Multilingual Music Glossary

# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Hint: Don't worry about accents over letters, just skip them.

Found a word you don't know? No problem. Look it up in the Music Glossary!

We are currently providing explanations for 2484 terms from 12 languages, including English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Latin…

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Please note: a music glossary is just like a dictionary. It contains explanations to musical terms. If you are looking for a piece, please go here instead: search tunes.

Some random terms

  • sixth An interval of six diatonic degrees, counting the first and last degree.
  • passepied [French] A baroque dance in triple meter.
  • K Either Köchel or Kirkpatrick.
  • grave [Italian] The slowest tempo in music, usually slower than 40 BPM.
  • heavy metal Rock style that gained popularity in the 1970s, characterized by simple, repetitive ideas and loud, distorted instrumental solos.
  • pas [French] “Not”.
  • decay The time that it takes for a note to die away once the musician has stopped producing the sound.
  • strascinando [Italian] Dragging.
  • hymn Song in praise of God; often involves congregational participation.
  • Tafelmusik [German] Literally, “table music”. Music that is performed at feasts and banquets.
  • bluegrass A form of American country music, inspired by the music of immigrants from the United Kingdom and Ireland as well as jazz and blues. In bluegrass, as in jazz, each instrument takes its turn playing the melody and improvising around it, while the others perform accompaniment.
  • assai [Italian] Much, very much.
  • tronco [Italian] A directive to perform a certain passage short or “cut off”.
  • doppel [German] “Double”.
  • riser A metal section on the head joint of a flute, shaped like a ‛top hat with the top cut off’, which raises the lip plate from the head joint tube.