning of a staff to indicate the pitches of the notes placed on the lines and spaces of the staff. The G clef is so named because the symbol is a stylized letter "G" that encircles the line of the staff, indicating where the "g" above middle C is located. The two G clefs still recognized today are the treble clef and the rarely used French violin clef.
♪ The galliard is a lively Renaissance dance in triple meter usually following and complementing the pavane. The name comes from the French word gaillard, meaning merry.
♪ The generalpause or the long pause serve the same function, and are identical in function to the fermata when used over a rest or barline. These pauses create a silence for a period of time at the discretion of the performer or conductor. As indicated in the name, these are intended to be pauses of longer duration than regular rests.
♪ Gesamtkunstwerk is a term for 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, where the integration of these elements were critical to his vision of a unified and complete art-form.
♪ A gig is what a musician calls a job. The term was probably first used around 1905, and today, is often used generically for employment or a job in any vocation. Also used to refer to the bag that holds their instrument and/or equipment, as in gig bag.
♪ In notation, giocoso is a directive to perform a certain passage of a composition in a happy, or merry manner. While giubilante indicates an exultant or jubilant feeling.
♪ A glissando is a rapid ascending or descending of the scale achieved by sliding a finger over the white keys of the piano. When performed on a piano or harp, not every semitone is played, because the finger is drawn across only the white keys in the case of the piano, or the scale available in the case of the harp. The instrument that is easiest to play a glissando on is the trombone because of its lack of valves or keys. Slang terms for the trombone glissando include tailgate and smear. A glissando with the voice is known as portamento or glide.
♪ On sheet music, grandioso tells the performer to play the music in a majestic or grand fashion.
♪ The Great Staff is a theoretical combination of eleven lines that encompass the bass clef and treble clef staves with the common line between them designating middle C. This staff can also display the third clef (C clef). Today, most identify the Great Staff with just the bass clef and treble clef with no common line between them.
♪ More notations... grave indicates a slow, solemn performance. Grazia or con grazia requests a graceful one. Guerriero is a directive to perform a certain passage in a martial, warlike manner.
♪ Gymel is a Medieval technique of splitting one voice part into two parts, both with the same range. In most cases the voices start and end together, but diverge in the middle of the composition.
♪ The Gypsy scale is a scale resembling the harmonic minor scale, but with an augmented fourth. It is called the Gypsy scale because of its exotic sound and its use in Hungarian music.
♪ Half can denote half the time of a whole step, note or rest. The interval from one pitch to the immediately adjacent pitch is a half step. It is the smallest interval on the keyboard.
♪ The natural pure sounds that are a part of any musical tone are harmonics. These include the overtones that are present with any fundamental tone. Harmonics are also high notes that are achieved on stringed instruments when the performer lightly places his finger exactly in the middle of the vibrating string. Steve Howe of Yes is a master of this technique.
♪ Harmony is the concordant combination of notes sounded simultaneously to produce chords. It is also the term for countermelodic notes to accompany a tune.
♪ A robust style of tenor voice especially suited for heroic operatic roles is the heldentenor.
♪ The infamous hemidemisemiquaver is a long word for a 64th note.
♪ In early music, hemiola meant the ratio of 3:2, employed musically in two senses: the ratio of the perfect fifth, whose musical value is 3:2, and the rhythmic relation of three notes in the time of two (the triplet). In later music, especially Viennese waltzes, the use of hemiola was common, in the sense of playing duplets in one part of the music, over which another part of the music is playing triplets.
♪ Any scale of seven tones is called a heptatonic scale.
♪ Heterophony is the practice of two or more musicians simultaneously performing slightly different versions of the same melody. Each version is characterized as improvised or ornamented versions of the melody.
♪ A scale of six notes discovered in the Middle Ages and used to teach theory is a hexachord. The six notes correspond to the first six notes of the modern major scale.
♪ Homophony is a style of composition in which there is one melody, and all the voices and accompaniments move rhythmically together. This is opposed to polyphonic, in which each voice may move independently. Homophony is not to be confused with monophony, in which all the voices and accompanying instruments are performing exactly the same notes.
♪ The Hyperaeolian mode is based on the seventh tone of the major scale (in the key of C the mode is based on B), and is also called locrian mode.
♪ In music, the term ictus is used in conducting to denote the specific point in a visible pattern of beat points that articulates the pulse of the music to the ensemble. This is typically the lowest point in the conducting patterns.
♪ Impressionism is the term applied to composers such as Debussy, Delius, and Ravel who were composing in the same general time and place that the impressionist painters were active. It refers to a blurring of classical forms, exaggerated attention to musical color, and a focus on modal and chromatic progressions rather than tonal ones. My favorite genre of classical music.
♪ The beginning words or notes of a musical composition are lnown as the incipit. One recognizable incipit would be the famous four-note theme of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
♪ Intabulation is the arrangement of vocal music for keyboard or plucked stringed instrument. Known as tabs for short.
♪ Not just a terrific Hitchcock film, intermezzo actually has a few other meanings; 1) a comic play with music performed between the acts, popular in the 16th and 17th centuries in France and Italy, 2) an instrumental interlude between the acts of a performance and 3) a short, lyric composition, often for the piano.
♪ The difference in pitch between two tones is the interval.
♪ Intonazione refers to a toccata-like composition, designed to introduce vocal music used in church services. The intonazione would set the proper key and tempo for the ensuing vocal composition.
♪ Melodic inversion is an exchange of ascending and descending movement, e.g. c up to f in descending becomes c down to g. Harmonic inversion is when the position of the chord is changed from root position to first inversion with the fifth in the lowest voice. For example, root position c-e-g; first inversion e-g-c; second inversion g-c-e.
♪ In the system of modes, the ionian mode is the one based on C, therefore, it is the modern major scale.
♪ Isorhythmic motet is a form of motet of the Medieval and early Renaissance eras that is based on a repeating rhythmic pattern found in one or more of the voices. The tenor is usually the voice with the repeating rhythmic structure.
♪ In notation, istesso is a directive to a performer to keep the beat the same throughout, even if there is a change in the time signature.
♪ In medieval France and Norman England, jongleurs were traveling entertainers who would perform music, dancing, plays, and other sorts of entertainment for courts.
♪ Just intonation is a manner of tuning in which the intervals are tuned so that they do not beat. In keyboard tuning, this means that the fifths are tuned very small in order to make most of the thirds pure.
♪ On sheet music, the key signature is the the sharp, flat, or natural signs placed at the beginning of a staff to denote the scale upon which the music is based.
♪ The note upon which a scale or mode is based or around which a composition is centered is the keynote.
♪ Klangfarbenmelodie is a term coined by composer Arnold Schoenberg to describe a style of composition that employs several different kinds of tone colors to a single pitch or to multiple pitches. This is achieved by distributing the pitch or melody among several different instruments.
♪ Klezmer is a musical style characteristic of European Jewish bands. The word comes from Hebrew, Kly Zemer meaning a musical instrument. The band consists of 3-4 musicians playing a double bass and two or three melodic instruments, often including a violin and a clarinet. Klezmer bands perform mostly in East European Folk musical style, which is often modified to accommodate shteygers (European Jewish musical modes) which are used in Jewish prayer.
♪ Kutchka is the Russian name given to five Russian composers of the 19th century who were credited with proclaiming the virtues of the Russian land, using as their inspiration the somber, mysterious Russian church music and Russian folk tunes. This became a nationalistic style, rejecting the Western stylistic views. The five Kutchka consisted of Mily Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modest Musorgsky, and Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
♪ There are several directions to begin L... Lacrimoso and lamento mean to play mournfully. Langsam directs a slow performance. Largamente is a direction to play broadly. Largo means play very slow while larghetto tells the musician to play even slower than that.
♪ Lascia vibrare is a directive to the performer of a harp, piano, cymbal, or other struck or plucked instrument that the sound should not be damped or stopped after the initial attack, but should be allowed to die away naturally. This is often indicated by the abbreviation L.V.
♪ The leading tone or leading note is the major seventh of a scale, so called because it lies a semitone below the tonic and "leads" towards it.
♪ Ledger lines are short, horizontal lines added to the top or the bottom of a staff for notes too high or too low to be represented on the staff proper.
♪ Some more notations... Legato means to play smoothly while legatissimo is a directive to perform in an exceedingly smooth and connected style, more so than legato. Leggiero tells the musician to play lightly and gracefully. Lento means slow, but slightly faster than largo yet slower than adagio. Liberamento directs the musician to play the music freely.
♪ First applied to the operas of Richard Wagner, leitmotif is a recurring motif in a composition (usually an opera) which represents a specific person, idea, or emotion.
♪ The libretto is a printed copy of the words to an oratorio or an opera. Also, the words of the text themselves.
♪ A ligature is a group of notes performed in one breath. In vocal music, this denotes that a single syllable should be sung to two or more notes. In medieval notation, the ligature was a symbol indicating that two or more pitches should be joined together.
♪ A lunga is a mark placed above a note or a rest to indicate that it is to be held longer than the music would otherwise indicate.
♪ Ma is an Italian term meaning but. It is typically used in musical directives such as the tempo directive allegro ma non troppo meaning fast but not too fast.
♪ A vocal music form that flourished in the Renaissance, the madrigal is generally written for four to six voices that may or may not be accompanied. In modern performance madrigals are usually presented a cappella.
♪ Maestro is the title given to a great performer, conductor, instrument maker, or composer. It is a title of extreme respect given to a master musician.
♪ Major refers to a sequence of notes that define the tonality of the major scale. A key based on a major scale is called a major key. A major chord is composed of a root, major third, and perfect fifth.
♪ A notation to perform a certain passage of a composition with decreasing volume, mancando directs that the volume grow quieter and die away.
♪ In the mid-18th century, Mannheim became a great center of music in Germany. Several musical innovations took place there and were named after it, including the Mannheim roll or steamroller (a scale of passages in measured tremolo combined with a crescendo), Mannheim crescendo (great crescendos and diminuendos that ranged from pianissimo to fortissimo) and Mannheim rocket (rapid upward arpeggio over a large range, combined with a crescendo). Now you know where the band got its name if you didn't before.
♪ Meaning strongly marked, martellato is a term used in string playing indicating heavy, detached strokes and in piano playing, indicating a forceful, detached touch.
♪ Mean-tone was a system of tuning now obsolete, but used in the Renaissance and Baroque eras. In this system, the thirds are tuned perfectly, thus causing the fifths to be made slightly small.
♪ Measure is the American term, equivalent to the English term bar. It signifys the smallest metrical divisions of a composition, containing a fixed number of beats, marked off by vertical lines on the staff.
♪ The third note of the scale is called the mediant because of its position halfway between the tonic and dominant.
♪ A medley is a composition that is composed of melodies of other compositions strung together like a potpourri.
♪ A group of many notes sung melodically to a single syllable, melismas are found especially in liturgical chant.
♪ Meno mosso directs less motion or with a slower tempo. This term is often qualified by poco (poco meno mosso) or a little less motion.
♪ Messa di voce is the gradual swelling and diminishing of sound produced by the voice that gives shape to a long note. While this technique has been used with instruments, it is primarily a vocal instruction.
♪ The structure of notes in a regular pattern of accented and unaccented beats within a measure is known as meter. It is indicated at the beginning of a composition by a meter signature. Meter is the organization of rhythmic patterns in a composition in such a way that a regular, repeating pulse of beats may continue throughout the composition. Meter signature is the numbers placed at the beginning of a composition to indicate the meter of the music. Fore example in 4/4 the upper number indicates 4 beats per measure as the lower number tells us that the quarter note will receive one beat. Metrical modulation is the shifting from one meter to another in the middle of a composition.
♪ The metronome was invented by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel in 1816. It is a mechanical or electronic device that keeps a regular beat and may be adjusted to any desired tempo. Musicians often use it for practicing difficult rhythmic passages.
♪ Mezzo means half or medium. It is used in the notations mezzo forte (medium loud) and mezzo piano (medium soft). It also describes the female voice range between soprano and alto, mezzo soprano.
♪ The 20th century technique micropolyphony, encompasses the complex interweaving of all musical elements.
♪ A microtone is a pitch interval that is smaller than a semitone. This includes quarter tones and intervals even smaller. Composers have experimented in dividing the octave into 31 and 53 microtones, and using this scale as a basis for composition.
♪ A tradition of Medieval courtly and secular music in Germany, the Minnesang tradition was similar to the traveling troubadour tradition, except that the Minnesang was cultivated by the nobility. The main focus of the music of this tradition was the idea of courtly love.
♪ Minor refers to a sequence of notes that define the tonality of the minor scale. A key based on a minor scale is called a minor key. The three types of minor scales include natural, harmonic, and melodic.
♪ A series of notes into which the octave is divided according to specific systems is the mode. Modes are used as the basis for composing music. The major and minor scales are modes, as well as the gypsy scale, the Gregorian modes, rhythmic modes, etc.
♪ Modulation is the process of changing from one key to another within a composition. In electronic music, the term is applied to a change of frequency, amplitude, or other changes of similar nature possible through electronics.
♪ Molto means very and is used with other terms such as in molto allegro (very fast).
♪ Music that is written for only one voice or part is said to be monophonic. This is in contrast to polyphonic music, which has more than one part or voice.
♪ Mordent means biting and is a series of two or more grace notes played before the principal note. This ornament usually consists of the principal note, the note below, and the principal note again.
♪ A Morris dance is an English folk dance. It includes processional and sword dances and elaborate country dances and has its roots in Pagan ritual dance. When we were in England, we were lucky to stumble upon a Morris dancer get-together in Windsor.
♪ A polyphonic vocal style of composition, the motet was popular in the middle ages. It consisted of a tenor foundation upon which other tunes were added. The texts of these voices could be sacred or secular but since they usually had little to do with each other, the result was a lack of unity and direction in the composition.
♪ Multiphonics is the technique of performing two or more tones simultaneously on an instrument that is designed to produce only one tone at a time, or with the voice.
♪ Musique concréte describes the 20th century practice of recording natural or artificial sounds and treating them electronically to produce music. A great example is Pink Floyd's Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict.
♪ A natural is a symbol placed by a note signifying that the note should be played unaltered as opposed to the sharp or flat of the note. This symbol is usually seen only in a key where a sharp or flat is expected.
♪ Neapolitan sixth describes a chord composed of a minor third and a minor sixth, based on the subdominant. In the key of C for example, the Neapolitan sixth would be F, A-flat, D-flat.
♪ A Medieval system of musical notation used throughout Europe, a neume was a symbol that specified pitch and manner of performance. Usually each neume stood for two to four notes. The neumes varied, and there are many different neumatic systems still in existence in manuscripts.
♪ A neutral clef is a symbol located at the beginning of a musical staff used to indicate that none of the instruments reading the notation have a definite pitch.
♪ The ninth is an interval consisting of an octave plus a second. A ninth chord is one having usually, but not necessarily, five tones; the interval between the base note and the highest note being a ninth.
♪ A composition, usually a serenade, to be played at night in the open air is called a nocturne. The name nocturne has been used by composers for piano and orchestral pieces that suggest some aspect of the night and are usually solemn and contemplative.
♪ In music, a node is the point on a vibrating surface, such as a string, where the wave divides itself into parts. These nodes produce harmonics.
♪ In part writing, a non-harmonic note is a note that is dissonant with other notes in the same chord, usually resolved in the next chord. Two frequently used examples are the passing tone and the appoggiatura. This is another one in my favorite musician's bag of tricks.
♪ Notation is the visual symbols for sound. The most common notation is the fixed treble and bass clefs with modern pitch notation therein. The notation of music has undergone several transformations since the first visual symbols for music were invented, c. 500 B.C. Part of the notation is the note, the symbol which, when placed on a staff with a particular clef sign, indicates pitch. Some notations are shown at left.
♪ The note value is the duration of a note, or the relationship of the duration of the note to the measure. The duration of a note is counted in even numbers; 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 and so on.
♪ An obligato is an accompanying, yet very important part of the music that that should not be omitted, such as a countermelody.
♪ The octatonic scale is a scale of eight pitches per octave arranged by alternating half steps and whole steps. There are only three different arrangements of this scale.
♪ An octave is an interval spanning seven diatonic degrees, eleven semitones. The frequency of a note one octave above another will have exactly twice as many Hertz as the frequency of the note an octave below it. An octave clef looks like an 8 and is printed above or below the clef symbol. It indicates that the music should be performed either an octave higher or an octave lower (depending on its position) than is indicated by the normal version of that clef.
♪ Octavo is a term for sheet music, typically in the form of a booklet, containing a short choral work. This comes from the fact that most most popular and liturgical choral works are printed on the octavo size paper (about 7 inches by 10 3/4 inches).
♪ A song written in commemoration and celebration of a particular event, object, or person is an ode. Purcell and Handel were important composers of odes in English Baroque music. One of the duties of the Master of the King's Musick was to compose odes for special occasions such as New Year's Day, birthdays, deaths, and other occasions.
♪ An open note is one that, for stringed instruments, played on a string that is not stopped by the finger. For wind instruments, it's a note that is played without depressing a valve or key, or covering any fingerhole.
♪ Opus (work) is a term used to classify a composition in relation to a composer's other compositions. Abbreviated as Op. (singular) or Opp. (plural), compositions are typically given an opus number in chronological order. Because the Opus numbers are often assigned by publishers, they are not always a reliable indication of the chronology of the composition.
♪ An oratorio is a large scale dramatic composition with text usually based on religious subjects. Oratorios are performed by choruses and solo voices with an instrumental accompaniment. They are similar to operas but without costumes, scenery and actions.
♪ The organum is the earliest style of polyphonic music. In it, the tenor sings the melody in very long notes while the upper voices move freely and rapidly above it.
♪ Ornamentation refers to notes added to the original melodic line for embellishment and added interest. Ornaments are those melodic embellishments, either written or improvised.
♪ An ostinato is a short melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic pattern that is repeated throughout an entire composition or some portion of a composition.
♪ Outer voices are those voices in a polyphonic composition which are the highest and lowest. Generally the bass and the soprano are the outer voices.
♪ The almost inaudible higher tones which occur with the fundamental tone are called overtones. They are the result of the vibration of small sections of an instrument. Other terms for overtones are partials and harmonics.
♪ An overture is an introductory movement for orchestra intended to introduce an opera, oratorio, or other dramatic vocal composition by presenting themes to be heard later in the composition.
That's it for part one. Please let me know whether I should publish part two tomorrow night or next Sunday...