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musical terminology
A - a cappella – in the manner of chapel music, without instrumental accompaniment.
- accelerando – gradually increase the tempo ; "accelerate".
- adagietto – "rather slow."
- adagio – "slow."
- adagissimo – "very slow."
- ad libitum (commonly ad lib ) – the speed and manner are left to the performer.
- al , alla – "to the", "in the manner of".
- alla breve – two minim (half-note) beats to a bar, rather than four crotchet (quarter-note) beats.
- alla marcia – "in the style of a march".
- allargando – "broadening," "getting a little slower."
- allegretto – "a little lively," or "moderately fast."
- allegro – "lively," or "fast."
- andante – "moderate tempo," just this side of slow.
- andantino – slightly faster than andante .
- animato – "animated", "lively".
- arpeggio – literally, like a harp . Used to indicate that the notes of a certain chord are to be played quickly one after another (usually from lowest to highest) instead of at the same moment.
- arco – "played with the bow," as opposed to pizzicato "plucked," in music for bowed instruments.
- assai – "very."
- assez – "enough", "sufficiently" (French). Sometimes used in the same sense as assai .
B
- brillante – "brilliantly," "with sparkle."
- brio – "vigour"; usually in con brio (see next).
- brioso or con brio – "vigorously."
- broken chord – a chord in which the notes are not all played at once, but in some more or less consistent sequence. They may follow singly one after the other, or two notes may be immediately followed by another two, for example.
C
- calando – "lowering"; gradual slowing and softening
- cantabile – "singingly."
- col legno – "with the wood"; indicates that the strings are to be struck with the wood of the bow; also battuta col legno : "beaten with the wood."
- common time is the time signature 4/4: four beats per measure, each beat a quarter note (a crotchet) in length. 4/4 is often written on the musical staff 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," in very many musical directions, for example con allegrezza ("with liveliness"), con amore ("with tenderness").
- con moto – "with motion."
- con sordino – "with the mute ."
- crescendo progressively louder.
D
- deciso – "decisively."
- diminuendo (or dim. ); with progressively decreasing volume.
- dolce – "sweetly."
- dolente – "sorrowfully."
- dynamics refers to the relative volumes in the execution of a piece of music.
E
- espressivo – "expressively."
- estinto – "as soft as possible," "lifeless" (literally "extinguished").
F
- fine – "the end," often in phrases like al fine ("to the end").
- forte – usually marked with f : to be played or sung loudly. The term fortissimo , or ff , means "very loudly."
- fortepiano – 1. loud, then immediately soft
- fuoco – "fire"; "con fuoco" means "with fire."
G
- glissando – a continuous sliding from one pitch to another (a "true" glissando), or an incidental scale played while moving from one melodic note to another (an "effective" glissando).
- grazioso – "gracefully."
- giusto – strictly, exactly.
I
- impetuoso – "impetuously."
- in altissimo – play an octave higher.
- incalzando – with increasing speed.
L
- lacrimoso – "sadly" (literally "tearfully").
- lamentoso – "mournfully."
- larghetto – "somewhat slowly"; not as slow as largo .
- largo – "slowly."
- legato – "smoothly"; in a connected manner.
- leggiero – "lightly," "delicately."
- lent – "slowly." (French)
- loco – play as written (generally used to cancel an 8va direction).
- lusingando – "coaxingly."
M
- ma – "but."
- ma non troppo – "but not too much."
- maestoso – "in a stately fashion," "majestically."
- marcia – a march; alla marcia means "in the manner of a march."
- martellato – hammered out.
- marzial – "martially."
- meno – "less"; see meno mosso , for example, under mosso .
- mezza voce – "with subdued or moderated volume," literally "half voice."
- mezzo – "half"; used in combinations like mezzo forte ( mf ), meaning "moderately loud."
- moderato – "moderate," often combined with other terms, for example, "allegro moderato".
- morendo – "dying away" in tone or tempo.
- mosso – "motion"; used in conjunction with "più" or "meno", respectively, for more movingly or less movingly (about tempo).
O
- ossia – Denotes an alternative way of performing a passage often notated with a footnote, additional small notes, or an additional staff.
P
- piano – marked p , a directive to play or sing softly. The related term pianissimo , pp , means "very softly."
- pesante – "heavy and ponderous."
- piacevole – "pleasant."
- piangevole – "plaintive"; in the style of a lament .
- più – "more"; see mosso for an example.
- pizzicato – "plucked," in music for bowed strings; as opposed to arco , which means "played with the bow", and which is inserted to cancel a pizzicato direction.
- pochettino ( poch ) – "rather little."
- poco – "a little", as in poco più allegro ("a little faster"), for example.
- poco a poco – "little by little."
- poi – "then," indicating a subsequent instruction in a sequence; diminuendo poi subito fortissimo , for example: "getting softer then suddenly very loud."
- portamento – 1. generally, sliding in pitch from one note to another (especially in singing; more often called glissando in instrumental music); 2. in piano music, an articulation between legato and staccato , like portato , in this list.
- portato – non-legato but not as short as staccato (same as portamento [2], in this list).
- precipitato – "precipitately."
- prestissimo – "extremely quickly."
- presto – "very quickly."
- prima volta – "the first time"; for example prima volta senza accompanimento ("the first time without accompaniment").
- primo – "first."
Q
- quasi – "as if," "almost."
R
- rallentando – ( rall. ), "progressively slower".
- rinforzando – ( rf ), "stressed by extra force"; sometimes like a sudden crescendo , but often applied to a single note.
- ritardando – ( rit. ) "progressively slower."
- ritenuto – ( riten. ) "holding back," or "slower" (usually more so than a ritardando ; and it may, unlike ritardando, apply to a single note).
- rubato – flexibility of tempo, within a musical phrase, for expressive effect.
S
- scherzando – "playfully."
- scherzo – "a joke."
- scordatura is an alternate tuning used for the open strings of a string instrument .
- sempre – "always."
- senza – "without."
- senza sordino – "without mute ."
- sforzando or sfz – giving a strong accent
- simile – "similarly"—i.e. continue applying the preceding directive, whatever it was, to the following passage.
- soave – "smoothly."
- sostenuto – "sustainedly."
- sotto voce – soft tones, literally "under voice" used as a direction instructing the singer or instrumentalist to proceed in a more understated or more subtle fashion.
- spiritoso – "spiritedly."
- staccato – an indication to play with a sharp attack, and briefly. In music notation a small dot under or over the note indicates that the note is to be sounded staccato .
- smorzando (or smorz. ) – smother the notes; "dying away."
- subito – "suddenly."
- sul ponticello – in string playing, an indication to bow very near to the bridge , producing a characteristic glassy sound, which emphasizes the higher harmonics at the expense of the fundamental
- sul tasto – in string playing, an indication to bow over the fingerboard
T
- tenuto – held ; an instruction to touch on a note slightly longer than usual, but without generally altering the note's value.
- tremolo – a rapid repetition of the same note, or an alternation between two or more notes. It can also be intended (inaccurately) to mean a rapid and repetitive variation in pitch for the duration of a note (see vibrato ). It is notated by a strong diagonal bar across the note stem, or a detached bar for a set of notes (or stemless notes).
- tutti – "all together," usually used in an orchestral or choral score when the orchestra or all voices come in.
U
- un poco – "a little."
- unisono – (or unis ) "in unison"; several players are to play exactly the same notes within the written part, as opposed to splitting simultaneous notes among themselves. Often used to mark the return from divisi
V
- vibrato -
a very common device used by violinists which causes the pitch of a note to vary up and down quickly. This is achieved by moving the finger pressing on the string slightly forwards and backwards. Vibrato is often perceived to create a more emotional sound.
- vivace – "lively," "up-tempo."
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dynamics
In music , dynamics refers to the volume or loudness of the sound or note , in particular to the range from soft (quiet) to loud. The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics.
The two basic dynamic indications in music are piano , meaning "softly" or "quietly", usually abbreviated as p ; and forte , meaning "loudly" or "strong", usually abbreviated as f . More subtle degrees of loudness or softness are indicated by mp , standing for mezzo-piano , and meaning "half-quiet"; and mf , mezzo-forte , "half loud".
Beyond f and p , there is ff , standing for "fortissimo", and meaning "very loudly"; and pp , standing for "pianissimo", and meaning "very quietly". To indicate even more extreme degrees of intensity, more p s or f s are added as required. fff and ppp are found in sheet music quite frequently.
In addition, there are words used to indicate gradual changes in volume. The two most common are crescendo , sometimes abbreviated to cresc , meaning "get gradually louder"; and decrescendo or diminuendo , sometimes abbreviated to decresc and dim respectively, meaning "get gradually softer". Signs called "hairpins" are also used to stand for these words. These are made up of two lines which connect at one end and get gradually further apart. If the lines are joined at the left, then the indication is to get louder; if they join at the right, the indication is to get softer. The following notation indicates music starting moderately loud, then becoming gradually louder and then gradually quieter:
Hairpins are usually written below the staff. They tend to be used for dynamic changes over a relatively short period of time, while cresc and dim are generally used for dynamic changes over a longer range.
It should be noted that dynamic indications are relative, not absolute. mp does not indicate an exact level of volume, it merely indicates that music in a passage so marked should be a little louder than p and a little quieter than mf .
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