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Musical Terminology
Musical terms are words and phrases that are specific to reading, writing, and playing music.
720 Questions
What does opas mean in musical terms?
Opus number is given for a specific work to recognize it from others. Two compositions from the same composer will never have the same opus number. As an example, the opus number of Emperor Concerto (by Beethoven) is Op. 73.
What does the term 'Gure' mean as it relates to music?
I know of no music term "gure." There is, however, the word leger, as in leger lines, the lines on music staff paper, for writing music.
What does fortissimo mean in music terms?
Fortissimo means In a very loud manner. Used chiefly as a direction.
How much does a quaver with two tails equal too?
A quaver with two flags is a 16th note (1/16 of a semibreve), and is twice as fast as a regular quaver.
What does ragtime mean in music terms?
Ragtime is a style of music characterized by a syncopated melodic line and regularly accented accompaniment. It was evolved over time by African American musicians.
What is the difference between an appoggiatura and acciaccatura?
An appoggiatura takes on half the value of the note it is tied to. For example, if there was a minium (2 count note) with an appoggiatura, the minium note would become a crotchet (1 beat note) and the appoggiatura note would also be played for 1 beat. Normally the appoggiatura is emphasised (stressed/ leaned on).
An acciaccatura looks like an appoggiatura but with a line crossing it. It is also called a crushed note. Really, it doesn't take any duration off the note, but is like a before thought. It is played very fast with the main emphasis on the note.
What is 3 semiquavers tied together?
The duration of three tied semiquavers is equivalent to a dotted quaver.
In musical terms what does adagio mean?
Adagio means "to play slowly". This tempo marking is slower than andante, but a bit faster than largo.
What does it mean when a song is a soft release?
When a record label has invested money into a song or album but loses faith that the act will sell well, or they want to drop the act for other reasons they will 'soft release' it.
This means they won't spend the required extra money on proper promotion, often pushing the album release back over and over in veiled attempts to actually reduce the buzz and stifle record sales.
This is because an un-recouped band (making a loss on the album) is actually in this scenario worth more to the label as a tax write off than if the band turned a small profit as the entire debt owed to the label is tax deductible if they kill the record / drop the act.
What does glee mean in music terms?
Glees were unaccompanied English secular part songs popular between 1750 and 1850. They were usually written for male voices.
What is musical terminology for quick tempo?
Tempos such as vivace (Italian), allegro(Italian), or schnell (German) can usually define a "quick tempo."
What does root mean in musical terms?
The term, "root" in Musical terms means the note that the rest of a chord is based around. For example, a C major chord which consists of the notes C, E and G would have a root note of C as it the note that allows the rest of a chord to follow. It is always the first note of any chord.
Mozart used Italian terms in his music compositions.
What does mode mean in musical terms?
In its basic form, a mode is the basic form of a scale starting from any white key, going to the white key an octave above or below, only including the white notes in between. There are seven basic modes according to this definition, simply because there are seven unique white keys. This is only one way of defining modes, and in reality some more obscure modes use tones that are not necessarily restricted to the western equal temperament, the system enthusiastically embraced and advanced by composers like J. S. Bach.
The most commonly used modes are the diatonic modes. Taking a root note of C as the base note for the first, and going up the C scale to compare modes, these are the following:
- Ionian (tonic) (starting on C)
- Dorian (supertonic) (starting on D)
- Phrygian (mediant) (starting on E)
- Lydian (subdominant) (starting on F)
- Mixolydian (dominant) (starting on G)
- Aeolian (submediant) (starting on A)
- Locrian (leading note) (starting on B)
Modes can be transposed up or down as many as 11 semitones, and as long as the intervals remain the same, it is still modal. For example, "Scarborough Fair" is written in dorian mode, but is often translated to what sounds, to modern Western music ears, like E minor. This follows the very same idea that there are 12 unique major scales, assuming the equal temperament equivalence of keys like F sharp and G flat.
When you think about it, when you build the modes in this way using the white keys of the standard keyboard, the difference between any two modes is the location of the half steps (or semi-tone steps). The actual distance between the half stepsis always the same. They happen between B and C, and between E and F. This is why the modes are called 'diatonic'; they are all built on the basic structure of the diatonic scale. Starting on any key, the major diatonic scale (Ionian) is built by going up: T, T, s, T, T, T, s where T is a tone (whole step), and s is a semitone (half-step). This algorithm brings you from any key to the key an octave above. This is also why modes are easily transposed. They are not based on absolute pitch, but upon the steps used to build them. Another way of viewing the diatonic structure of the major scale is as two basic units (T, T, s) separated by a Tone (F-G in the key of C major).
While there are practical uses for most modes, the Locrian mode is, to Western ears, the most awkward, perhaps because it is the only mode whose tonic triad (B natural, D natural, F natural in this case) is a diminished chord; the fifth is diminished. All others would be major or minor, and their fifths are perfect.
Examples of notable modern pieces composed in modes include: "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple (dorian mode), and, as an example of something written in the rarest, the march in the Shostakovich set "Three Fantastic Dances" is written in Locrian mode.
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What does vocoder mean in the musical terms?
A vocoder is a device built in to some synthesizers that allows the timbre of the sound from a microphone to be combined with the pitches played on the keyboard. This allows people to "sing" in harmony with themselves, make robot-like sounds or other effects that cannot be created by the human voice alone.
For the sound to fade away is Diminuendo (Dim.) (that goes for loudness and speed). For just the loudness (dynamics) is a decrescendo (decresc.). For just speed, it is a ritardando (rit.)
