Musical dictionary: terms of advanced music
The words you listen to in class, explain them in few lines: from pulse and compass to tone, embocatura or bambuco.
Rhythm and time
- Acento
An accent is an emphasis that makes a note sound more powerful or outstanding than those around it. There are accents that are typical of the compass (the first time usually been the strongest) and written accents, that are marked with sign > above or under the note.
- Anacrusa
The anacrusa is the note or group of notes that sound before the first strong time of a piece or a sentence, in an incomplete compass. It works as an impulse leading to that first time.
"Happy Birthday" begins with an anachusa: "Cum-ple" sounds before the first strong time.
- Blanca
The white figure is the musical figure that lasts half a round and at 4 / 4 it's worth two times. It's drawn with his head and a pica (the vertical pallet) and equals two black.
- BPM
BPM is the sign of pulses per minute (from the English beat per minute) and is the measure of the tempo of a piece. At 60 BPM sounds a pulse per second, at 120 BPM, two per second.
Study the difficult passages to a comfortable BPM and get them up to 4 or 8 as they get clear.
- Compas
The bar is the grouping of the pulsates into regular units, each with a first more strong time. At the score it's separated with vertical bars and indicated at first with a figure as 4 / 4, 3 / 4 or 6 / 8: the number at the bottom says what figure is counted and that at the top, how many fit.
- Simple and composite
The simple compases are those in which each time is divided into two equal parts (2 / 4, 3 / 4, 4 / 4); the compounds, those in which each time is divided into three (6 / 8, 9 / 8, 12 / 8). Thus a 6 / 8 is felt in two times of three clocks each, not in six.
The corridor is written in 3 / 4, a simple compass and the bamboo, 6 / 8 or 3 / 4.
- Contratiempo
A setback is a note that sounds at the weak part of time while strong time remains silent. Unlike synpote, the note does not prolong about the following time.
If you count "1 and 2 and" and you only play at every "and," you're playing at a drawback.
- Corchea
The chordage is the musical figure that lasts half a black one, so at 4 / 4 they get two for a while. It's drawn as a black with a chordage (bordite) in the pica and if they go several in a row, they join with a bar.
- Metrica
The metric is the organisation of the pulsates in regular patterns of strong and weak times, expressed with the compass at the score. It can be binary (as 2 / 4), ternary (3 / 4), quaternary (4 / 4) or irregular (5 / 4, 7 / 8).
- Metronome
The metronomer is an apparatus or application that produces a regular click at a fixed tempo, measured at BPM, to practice with a stable pulse. Many allow to accentuate the first time of each bar.
Test [online metronome]](/herramientas/metronomo) and check how to practice with methonoman.
- Negra
The black figure is the musical figure that lasts for a quarter of a round and, as a compas as as 2 / 4, 3 / 4 or 4 / 4, it's worth a while. It's drawn with its head filled and pitted, and equals two clocks.
- Pulso
The pulse is the regular unit of time felt in music, as with the heartbeat: it's what you mark by pounding or mooning your foot with a song. Each pulse is also called time.
If you stick with a song without thinking about it, you're tipping your pulse.
- Puntillo
The tipple is a point written to the right of a note or a silence that adds up to half its duration. Thus, a tipple with tipple lasts three times instead of two and a tipple with tipple, time and half.
- Redonda
The round is the most common-use musical figure: it is drawn as an empty and pellless oval and, at a 4 / 4 bar, lasts four times. It's equal to two white or four black.
- Ritmo
The rhythm is the organization of sounds and quiet in time: how long each and where accents fall. Along with melody and harmony, it's one of the basic elements of music.
- Semicorchea
The semicorchea is the musical figure that lasts half a clasp: at 4 / 4 they are four for a while. It has two square brackets in the pics or, as they go as a group, two bars that join them.
Fist his pulse with his foot and play four equal notes for every blow: that's half-pitted.
- Silencio
A silence is the sign that indicates how long nothing should sound. Each figure has a silence of equal duration: round, white, black, clicorchea and half-icorchea.
Silences are counted as well as notes: they are also part of the rhythm.
- Symptoms
The syncube is a rhythmic effect with a note starting at a weak time, or at a weak part of a time, and prolonging on the following strong time, passing the expected accent. It gives impetus and balance to genres such as cumbia, being or jazz.
- Tempo
The tempo is the velocity at which a piece is interpreted, that is, how quickly the pulses go. It's indicated in BPM or with Italian terms as long (very slow), adagio (slow), walking (at step), moderate, allegro (fast) and presto (very fast).
- Tresillo
A tripple is a group of three equal notes that occupy the time normally occupied by two of the same figure. It's written with a 3 envelope or under the group: 3 clordes in tripple last as a black figure.
In Afro-Caribbean music, "3-3" also appoints a 3 + 3 and 2 rhythmic pattern, something else.
Melody and harmony
- Acorde
A chord is the combination of three or more different notes that sound at once. The most basic is triad, and chords are named by their fundamental note and their type: Do mayor (C), The minor (Am), Sun seventh (G7).
Start with [basic guitar chords]](/blog/acordes-basicos-de-guitarra-para-principiantes).
- Retirement of seventh
The seventh chord is a triate with a fourth note, a seventh note above the fundamental one. The most common one is that of the seventh dominant (G7: Sol-Re-Re-Fa), that generates tension and wants to resolve to the tonic, in this case Do.
- Harmony
Harmony is the use and study of the notes that sound at the same time, that is, of chords and how they are chained. If the melody is the horizontal line of music, harmony is its vertical dimension, the accompaniment that gives them color.
- Arpegio
An arpeggio is a chord with a note by note, one after another, instead of all at once. It's an accompaniment resource widely used with guitar and piano and a regular technical exercise.
- Cadencia
A cadency is chord chairing that closes a sentence or work, as a score in a text. The true cadence (V-I, as Sol-Do at Do mayor) sounds conclusive and the semicadence, that ends up in the V, leaves the sentence in abeyance.
- KN circle
The circle of nines is a diagram that commands the twelve tones as a watch, each to a fair fifth from the previous one. In the sense of the handlebars each tone adds a sustained to the armor and in the opposite direction, a bemol.
Learn how to draw and use it in [the quintas circle explain]](/blog/circulo-de-quintas-explicado).
- Consonance and dissonance
The concurrently is the sense of stability and rest that produce some intervals and chords, such as the octave, the fair fifth or the third. The dissonance is the sense of tension that other produce, such as the second, the sevids or the trittle. The dissonance isn't an error: it creates movement and challenges to be solved.
- Contrapunto
The counterpoint is the technique of combining two or more independent melodies that sound at once and harmonically fit. He reached his top at Baroque with Johann Sebastian Bach, in forms such as canon and escape.
- Scale
A scale is an ordered number of notes, ascending or descending, following a fixed pattern of tones and semitones from an initial note called tonic. From the scales come the melodies and chords of a tone.
- Chromatic scale
The chromatic scale is that that that that goes through the twelve notes of the octave always advanced from semitone to semitone. At the piano equals to play all the keys, black and white, one after another.
- Higher scale
The bigger scale is the seven note scale with the tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone. Do mayor (C) uses only the white piano keys: Do, Ree, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, Do. It's usually described as with bright or cheerful sound.
Compare with the minor at [best and least advanced scales]](/blog/escalas-mayores-y-menores-explicadas).
- Minor scale
The natural minor scale is the scale of seven note with the tone, semitone, tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone; The minor (Am) uses the same note as Do mayor, starting at La. Also there are the minor harmonic (seventh high) and the melodic (sixth and seventh high as they rise).
- Pentatonic scale
The pentatonic scale is a scale of five notes per octave. The highest pentatonic of Do es Do, re, Mi, Sol, La, and the lowest of La es La, Do, re, Mi, Sol; as it has no semitones, nearly any combination of his notes sounds good.
It's the most widely used scale to start improvising with guitar, especially with rock and blues.
- Interval
A height range is the height range between two notes. It's name with the notes from first to last, both included (from Do to Me is a third) and it's required with its quality: just, greater, minor, increased or diminished.
Fold into what's a musical interval and how to give his ear to him.
- Investment
An investment is an arrangement of a concurrently with a note different from the fundamental at the bottom. Do major at fundamental status is Doc.Mi.-Sol; at first investment, Mic.Sol.Do; at second, Sol....Mi. In American cipher we write with bar: C / E.
- Melody
The melody is a succession of notes from different heights and durations that are felt as a complete idea: the part of a song that you sing or tarareas. It's built with intervals, rhythm and frambling.
- Modulation
Modulation is a change of tone within a single piece. It's usually made with a chord common to both tones or with the dominant of the new and brings contrast or intensity.
The rise of half or a tone at the last chorus of many pits is a modulation.
- Eighth
The eighth is the interval between a note and the next with the same name, more acute or more serious, for example from Do to Do (twelve semitones). The most acute note vibrates at twice as often, and so both are felt as about as the same note.
- Quinta
The fifth is the interval that includes five notes, as from Do to Sol. The fifth just has seven semitones and after the eighth, the most stable and consonant interval and is the basis of the power chords of the electrical guitar and the circle of quintas.
- Semitono
The semitone, also called half tone, is the smallest distance between two notes in Western music. At the piano it's the passing from a key to an immediate neighbor (from Mi to Fa or Do to Do) and at the guitar, a passing from a trast to the next.
- Tercera
The third is the range that includes three notes, as from Do to Me. The third major has four semitones (Do-Mi) and the minor, three (Do-Mi). That difference defines whether a chord is greater or less.
- Tonality
The tone is the system that organizes a piece about a central note, the tone, and about the scale built on it. To say that a song is "in the bigger Sun" means that Sun is his resting point and that it uses above all the notes of that scale.
- Tono
The tone is the distance between two notes equivalent to two semitones, as from Do to Ree or Fa to Sol. In daily speech, "tone" is also used as a synonym for tone ("What tone is the song?") or height of a sound.
- Triada
The triad is a three-note chord formed by a fundamental, its third and its fifth, for instance Doa-Mi-Sol. Depending on its intervals it can be higher, lower, diminished or increased.
Reading and writing
- Alteraciones
The alterations are the signs that change the height of a note: the sustained () an elevated semitone, a bemol () lower a semitone and a beacon () nullifies an earlier alteration. They can go into the armor or as an accident with a note and these are valid up to the end of the compass.
- Armour
The armor is the group of holds or bemoles written at the start of each pentagram, just after the key, that affect all the notes of that name during the piece. It indicates the tone: a sustained (Fa) corresponds to the greater Sun or My minor.
- Becuadro
The beacon () is an alteration that cancels a sustained or a bemol, whether from an earlier suit or from an earlier incident, and returns the note to its natural height.
If the armor has Fa) and an Fa with a beacon appears, that's how you play Fa Natural.
- Bemol
The bemol () is the impairment that drops a note a semitone. For example, if (Bb) sounds half a tone more serious than if. A same key can have two names: Do) and Reg) sound equal to the piano and are called enharmonic notes.
- American figure
The American encryption is the system that appoints notes and conforms with letters: A es A, B es Si, C es Do, D es re, E es Mi, F es Fa and G es Sol. The symbols indicate the type of chord: Am es The minor, G7 es Sol seventh and C / E es Do with Me at low.
- Do key
The key to do is the sign that indicates what line of the pentagram the central Do (C) is. The most widely used today is that of third line, characteristic of the viola and that of fourth line appears in the acute passages of the cello, Fagot and thrombon.
- Fa key
The Fa key is the sign that indicates that the note to the fourth line of the pentagram is Fa (F), Fa that's under the central Do. It's used for serious instruments and voices: cello, contraband, Fagot, thrombone, and an electrical low and the left hand of the piano.
- Suncover
The sun key is the sign, written at the start of the pentagram, that indicates that the note of the second line is Sun (G), the Sun that's above the central Do. It's used for instruments and sharp voices: violin, flute, guitar, voice and piano's right hand.
- Musical performance
The musical dictation is an listening training exercise with a fragment (a melody, a rhythm or a number of chords) and you write it in the pentagram. It's common in theory classes and in music race admissions.
It's practised in [music theory]](/clases/teoria-musical), starting with short rhythms and melodies.
- Reading at first glance
Readings at first glance are the ability to play or to sing a score that you have never seen, without preparing it, while maintaining his pulse. It develops by reading often simple and varied material.
Before we start, check the armor and the bar and the rough passages and then do not stop but miss a note.
- Ligadura
The ligation is a curved line that binds notes. If you join two notes at the same height, it's an extension: you touch only the first and add their durations. If you join different notes, it's an expression: it indicates to play them united, without cuts, that's legate.
- Additional Lines
The additional lines are small lines that are drawn above or under the pentagram to write the notes that are out of its five lines. For example, with a light key, the Central Do is written about an additional line under the pentagram.
- Partitura
A score is the written version of a musical work: notes, rhythm and indications of tempo, dynamic and articulation and in whole music, parts of all instruments. The part that read a single musician is called particele.
If you are starting, follow this [guide to read scores]](/blog/como-leer-partituras-guia-para-principiantes).
- Pentagrama
The pentagram is the set of five horizontal lines and four spaces in which the notes are written. The more above a note, the more sharp it sounds and the lines and spaces are counted from bottom up.
- Solfeo
Solpseus is the practice of reading written music by saying or singing the name of his notes (Do, Ree, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si) with his rhythm. He trains at once his reading, his pulse and his ear and his theoretical formation.
Here we explain to you what's the solpus and how to practice it.
- Sostenido
The sustained (∞) is the alteration that puts up a note a semitone. For example, Fa (F#) sounds half a tone more acute than Fa; at the piano it's the black key that's right at Fa's.
- Tablatura
The tablature is a writing system for scattering string instruments, such as guitar or bass, with each line representing a string and each number indicating the pull that stands. It's easy to read but barely shows the rhythm with precision.
Learn how to figure it out at [how to read tablatures]](/blog/como-leer-tablaturas-de-guitarra-y-bajo).
- Transporte
The transport (or transposition) is to play or write a piece in another tone, by moving all the notes at the same interval, for example to suit a voice. It also explain the transpository instruments, whose written note does not coincide with that that that that sounds: at the clarinet or trumpet at Si panda, a written Do sounds Si por.
The high saxophone is at My Mª: When you read a Do, a Mi's sounds, so his score's been put to transport.
Technology and interpretation
- Filling
The tuning is an instrument's height or voice setting so that his notes coincide with a reference, most often La 440 Hz. He also appoints the accuracy with which someone atones and his string notes to the air: the standard guitar sharpenes Mi, La, Ree, Sol, Si, Mi.
Filling with the [guitar tuner]](/herramientas/afinador/guitarra) or the [violin tuner]](/herramientas/afinador/violin) from the browser.
- Articulation
The joint is how each note is attacked, sustained and united or separated. The most common are legate (linked notes), staccato (short and separate), accent (>) and tenuto (-, sustained all its value).
- Digitation
The digitation is the choice of what finger touches every note and also the number that indicates it at the score. At the piano the fingers range from 1 (thumb) to 5 (pinique) and at the left hand of the guitar from 1 (index) to 4 (pinique).
Decide to digitate a difficult passage before repeating it many times: changing it later costs more.
- Dynamics and nuances
The dynamic is the variation of intensity (volume) in music, and every sign that the mark is called motif: pianissimo (pp), piano (p, soft), piano minzo (mp), motizo forte (mf), forte (f, strong) and motisimo (ff). Crescendo (<) asks to put up the volume little by little and at a slower (>), and to put it down.
- Embocadura
The embocatura is the place and use of the lips, face and tooth muscles while playing an instrument of wind, such as the flute, clarinet, saxophone or trumpet. The sound, tuning and endurance depend greatly on them.
- Fraseo
The frambling is how to shape the musical phrases by interpreting them: where to breathe or cut them, how to write the words and how to use the dynamic and the articulation. It's to music that the intonation and the pauses are to read out loud.
- Glissando
Grissand is a continuous or very fast slide from one note to another passing through the midway heights. It is written with a straight or wavy line between the two notes and characteristic of the trombone, harp, piano and strings.
- Improvisation
Impairment is the creation of music at the time of its performance, without a previous score, from a harmony, a scale or a style. It's central to jazz, blues and many traditional music, and we learn with scales, words learned from listening and a lot of listening.
- The 440
The 440 is the international tuning standard that sets the La above the central Do at 440 hertz (vibrations per second). All other notes are tuned from that reference and some orchestras use close values, such as 442 Hz.
- Legato
Legate is an Italian sign that means "bound": the notes are united, with no silence between them. It's written with an expression ligation about the group of notes.
- Absolute and relative ear
The absolute ear is the ability, unusual, to identify or sing a note without any reference, for example to know that a sound is an La. The relative ear is the ability to recognize notes and intervals from a reference note and that's what most musicians use and can train.
Read more about differences in [absolute and relative ear]](/blog/oido-absoluto-y-oido-relativo).
- Pizzicato
A pizzicate (abbreviated pizzicate) is the technique of rubbed string instruments, such as violin, viola, cello and contraband, with the string clamour with his fingers rather than with his bow. The "arch" indicates that his arch is re-used.
- Staccato
Staccato is an Italian sign that means "separate": the notes are touched short and beamed, shorter than their written value. It's marked with a point above or under the note's head.
Don't confuse him with his tiptoe: his staccato's point goes about or under his note and his tipple, to his right.
- Vibrato
The vibration is a light and regular oscillation of the height of a note that gives them warmth and expression. On the strings we achieve by moving the finger that steps onto the string and by the voice and the winds with air or, in some instruments, with the jaw.
Tools and voice
- Tuner
A tuner is an apparatus or application that detects the height of a sound and shows if the note is tuned, under or above the right height. They are clamp, that they capture the vibration of the instrument, and of a microphone.
Can you use an [online tuner]](/herramientas/afinador) from his cell phone or his computer.
- Support (singing)
The support is, in singing, monitoring the air output with the musculature of the abdomen, back and ribs, enabling a stable sound to be held without tightening his throat. It does not consist of pushing or tightening his abdomen but rather of tipping his air.
Training with [breathing exercises to sing]](/blog/ejercicios-de-respiracion-para-cantar).
- Arco
The arch is a wood or carbon fibre stick with tensed sows, traditionally with horse's ponds, that rubbed onto the violin's ropes, viola, cello and contraband to make them sound. The sands are united with resin (cholophenia) to hold the string.
Check how to hold the violin's bow step by step.
- Boquilla
The nozzle is the piece of the wind instrument that comes into contact with the mouth. The metal, such as the trumpet or the trombone, is a glass with its lips vibrated and the clarinet and saxophone, are the piece where the cane is attached.
- Rod
The cane is a thin plate, made from a plant called common cane, that vibrates to produce the sound in several instruments of wood wind. The clarinet and saxophone use simple cane, attached to the nozzle with a clamp. The oboe and the fagot use double cane, two sheets that vibrate with each other.
The rods are worn out with use. Here you will see how to care for the oboe and its rods.
- Cejilla
The cebilla is the guitar technique in which a finger, most often an index, presses several or all of the strings into the same fringe, as with Fa (F) chord. Also called a cebilla, or capotre, the clamp put onto the mast to put up the tuning of all the strings.
It's one of the first challenges at [acoustic guitar]](/clases/guitarra-acustica): gain strength with short- and frequent practice.
- Diapason
The diapason is, in the string instruments, the long piece of wood on which the strings are put, with and without them at the guitar and with them at the violin. Also called the metal tipboard that, while hitting it, produces a fixed note, most often La 440, and serves to tuning.
- Falsete
Finger is a way of production of the voice in which the vocal cords vibrate with a thin and thin vibration without completely closing, and the sound is sharp, light and airy. They are used by men and women, and it's common with pop, soul and some traditional songs.
- Registro
The registration is an area of heights of an instrument or a voice, such as serious, medium or acute registration. The singing also refers to searches such as the voice of the chest, the voice of the head or the distorted, depending on how the vocal cords vibrate.
- Vowel technique
The vocal technique is the set of skills to sing with a healthy, refined and expressive form: breathing and support, emission, resonance, diction and record management. It develops with constant exercises, ideally guided by a teacher.
Begins every practice with some [vocal warming exercises]](/blog/ejercicios-de-calentamiento-vocal).
- Tesitura
Tesitura is the range of notes in which a voice or an instrument sounds comfortable and with good quality without forcing. It's tighter than extension, that includes all attainable notes, and helps to classify voices into soprane, mezansoprane, contrast, tenor, baritone or low.
- Traste
The trumpets are metal bars embedded in the guitar's diapason, bass, tiple or bindola, that divide the mast into semitones. By extension, it's called trast to the space where they step: "3 trast" is space between the second and the third bar.
Forms and styles
- Arreglo
One arrangement is to adapt an existing work to another format, style or set of instruments: to decide who plays the melody, what harmonies and rhythms accompany it and how it's structured.
To bring an Andean trio-written bamboo to a symphony band or to a choir requires an arrangement.
- Bambuco
The bambuco is a rhythm and gender of the Andean region of Colombia, considered as one of the symbols of the music of the country. It's written in 6 / 8 or 3 / 4 because it combines both the sensation of two groups of three and three groups of two, a game called esquialtera or hemiola.
Listen to the difference in bambuco, corridor and cumbia explain.
- Symphony band
The symphony band is a large grouping of wind (wood and metal) and percussion instruments, without the violin section of the orchestra but may include contraband. In Colombia, local and local gangs are an entrance to the most traditional music.
If you get the idea, read how [start with wind bands]](/blog/bandas-de-viento-en-colombia-como-empezar).
- Composition
The composition is the creation of a new musical work: its melody, harmony, rhythm, form and instrumentation. Unlike improvisation, the work will be set to be repeated, normally with a score or with a recording.
- Rope Quartet
The string quartet is a chamber grouping made up of two violins, a viola and a cello, and also the name of the works written for her. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven became one of the central genres of classical music.
- Cumbia
Cumbia is a rhythm and gender of the Colombian Caribbean, associated with the banks of the lower Magdalena, that is written in 2 / 4 or as a party (2 / 2). In its traditional format they play its drums (cheerful, llamador and tambora), gawks or pawns and maracas or guache, and spread throughout Latin America.
- Ensamble
A ensemble is any group of musicians who play or sing together, from a duo to a large grouping. To play with ensemble trains listening, a shared pulse and an interplay as a whole.
- Orquesta
An orchestra is a large instrumental grouping, organized by families (chords, wood, metal and percussion) and guided by a director. The symphony orchestra usually brings together 60 to 100 musicians with the chords as a base and the camera orchestra is smaller.
- Pasillo
The corridor is an Andean rhythm and gender with 3 / 4 compas, related with the European waltz of the 19th century and transformed into Colombia and other Andean countries. It can be instrumental and quick, with light for the bandola or tiple, or sung and slow.
- Porro
The past and a genus of the Colombian Caribbean, from the savannas of Córdoba and Sucre and linked to wind gangs, as with the pelayeras. It's binary, usually with a broken comas, and has variants such as the pale pound and the tapao past.
- Andean trio
The Colombian Andean trio is the typical format of Andean music from Colombia: bindola, tiple and guitar. The bindola carries the melody, tiple holds harmony and rhythm, and guitar does the bass, especially in bambucos, corridors and dances.
To choose your role in trio, read this [guide to Colombian Andean music]](/blog/musica-andina-colombiana-guia-para-empezar).
- Vallenato
Vallenato is a genus of the Colombian Caribbean, born in the Magdalena Grande region (Cesar, La Guajira and Magdalena) and traditionally played with accordion, vallenata and guacharaca. It engulves several airs, such as promenade, meringue, son and phya, and UNESCO recognized it as an immaterial cultural heritage in 2015.
Know his instruments at [instruments of Colombian Caribbean music]](/blog/instrumentos-de-la-musica-del-caribe-colombiano).
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