Specialising in
ADULT MUSIC EDUCATION
Small group classes at
Ainslie Arts Centre
Specialising in
ADULT MUSIC EDUCATION
Small group classes at
Ainslie Arts Centre
ADULT MUSIC EDUCATION
Small group classes
Ainslie Arts Centre & Online
GLOSSARY OF MUSICAL TERMS:
A - D
Accelerating, growing faster.
A stress, or added emphasis given to a note.
Any chromatic sign nof found in the key signature, occurring in the course of a piece.
Slow, leisurely.
A direction signifying that performers may employ the tempo of expression that suits them.
A mode corresponding to the progression from A to A on the white keys of the piano; the order of intervals is: tone, semitone, tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone.
With passion, emotion, feeling; very expressively; tenderly.
Agitated.
A double sharp.
To finish.
A meter of 2/2; two minims per bar.
Growing slower.
Quite lively; moderately fast (faster than andante, slower than allegro).
Lively, swift.
To the sign.
Commencement of a piece or phrase on a weak beat, weak part of the bar or incomplete bar.
Going, moving, with movement; a tempo mark indicating a moderately slow, easily flowing movement between adagio and allegretto.
A little slower than andante.
Animated, with spirit, vivaciously.
Any theme or motive propsed for imitation, or imitated further on. Also, the theme or subject of a canon or fugue, as proposed by the first part.
A type of fanciful piano piece.
A broken chord; each note of a chord played in succession.
The manner in which notes are joined one to another; or, on the piano, the way in which a note is depressed and released.
Very.
In time; at the preceding rate of speed.
Attack, or begin what follows without pausing.
A trifle; usually, a short, fairly easy piece.
A ballad-like art song, or an instrumental solo piece.
The metrical unit in a composition, comprising one set of a time signature.
A vertical line dividing bars on the staff.
A cradle song; lullaby.
Boldess, spirit, dash, brilliance.
Short.
Brilliant, showy, sparkling.
The close or ending of a phrase, section, movement or piece.
Decreasing; growing softer and slower.
Singable, song-like; in a singing or vocal style.
Head, beginning.
An instrumental piece free in form.
In a cparicious, fanciful, fantastic style.
Go slower.
Rapid, swift.
Outside the scale, relating to tones foreign to a given key; opposed to diatonic.
Tail, ending.
A short coda.
With.
The part imitating the antecedent or leader; in a canon, the follower.
In opposite direction; parts progress in contrary motion when one moves up while the other moves down or, in piano music, when hands move either inwards or outwards together.
Swelling, increasing on loudness; gradually getting louder.
A quarter note.
Alla breve.
From the sign.
Decreasing in loudness; gradually getting softer.
One of the eight consecutive tones in a major or minor diatonic scale, counted upward from the keynote.
Delicately; in a delicate, refined style.
The working out, evolution or elaboration of a theme by presenting it in varied melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic treatment.
Of the scale; by, through, with, within, or embracing the tones of the standard major or minor scale.
Growing softer, dying away.
Diminishing in loudness.
Distinctly.
Sweet, soft.
Very sweetly, softly.
In a style expressive of pain or grief.
The fifth tone in the major or minor scale.
The church mode that corresponds to the scale from D to D played on the white keys of the piano; the order of intervals is: tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone, tone.
The two vertical lines drawn through the staff to indicate the end of a section, movement or piece.
A group of two equal notes to be executed in the time of three of the same kind of notes in the established rhythm.
The varying and contrasting degrees of intensity of loudness in musical tones; volume.