Home > Musical terminology
__NOTOC__Below is a list of terms used in musical terminology which are likely to occur on printed or sheet music. Many of these terms have a Italian etymology, reinforcing the heritage of much music originating from Italy. In different countries, the terms you see below may be written in the language of that country.
Unless indicated otherwise, these terms are assumed to be Italian (or English) in origin.
See also: Italian musical terms; Tempo.
This article will be merged with Italian musical terms at some point in the near future.
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1 A
- accelerando – gradually increase the tempo; "accelerate".
- a cappella – in the manner of chapel music, without musical accompaniment
- adagio – "slow."
- adagietto – "rather slow."
- adagissimo – 'very slow."
- ad libitium (commonly ad lib) – the speed and manner are left to the performer.
- affrettando – hurrying, pressing onwards.
- agitato – "agitated."
- alla breve – indicates two minims in a bar, formerly four.
- allegro – "lively," or fast.
- andante – moderate tempo, just this side of slow
- animato – "animatedly."
- appassionato – "passionately."
- arpeggio – literally, like a harp. Used to indicate that the consecutive notes of a certain chord are to be played quickly one after another, instead of at the same moment. In piano music this is sometimes a solution used to play a wide-ranged chord which, technically speaking, cannot be played simultaneously with one hand. Music played on the limited hardware of video game computers uses a similar technique to create a chord from one tone generator. Arpeggios are accompaniment patterns.
- arco – see Arco.
- assai – "very."
2 B
- brillante – "brillantly."
- brio – "vigour."
- brioso or con brio – "vigorously."
- broken chord – a chord in which the notes are not all played at once. They may follow one after the other, or two notes may be immediately followed by another two, for example.
3 C
- cantabile – "singingly."
- cesura or caesura – often called "railroad tracks" indicates complete break in sound
- col legno – indicates strings are to be struck with the wood of the bow, see col legno; also battuta col legno: "beaten with wood"
- common time is the time signature 4/4: four beats per measure, each beat a quarter noteIn music, a quarter note (American) or crotchet (Canadian) is a note played for one-quarter the duration of a whole note, hence the name. Quarter notes are notated with an oval, filled-in note head and a straight stem with no flags (see image). A related. 4/4 is often written on the musical staffIn musical notation, the staff or stave is a set of five horizontal lines on which note symbols are placed to indicate pitch and time. The staff is read left to right: one note to the right of another means that it is to be played later. The vertical posi as C. The symbol is not a "C" as an abbreviation for "common time", but a broken circle: the full circle at one time stood for triple time, 3/4.
- con – "with."
- con moto – "with motion."
- con sordino – "with muteA mute is a device which alters the timbre or reduces the volume of a musical instrument. The use of a mute is indicated in sheet music by the direction con sordino (often abbreviated to con sord. That the mute should be removed is indicated by senza sord."
- The directive crescendo is for the musician to play gradually louder than previously. Cf. diminuendo, dynamics (music)In music, dynamics refers to the volume or loudness of the sound, in particular to the range from soft to loud. The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics. The renaissance composer Giovanni Gabrieli was o.
- cut time is synonymous to the meter 2/2: two half-note beats per measure. This is notated and played like common time (4/4), except with the note lengths halved. Cut time is denoted by three quarters of a circle with a vertical line through it, which resembles the cent symbol ¢. This comes from a literal "cut" of the C symbol of common time. Thus, a quarter note in cut time is only half a beat long. A measure has only two beats. The other common meter with two-beat measures is fast 6/8, in which note lengths are 2/3 their normal values.
