d-hole

(music) A sound hole, shaped like the letter D, through the top surface of a string instrument.


guitjo

(music) A banjo-like string instrument, with fourteen strings in seven courses, tuned like a guitar and having a guitar-like neck.


horsehead fiddle

en-noun

horsehead fiddle (plural horsehead fiddles)

Any of several Tuvan and Mongolian traditional stringed instruments, especially the igil or the morin khuur, characterized by the head of a horse being carved into its headstock.


Hardanger fiddle

Hardanger fiddle (plural Hardanger fiddles)

A type of fiddle typical of Norwegian folk music, characterized by thinner wood than a standard fiddle and the use of either eight or nine strings, four to five of which are sympathetic.


hardingfele

Hardanger fiddle
Hardanger fiddle#English


guitjoist

This band of countrymen consists of fiddler Ketch Secor, guitjoist Kevin Hayes, upright bassist Morgan Jahnig, guitarist Willie Watson, and banjoist Critter Fuqua.

2008, Daniel Martin, "Old Crow Medicine Show's third release heavy on folk", Pioneer (Oklahoma City Community College), Volume 37, Issue 7, 29 September 2008, page 3

Featuring cellist Hannah Alkire and double-neck guitjoist Joe Scott, this eclectic duo blends Celtic, folk, and world music.

2010, Glen Starkey, "His aim is true", NewTimes (San Luis Obispo County, California), Volume 24, Issue 36, 7 April 2010

Double-neck guitjoist Joe Scott and cellist Hannah Alkirem have performed across the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe and have released 10 albums of acoustic, instrumental fusion.

2014 February 27, Asher Brown-Pinsky, “10-Day Forecast”, in The Gainesville Sun:


classical guitarist

classical guitarist (plural classical guitarists)


cobza

From Romanian cobză, from Ukrainian ко́бза (kóbza), from Proto-Turkic *kopuŕ.
Doublet of komuz and kobza.

A lute-like stringed instrument (chordophone), with four strings in double courses, played with a plectrum, and most associated with the traditional music of Romania.


diddley bower

(music) Someone who plays the diddley bow.


hammered dulcimerist

hammered dulcimerist (plural hammered dulcimerists)

Someone who plays the hammered dulcimer.


console steel guitarist

console steel guitarist (plural console steel guitarists)

console steel guitar
console steel guitar

Someone who plays the console steel guitar.


steel guitarist

steel guitarist (plural steel guitarists)


console steel guitar

console steel guitar (plural console steel guitars)

(music) A type of large electric lap steel guitar, usually with two necks and seven or eight strings.


diddley bow

(music) A one-stringed instrument (monochord) that consists of a wire string attached to something solid like the side of a house, and played with a piece of metal or glass, originating in the African American traditional music of Mississippi in the United States.


gopuz

(music) A komuz (a stringed instrument).


temir komuz

(music) A type of Jew's harp, of Central Asian origin.


komuzist

[…] that undergo continuous transformation on the lips of the singers and under the fingers of the komuzists in accordance with individual talents, artistic intent and experience, as well as the peculiarities of a given text.

1970, Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council, page 79:


domra

(music) A round-bodied lute of East Slavic origin with either three or four strings.


mandocellist

From mandocello + -ist, influenced by cellist.


dramyin

A traditional unfretted long-necked plucked lute used in the Himalayan region


armónico guitar

armónico guitar (plural armónico guitars)


pedal steel guitarist

pedal steel guitarist (plural pedal steel guitarists)

Someone who plays the pedal steel guitar.


lap steel guitarist

lap steel guitarist (plural lap steel guitarists)


lap steel guitar

lap steel guitar (plural lap steel guitars)

(music) A type of steel guitar held in the lap, usually with six strings and a square neck.


table steel guitarist

table steel guitarist (plural table steel guitarists)

Someone who plays the table steel guitar.


table steel guitar

table steel guitar (plural table steel guitars)

(music) A type of electric guitar and steel guitar where the fretboard is mounted on a table, which has no resonator body.


zhongruan

(music) A plucked long-necked lute-like string instrument (chordophone) of Chinese origin, a medium-sized tenor ruan with four strings and twenty-four frets.


waldzither

(music) A type of stringed instrument, a cittern of German origin, with nine strings in five courses.


octophone

(music) A modern stringed instrument intended to be able to play the tone combinations of the tenor guitar, tenor banjo, ukulele, taro-patch fiddle, tiple, mandolin, mandola and mandocello.


mandora

(music) A type of bass string instrument.


jamisen

(obsolete) An archaic stringed instrument of Japanese origin, traditionally made from snakeskin and characteristic of the Ryukyu islands; it is the ancestor of the shamisen.


lute guitar

(music) A stringed instrument that combines a normal guitar six-string layout over a lute-like bowl-shaped body, originating in German folk traditions.


psalmodicon

(music) A simple zither-like single-stringed chordophone (stringed instrument), played with a bow, of Scandinavian origin.


sarodist

He has produced many of the most outstanding sarodists around the world, but especially in America, where he has a very strong following because of his school there.

2006, Peter Lavezzoli, The Dawn of Indian Music in the West, page 432:


electric sitar

(music) A type of electric guitar that mimics a sitar while being loud enough to be used in rock and pop music; it is characterized by an asymmetric body, the use of a large, flat bridge and sympathetic strings.


electric dulcimer

electric dulcimer (plural electric dulcimers)

(music) A dulcimer that uses electronic amplification to produce sufficient sound.


electric violinist

electric violinist (plural electric violinists)


electric harpist

electric harpist (plural electric harpists)


electric sitarist

electric sitarist (plural electric sitarists)


electric cellist

electric cellist (plural electric cellists)


four-string guitar

four-string guitar (plural four-string guitars)


electric cello

A cello modified to be played either electrically or acoustically, usually possessing five strings.


tenor guitar

A type of small guitar-like stringed instrument with four strings, usually with four strings and a normal guitar-shaped body, originating in American jazz music.


electric harp

(music) A type of harp with a solid body and electric pickups on each string, in order to amplify the instrument's sound.


tenor guitarist

tenor guitarist (plural tenor guitarists)

Analyzable as tenor guitar + -ist or as a Blend of tenor guitar + guitarist.


harp guitar

(music) Any of several designs of guitars with at least one unstopped string that can be plucked, like that of a harp.


kit violin

(music) A very small long-necked violin that came in a variety of shapes and configurations, meant to be carried in a pocket and intended for dancing instructors to carry to accompany their students.


dan bau

A monochord (one-stringed) zither-like stringed instrument (chordophone) of Vietnamese origin, played by plucking with a plectrum with one hand and using the other to vary the tension on the string to adjust the pitch.


dan day

A type of lute with three strings, a hollow trapezoidal wooden body with an open back, and a very long neck, originating in traditional Vietnamese music (particularly ca trù).


dan nguyet

A moon-shaped kind of lute, a plucked, fretted lute with a round body and two strings, originating in traditional Vietnamese music.


scratchband

scratchband (countable and uncountable, plural scratchbands)

(countable, dated, Virgin Islands) A group of musicians who play scratch music.

(uncountable, dated, music, Virgin Islands) The genre of music such musicians create; scratch, quelbe or fungi music.


squeezeboxer

Someone who plays a squeezebox (accordion).


Vienna horn

(music) A brass aerophone used mainly in Austria in the performance of orchestral and classical music.


jaw harpist

Someone who plays a jaw harp (Jew's harp).


mouth organist

Someone who plays any of the instruments called a mouth organ (panpipes, Jew's harp, harmonica).


mouth harpist

Someone who plays a mouth harp (either a harmonica or a Jew's harp).


erxian

Borrowed from the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Mandarin 二弦 (èrxián).

One of several bowed string instruments in the huqin family, used in traditional Chinese music.


esraj

Sri Chinmoy is director of the United Nations meditation group. He is an author and a musician as well. Tonight at 7:30, he will work as a musician along with three or four choral groups and a number of instrumental units—he plays cello and esraj (a type of sitar) himself.

1976 May 28, “Weekender Guide”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, page C1:

A bowed string instrument of Indian origin, with a goatskin soundboard, sympathetic strings attached to a sitar-like neck, and twenty frets.


idiophonist

Someone who plays an idiophone musical instrument.


frottoirist

Someone who plays a frottoir (rubboard).


glass harmonicist

glass harmonicist (plural glass harmonicists)


musical sawist

Synonym of sawist (Someone who plays a musical saw)


bellist

(rare) Someone who plays bells; a musical bell ringer.


cowbellist

I spent the next two months back in Michigan, where my days as a cowbellist were coming to an end.

2008, Rick Lax, Lawyer Boy: A Case Study on Growing Up, page 42:

(chiefly humorous) Someone who plays a cowbell.


reed instrumentalist

reed instrumentalist (plural reed instrumentalists)


brass instrumentalist

brass instrumentalist (plural brass instrumentalists)


woodwindist

Someone who plays a woodwind instrument, such as the clarinet.


wind instrumentalist

wind instrumentalist (plural wind instrumentalists)


string instrumentalist

string instrumentalist (plural string instrumentalists)

Someone who plays a string instrument (chordophone).


bluester

A musician who plays the blues or music influenced by the blues.


reggaeish

en-adj

reggaeish (comparative more reggaeish, superlative most reggaeish)

more reggaeish (comparative)
most reggaeish (superlative)


pannist

Most contemporary bands are comprised of between fifty and two hundred volunteer pannists, who play one or two harmonic pans; with up to six instruments, bass pannists have to be pretty dextrous, twisting around to reach the right notes.

2018, Polly Thomas, The Rough Guide to Trinidad and Tobago, Apa Publications, →ISBN:


flute-player

(rare, dated) Someone who plays a flute.


nyabinghi

From Nyabinghi, the name of a legendary Ugandan/Rwandan tribe queen.

(Rastafari, music) A style of music and a rhythm originally associated with the Nyabinghi sect of Rastafarians, but now more generally known as a component of reggae, especially roots reggae.


rockers reggae

The word rockers is variously attributed either to UK youth slang for reggae fans or to the name of a sound system owned by Augustus Pablo.

(music) A mid-1970s genre of reggae characterized by a melodious style and an upbeat drum-focused sound, influenced by rock, funk and other American and British styles.


roots reggae

(music) A genre of reggae with a rootsy, folk-influenced style and a lyrical focus on social, political and spiritual (especially Rastafarian) themes.


polkabilly

(music) A music genre that combines polka with punk, rockabilly and other genres of rock music.


funklike

funklike (comparative more funklike, superlative most funklike)

more funklike (comparative)
most funklike (superlative)

(music) Similar to funk music, or funky.


dublike

dublike (comparative more dublike, superlative most dublike)

more dublike (comparative)
most dublike (superlative)


rhinestone cowboy

en-noun

rhinestone cowboy (plural rhinestone cowboys)

A person, especially a country musician, who affects a cowboy-like image but with glamorous and fashionable accents.


grungelike

en-adj

grungelike (comparative more grungelike, superlative most grungelike)

more grungelike (comparative)
most grungelike (superlative)


gospellike

gospellike (comparative more gospellike, superlative most gospellike)

more gospellike (comparative)
most gospellike (superlative)


rockesque

rockesque (comparative more rockesque, superlative most rockesque)

more rockesque (comparative)
most rockesque (superlative)


disco-like

disco-like (comparative more disco-like, superlative most disco-like)

more disco-like (comparative)
most disco-like (superlative)

(music) Similar to disco music or culture.


calypso-like

calypso-like (comparative more calypso-like, superlative most calypso-like)

more calypso-like (comparative)
most calypso-like (superlative)


punklike

punklike (comparative more punklike, superlative most punklike)

more punklike (comparative)
most punklike (superlative)

(music) Similar to, or reminiscent of, punk rock or similar styles.


ambient-like

ambient-like (comparative more ambient-like, superlative most ambient-like)

more ambient-like (comparative)
most ambient-like (superlative)


zouk love

(music) A genre of popular zouk influenced by reggae fusion, contemporary R&B and other styles, and with a focus on romantic lyrics.


jazz fusion

(music) A style of jazz music that is influenced by rock music, funk, rhythm and blues and other styles.


Nyabinghi

Most likely from a Great Lakes Bantu language. Compare Tooro -nya- (“pertaining to”) and ingi (“rich in; plentiful in”). The spelling with -gh- may reflect an early spelling of /ŋɡ/ to distinguish it from the simple /ŋ/.

(Rastafari, music) A style of music and a rhythm associated with the sect and ceremony, and with reggae music.


frame drummer

Someone who plays any instrument of the frame drum-family.


zouk-like

zouk-like (comparative more zouk-like, superlative most zouk-like)

more zouk-like (comparative)
most zouk-like (superlative)

(music) Similar to, or reminiscent of, zouk.


qawwali-like

qawwali-like (comparative more qawwali-like, superlative most qawwali-like)

more qawwali-like (comparative)
most qawwali-like (superlative)

(music) Similar to, or reminiscent of, qawwali music.


bucket drummer

Someone who plays a bucket as a musical instrument, usually as a busker or street musician.


salsa-like

salsa-like (comparative more salsa-like, superlative most salsa-like)

more salsa-like (comparative)
most salsa-like (superlative)

(music) Similar to, or reminiscent of, salsa music.


polka-like

polka-like (comparative more polka-like, superlative most polka-like)

more polka-like (comparative)
most polka-like (superlative)

The members’ real innovation is their embrace of a Finnish polkalike genre called humppa, which sounds — well, like it sounds, more or less.

2007 September 22, Kelefa Sanneh, “Finnish Folk-Metal, in Swedish, Plus Trolls”, in New York Times:


ragtimelike

ragtimelike (comparative more ragtimelike, superlative most ragtimelike)

more ragtimelike (comparative)
most ragtimelike (superlative)

(music) Similar to, or reminiscent of, ragtime music.


jazz-funk

Meanwhile, for those who doubted the sheer breadth of music Glastonbury offers, a short walk took you from Thundercat’s exploratory, spaced-out take on jazz-funk – where the smooth sound of yacht rock crashed into extended passages of improvisation to thrilling effect – to the aforementioned Craig David, clad entirely in white and padding out his set by the simple expedient of playing other people’s records and singing along to them, and thence to Liam Gallagher on the comeback trail.

2017 June 26, Alexis Petridis, “Glastonbury 2017 verdict: Radiohead, Foo Fighters, Lorde, Stormzy and more”, in the Guardian:

(music, jazz) A genre of funk heavily influenced by jazz.


hornpiper

From Middle English hornpiper, hornpipere, equivalent to hornpipe + -er.


dan ty ba

A plucked four-stringed chordophone with a long neck and a pear-shaped body, originating in the traditional music of Vietnam.


dan tranh

A small plucked zither with movable bridges and usually 16 or 17 strings, of Vietnamese origin.


dan nhi

A vertical bowed fiddle-like string instrument with two strings, originating in the traditional and classical music of Vietnam.


daruan

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation for 大阮 (dàruǎn).

A bass lute-like four-stringed chordophone of the ruan family of Chinese traditional instruments.


handclapper

Someone who claps, especially as part of a musical performance; a clapper.


division viol

division (florid instrumental variations of a melody) + viol (a type of viola da gamba)

(music) A type of bass viol with the ability to be tuned in a very broad range, originating in the performance of divisions in 17th century English.


prog-like

prog-like (comparative more prog-like, superlative most prog-like)

more prog-like (comparative)
most prog-like (superlative)

(music) Similar to, or reminiscent of, progressive rock.


squeeze box

Mama's got a squeeze box she wears on her chest. / From when Daddy comes home, he never gets no rest. / Because she's playing all night, and the music's all right.

1975 November, Pete Townshend (lyrics and music), “Squeeze Box”, in The Who by Numbers, performed by The Who:

(Pause. peter picks up his squeeze box.) / peter I sing with this. / george A concertina. / peter No, it's a squeeze box. Can you play it? / george I love music, but can't play a thing.

1980, Louis Nowra, “Inside the Island”, in Helen Gilbert, editor, Postcolonial Plays: An Anthology, Abingdon, Oxon., New York, N.Y.: Routledge, published 2001, →ISBN, page 291:

Like the "concertina oompah" phase of the Dutchman style, the Slovenian polka sound emphasizes skill with a squeezebox.

1999, James P. Leary, “Polka Music in a Polka State”, in James P. Leary, editor, Wisconsin Folklore, Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, →ISBN, page 279:

Intoxicating, the cheap Moroccan wallets, squashed and flattened in their elasticated dozens, which he eased apart like squeeze-boxes, releasing their scent of oxhide, of urine, of all the dyes and spices of the kasbah.

2002, Howard Jacobson, chapter 2, in Who's Sorry Now?, London: Jonathan Cape, ISBN 978-0-224-06286-2; republished London: Vintage Books, 2003, ISBN 978-0-09-943737-6, page 29

It [Serenade for Winds in B Flat Major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart] started simply enough: just a pulse in the lowest registers – bassoons and basset horns – like a rusty squeezebox. It would have been comic except for the slowness, which gave it instead a sort of serenity. […] But the squeezebox went on and on, and the pain cut deeper into my shaking head, until suddenly I was running, dashing through the side door, stumbling downstairs into the street, into the cold night, gasping for life.

2003, Cliff Eisen, quoting Antonio Salieri, “Mozart’s Chamber Music”, in Simon P. Keefe, editor, The Cambridge Companion to Mozart, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 105:

Squeezeboxes are essential instruments in most polka traditions, especially the button accordion, the piano accordion, and the Chemnitzer concertina. […] Manufacture and sale of squeezeboxes made the instruments widely accessible at a time when polkas were all the rage. The squeezebox-polka association remains. A majority of polka bands use an accordion or concertina.

2006, Richard March, “Polka”, in Richard Sisson, Christian Zacher, Andrew [R. L.] Cayton, editors, The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 388, column 1:

Memories held by an older generation faded—memories of concertinas used in twilight dances on deck under a tropical sky or of Royal Navy soldiers dancing a hornpipe to its sound—and succeeding generations saw only Captain Pugwash’s “Tom the Cabin Boy,” fictional Disney pirates, and Tinseltown crooners with fake squeezeboxes.

2010, Dan M[ichael] Worrall, “The Concertina at Sea”, in The Anglo-German Concertina: A Social History, 3rd edition, volume 1, Fulshear, Tx.: Concertina Press, →ISBN, page 324, column 2:

(music, informal) An accordion or concertina.


klezmer-like

klezmer-like (comparative more klezmer-like, superlative most klezmer-like)

more klezmer-like (comparative)
most klezmer-like (superlative)

(music) Similar to, or reminiscent of, klezmer music.


jazz-rock

(music, jazz) A genre of rock music heavily influenced by jazz.


gadulka

Borrowed from Bulgarian гъдулка (gǎdulka).

bor+

(music) A traditional Bulgarian stringed instrument, played with a bow, and most commonly featuring three main strings and up to sixteen sympathetic strings.


gayageum

Borrowed from the Revised Romanization of Korean 가야금(伽倻琴) (gayageum).

(music) A zither-like chordophone, most often with twelve strings, originating in the traditional music of Korea.


kayagum

(music) Alternative spelling of gayageum


jawboneist

Audio (US)

Someone who plays a jawbone as a musical instrument.


geomungo

A zither of ancient Korean origin, with frets and movable bridges, played by plucking with a stick.


quintern

(music) A type of four-stringed gittern, originating in Germany.


gehu

A modern Chinese instrument that fuses the Western cello with a more traditional huqin-like design, with four strings tuned like a cello.


ghaychak

(music) Any of several lute-like stringed instruments of Asian origin.

A double-chambered bowl lute used by the Iranian and Baloch people, with three or four strings and a short neck without frets.

A spike lute used in Afghanistan and throughout Central Asia, often featuring a tin can for a soundbox.


goje

A fiddle-like stringed instrument with one or two strings, and a resonator made from a gourd or calabash, originating among the Hausa of West Africa.


candombe

en-noun

candombe (countable and uncountable, plural candombes)

"Candombe is the only original folkloric music in Uruguay, and it is a product of the black community," said Julio Olivera, an artist and head of the Association for the Development of Afro-Uruguayan Art and Culture.

1993 May 7, Nathaniel C. Nash, quoting Julio Olivera, “Uruguay Is on Notice: Blacks Want Recognition”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

The 10 song-and-dance numbers include candombe rhythms, with African roots, but the music is mostly murga, Uruguayan carnival sounds.

1999 August 1, Alvin Klein, “Cheating Death, Uruguayan Style”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(music) A musical style of Uruguay originating from African slaves.

Together, we watched locals and tourists practice their dance moves in the center, a converted warehouse whose walls were lined with candombe drums carved with images of slave ship hulls filled with chained human cargo.

2014 September 12, Michael T. Luongo, “Argentina Rediscovers Its African Roots”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(music) A type of drum used to accompany this music.


gudok

A musical instrument, a chordophone, most often neckless and with three strings, played in the lap and with a bow, of ancient Slavic origin.


zhuihu

Borrowed from the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Mandarin 墜胡／坠胡 (zhuìhú).

(music) A two-stringed chordophone (string instrument) with a fretless fingerboard, played with a bow, of Chinese origin and especially associated with Henan and Shandong.


sarinda

(music) A type of stringed instrument featuring anywhere from three to thirty strings and a hollow soundbox partially covered with an animal skin, played vertically with a bow, originating in the traditional music of India and Nepal.

serja

used mainly in reference to the instrument played by the Bodo people of Assam


polyharmony

polyharmony (countable and uncountable, plural polyharmonies)

(music) Music that is played in more than one key at once, creating an aesthetically pleasing harmonic sound.

polyvalence

use of more than one harmonic function in one key


tenor banjo

(music) A type of small banjo-like stringed instrument with a short neck, usually with 17 or 19 frets and four strings, and played with a plectrum, originating in American jazz music.


nightshining

(poetic, nonstandard) Shining or glowing at night; noctilucent.


guitarrón

(music) Any of several stringed instruments of Latin American origin.


haegeum

Borrowed from Korean 해금(奚琴) (haegeum). Doublet of xiqin.

Like clockwork, she reached for the haegeum that leaned against the main counter top. Jung-Soo held his breath as she prepared herself to play.

2017, Young-Im Lee, Forgotten Reflections: A War Story:

(music) A musical instrument (chordophone) with a hollow soundbox, two strings made from silk, and a rod-like neck, of traditional Korean origin.


guslar

bor

gȕslār//гу̏сла̄р


extragalactic background light

en-noun

extragalactic background light (uncountable)

From extragalactic + background + light.

An international group of researchers has developed a new way to measure accurately the extragalactic background light (EBL) that fills the universe. The technique involves measuring the attenuation of high-energy gamma rays from distant blazars and it could improve our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve, as well as how the universe has expanded since the Big Bang

2013 March 27, Tushna Commissariat, “Blazars help measure extragalactic background light”, in PhysicsWorld:

Ground-based observatories have been collecting 0.2 - 20 TeV gamma rays from blazars for about twenty years. These gamma rays can experience absorption along the line of sight due to interactions with the extragalactic background light (EBL). In this paper, we show that the gamma-ray optical depth can be reduced to the convolution product of an EBL kernel with the EBL intensity, assuming a particular form for the EBL evolution

2015, Jonathan Biteau, David A. Williams, "The extragalactic background light, the Hubble constant, and anomalies: conclusions from 20 years of TeV gamma-ray observations", arXiv; (1502.04166) [14 February 2015]

active galactic nuclei
active galactic nuclei#English

All the accumulated radiation in the universe due to star formation processes, plus a contribution from active galactic nuclei (AGNs).


Hardanger fiddler

Hardanger fiddler (plural Hardanger fiddlers)


King David's harp

King David's harp (plural King David's harps)


kinnor

Just as the Kinor of King David played by itself when the north wind touched its strings, so too did Rabbi Nachman's heart fill with music when he beheld the forests, hills, brooks and other aspects of nature.

2017, Velvel Pasternak, Behind the Music, Stories, Anecdotes, Articles and Reflections, page 235:

A stringed instrument of the Israelites.


Sabbathesque

en-adj

Sabbathesque (comparative more Sabbathesque, superlative most Sabbathesque)

more Sabbathesque (comparative)
most Sabbathesque (superlative)

(rare, music) Similar in style to the heavy metal band Black Sabbath.


tricordia

(music) A twelve-stringed variant on the mandolin.


ramkie

From Afrikaans ramkie, from Portuguese rabequinha (“little fiddle”).

(music) An improvised guitar-like string instrument made from a discarded oil can, with or without frets, most commonly with three or four strings made from either fishing line or a bicycle brake wire, originating in the folk music of Southern Africa.


bronde

en-noun

bronde (countable and uncountable, plural brondes)

Blend of brunette + blonde or brown + blonde, popularised from circa 2010.

I'm a bronde.

(countable) A person having this hair colour.


monochordist

Someone who plays a monochord (one-stringed chordophone).


church organist

church organist (plural church organists)


talking drummer

talking drummer (plural talking drummers)


tom-tom drummer

tom-tom drummer (plural tom-tom drummers)


kabosy

(music) A wooden box-shaped guitar-like musical instrument, most commonly with six strings and characterized by the use of partial frets, originating in traditional Malagasy music.


eunuch flute

Now there was in Shakespeare's time a pipe called the eunuch flute. It was not an instrument that could generate sound but only a contrivance for imparting to the voice a trembling or buzzing sort of tone not unlike that which children produce by means of a piece of paper folded over a comb.

2011, Christopher Welch, Six Lectures on the Recorder and Other Flutes in Relation to Literature:

(music) A simple musical instrument consisting of a wooden tube with a hole in it, used like a modern kazoo.


box zither

A zither with a trapezoidal or rectangular shaped sound box.


tom-tom drum

(music) A cylindrical drum without snares, used as part of the modern drum kit.


kobyz

(music) A stringed instrument traditionally made of a single piece of wood, with either two or four strings and played with a bow, of traditional Kazakh origin.


barrel organist

barrel organist (plural barrel organists)


church organ

(music) A large pipe organ installed in a Christian church.


ondiola

Much of Scelsi’s output was created in an unusual way: he would improvise on a piano, a guitar, percussion instruments or, later in his career, an ondiola, a three-octave electronic instrument that could capture vibrato and microtonal intervals.

2015 September 20, Zachary Woolfe, “Review: Argento Chamber Ensemble’s ‘Scelsi Rediscovered’”, in New York Times:

An electronic musical instrument, an Italian version of the clavioline.


kacapi

Borrowed from Sundanese ᮊᮎᮕᮤ (kacapi, “zither”).

(music) A box zither with an open bottom, played by plucking, originating in traditional Sundanese music, especially tembang sunda and pantun sunda.


arched harp

A type of harp where the string carrier and resonator are physically united, with strings at right angles to the sound table, no pillar and a neck that curves away from the resonator.


radiosynthesis

radiosynthesis (countable and uncountable, plural radiosyntheses)

The automated production of radioactive compounds.


housefire

A large fire that occurs in a house, causing substantial damage.


triangular harp

triangular harp (plural triangular harps)


long drum

(music) A musical instrument characterized by extreme length, typically made out of an entire hollow tree trunk.


hand percussion

(music) Any percussion instrument that can be held in the hand.


hourglass drum

(music) A drum (membranophone) with an hourglass-like shape.


frame harp

(music) A type of harp with a front pillar, forming a triangular frame.


footed drum

(music) A drum (membranophone) whose resonance is improved by an open bottom that is held by the player's feet.


barrel drum

(music) A drum (membranophone) with a shape that bulges in the middle, forming a barrel-like appearance, usually very large and made of wood with a one-headed and open-bottomed body.


vertical flute

(music) Any type of flute that is held vertically when played.


conical drum

(music) A typically single-headed drum (membranophone) with one end larger than the other, and a body that slopes towards one end, forming a conical shape.


double-conical drum

double-conical drum (plural double-conical drums)

(music) A type of barrel drum with two heads instead of one.


transverse flute

transverse flute (plural transverse flutes)

(music) Any type of flute that is held sideways when played.


yoke lute

(music) Any chordophone (stringed instrument) with two arms extending from a body to a crossbar (a yoke), and strings, parallel to the soundboard, connecting the body to the yoke.


pellet drum

(music) A drum (membranophone) that has two heads and produces sound through two pellets, tied to the body of the drum and manipulated so as to strike the heads.


contrabass bugle

contrabass bugle (plural contrabass bugles)

(music) A type of tuba designed for marching. It is preferred by drum corps with large tuba sections because it offers a more rich sound than a sousaphone at the expense of volume.


friction drum

(music) A drum (membranophone) that produces sound through friction.


saung

Borrowed from Burmese စောင်းကောက် (caung:kauk).

(music) An arched harp used in Burmese traditional music.


pornobilly

Inventor of pornobilly, Buck would come on stage dressed only in a “cowboy hat, pink cowboy boots and a toilet-plunger codpiece”.

2000, Brian Hinton, Country Roads: How Country Came to Nashville, Sanctuary, →ISBN, page 423:

If you like Buck Naked, check out Jon Wayne's 'Texas Funeral' if you haven't done so already. Not highly offensive pornobilly, but highly offensive in a drunken Texas way.

2004 September 26, REP [username], “Re: what's everyone listening to lately?”, in alt.support.childfree (Usenet):

Of course, there's a tendency to dismiss Buck and the Boys, pornobilly as a cheap novelty.

2005, Kim Cooper, David Smay, editors, Lost in the Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed, Routledge, →ISBN:

A genre of rockabilly music with raunchy lyrics and stylings.


prepared piano

(music) A piano that has had its sound altered by placing objects (called preparations) on or between the strings.


kontigi

A boat-shaped lute-like string instrument with one or two strings, originating among the Hausa people of West Africa.


metalbilly

metalbilly (countable and uncountable, plural metalbillies)

(uncountable, music) A music genre that combines heavy metal with rockabilly.


cosmic infrared background

cosmic infrared background (uncountable)

low-level infrared radiation originating from all directions in space


khoomei

Borrowed from Tuvan хөөмей (xöömey) and Mongolian хөөмий (xöömii), ᠬᠥᠭᠡᠮᠡᠢ (kögemei).

horsehead fiddle
horsehead fiddle#English

(music) A style of throat singing, often accompanied by the horsehead fiddle, from Mongolia and eastern Siberia.


musicmaking

The composition or the playing of music.


kanjira

Mr. Mahadevan also sang winningly (but often wordlessly) throughout the concert’s second half, alongside Mr. Hussain, the mandolinist U. Shrinivas and the percussionist V. Selvaganesh, whose specialty is the kanjira, a small hand drum with an expressive range of pitch.

2009 May 1, Nate Chinen, “Bringing Along Friends Who Can Add to the Beat”, in New York Times:

A South Indian frame drum, similar to the tambourine.


bolombatto

He is performing here with his Symmetric Orchestra, an ensemble of West African musicians who play both traditional instruments (kora, balafon, bolombatto, djembe) and slightly more contemporary ones (guitars, keyboards).

2009 April 17, The New York Times, “Pop Listings”, in New York Times:

A traditional string instrument of West Africa, consisting of four strings stretched over a gourd.


tiorbino

(music) A stringed instrument, a type of small theorbo.


romantic guitar

romantic guitar (plural romantic guitars)

(music) An archaic kind of early guitar, from the classical and romantic eras, with six single strings and a long, fretted neck.


sympitar

(music) A stringed instrument similar to a guitar with sympathetic strings like a sitar.


Selmer guitar

From the surname of the French manufacturer.

(music) A kind of acoustic guitar of French origin, used in the early to mid-20th century.


sanshin

Borrowed from Japanese 三線 (sanshin) or Okinawan 三線 (sanshin, literally “three strings”). Doublet of sanxian.

bor

(music) A three-stringed instrument of Okinawan origin, the precursor to the shamisen.


suroz

(music) A stringed instrument with a long neck, played vertically and with a bow, especially associated with the Baloch people.


tanpura

From Hindi तंबूरा (tambūrā) or Hindi तानपूरा (tānpūrā), from Persian تنبور (tanbur).

(music) A Hindustani/Indian classical stringed instrument, typically having a gourd as its resonating chamber.


sanxian

Borrowed from Mandarin 三弦 (sānxián). Doublet of sanshin.

(music) A three-stringed fretless Chinese instrument.


funkateer

Genre was never a concern of the idiosyncratic funkateer.

2015 October 11, Kitty Empire, “Doug Hream Blunt: My Name Is Doug Hream Blunt review – belated discovery of a maverick funketeer”, in The Observer:


waterphone

The listing for Loop 2.4.3 had promised that a waterphone would be featured.

2009 June 23, Allan Kozinn, “Classical Tunes Come Down to the Streets for Impromptu Concerts”, in New York Times:

percussion instrument
percussion instrument

An acoustic percussion instrument consisting of a resonator bowl or pan with a cylindrical neck, surrounded by rods of different lengths and diameters. Water may be added to the bowl to modify the sound.


minisolo

There are sharp lyrics, lovely harmonies at the hook and a pair of raucous guitar minisolos, a minute apart, which constitute this album’s most explicit moment of Rancid reaching beyond itself for something greater, and getting it.

2009 June 1, The New York Times, “New CDs”, in New York Times:


shahrud

(music) A type of short-necked lute, similar to an archlute, originating in traditional Persian music.


parlor guitar

(music) A kind of small acoustic guitar, originally meant to be played (often by women) in the parlor of a Victorian-era home; more modern models are still used today, commonly in folk music.


Portuguese guitar

en-noun

Portuguese guitar (plural Portuguese guitars)

(music) A plucked guitar with a pear-shaped body and round soundholes, with twelve strings in six double courses, associated most prominently with Portuguese music, especially fado.


taro-patch fiddle

taro-patch fiddle (plural taro-patch fiddles)

(music) A five-stringed musical instrument originating in the traditional music of Hawaii.


self-accompanied

(music) Providing instrumental music alongside one's own performance, usually as a singer.


pommer

From German Pommer, from Middle High German bumhart, from Italian bombarda.

The treble pommer was the equivalent of our hautboy; the bass pommer corresponded to our bassoon. Midway between these lay the alto and tenor pommers, of which the former (the alto), was doubtless the forerunner of the cor anglais.

The Emperor Sigismund, Pope John XXIII, and many other Church dignitaries and others high in the affairs of state, sat in the council which opened in that year and lasted until 1418. For this occasion there were gathered together some five hundred musicians who played on fifes, fiddles, trumps, trombones, and pommers.

1936, Ray Giles, «Here Comes the Band!», New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers, page 176:

The Fleming Denis van Alsloot’s ‘Procession of the Religious Orders from the Town of Antwerp…’, painted in 1616 shows with excellent clarity six musicians playing a trombone, two alto pommers, a discant schalmey, cornetto, and a dulzian played on the left side with the right hand uppermost, the exact opposite to the dulzian’s descendant, the bassoon, which is played the other way round.

1948, The Monthly Musical Record, page 230:

(music) An alto, tenor, or bass instrument of the shawm family.


thermonuclear bomb

thermonuclear bomb (plural thermonuclear bombs)

thermonuclear weapon
thermonuclear weapon#English


nuclear isomer

(physics) Any of two or more atomic nuclei with the same mass number and atomic number but with different radioactive properties


bigophone

From Bigot + -phone (after its French inventor Romain Bigot).

Elsewhere, professionals could enthuse over new precision instruments capable, for instance, of measuring weights down to a tenth of a milligram, or over a host of self-registering thermometers and barometers, microscopes, typewriters, calculators and all sorts of technical and musical devices, including automatic concertinas, edeophones, auto-harps, bigophones and other long-forgotten objects.

1978, Jan Romein, The Watershed of Two Eras: Europe in 1900, page 303:

(music) Any of a series of cheap musical instruments, made to resemble orchestral instruments, that were blown in the manner of a kazoo


tromba marinist

tromba marinist (plural tromba marinists)


trumpet marine

trumpet marine (plural trumpets marine or trumpet marines)

trumpets marine (plural)
trumpet marines (plural)


triple contrabass viol

triple contrabass viol (plural triple contrabass viols)

(music) A stringed instrument of the viol family, a variant of the octobass distinguished by its extreme size -- at more than ten feet all, it must be performed by a person on a platform.


tromba marina

From Italian, meaning "marine trumpet".
* The tromba may originate in a comparison to the valveless trumpet of the Middle Ages, which produced harmonic overtones like the tromba marina, or as a reference to the unique trumpet-like rasping sound created by the intentionally loose bridge of the instrument vibrating against its face. The marina may refer to the Virgin Mary, perhaps because the instrument was played by nuns in convents.

(music) A Middle Ages European string instrument with a long, slender and triangular-shaped body, featuring one main string and sometimes additional sympathetic strings, known for an extremely loud sound making it useful for signalling between ships, and for a distinctive ethereal tone (harmonic overtones) created by the player fingering the string at precise intervals below the point where the string is to be bowed, rather than above as most similar instruments.


fanmix

And of course, if you belong to a fandom and would want to make a fanmix about your otp or your favorite characters, you can make a feels-laden mix about Daenerys Targaryen, Enjolras x Grantaire, or Charlie from Perks.

2013, Olivia Soloman & Alvar Santos, "8Tracks: The Modern Mix Tapes", Echoes (University of the Philipines), June 2013, page 73

[…] it is far more often the case that fan writers feel inspired to write fresh works by an active fandom's multiplicity of shared performances, ranging from debates over the source text's meanings to screenshots to vids to fanmixes.

2016, Abigail De Kosnik, Rogue Archives: Digital Cultural Memory and Media Fandom, page 189:

While I didn't buy the album when it came out, the songs sort of filtered onto my iPod over the next few years from fandom playlists—“Cosmic Love” was the headliner for many, many Doctor Who fanmixes at the height of that particular fandom).

2019 February 12, Bex Peterson, “My teenage CD collection”, in The Other Press, Douglas College, page 8:

(fandom slang) A compilation of songs assembled by a fan and themed around a film, TV series, etc.


ashiko

(music) A conical drum with one open end and a head on the wide end, originating in Yoruba music.


ashiko

A claw-like piece attached to one's foot, used for climbing, originating among the ninjas of Japan.


tarraxinha

It’s an apt metaphor for the music, a collision of African dance genres such as kuduro, kizomba and tarraxinha with house and techno that is unique to Lisbon’s ghettos.

2015 October 27, “Príncipe Disco: the new club sensation from the Portuguese projects”, in The Guardian:

(music) A form of kizomba that has a strong, electronic bass


Spinal Tap-ian

From the fictitious rock band Spinal Tap, as depicted in the mockumentary film This is Spinal Tap (1984).

Without fail, each movie registered a 9 or 10. Only the movie Sky High deviated from this range, coming in at a SpinalTapian 11.

2007 Oct. 2, ogblay, "I Am Prepared to Give Up at Any Time," blogspot.ca (retrieved 27 Oct 2015)

The decision to name Malone (redshirt junior) and Hardrick (true junior) starting linebackers was one of the biggest stories from Monday’s release. . . . The fact that they won hotly-contested starting jobs after battling injuries speaks Spinal Tap-ian volumes.

2013 August 29, Victor Flores, “Oregon’s Toughest Task: Replacing Alonso and Clay”, in FishDuck.com: Oregon Football Analysis, retrieved 2015-10-27:

Yes’s list of former members since its founding in 1968 is of Spinal Tap-ian proportions.

2013 December 10, Peter Simpson, “Yes to play classic albums live in Ottawa, other Cdn cities”, in Ottawa Citizen, Canada, retrieved 2015-10-27:

Podolak felt fortunate to have siblings Sarah and Christian Dugas join a group that ultimately, he said, "led a very Spinal Tapian kind of existence" involving "record company and management and internal band craziness."

2014 June 13, Michael Bialas, “Leonard Podolak and Jessee Havey Reunite to Rebuild a Duhks Dynasty”, in Huffington Post, retrieved 2015-10-27:

On a scale from 1-10, the hype about the potential of 3D printing has reached a fevered mark deserving a Spinal Tap-ian “11”.

2014 July 9, Gregory Han, “3D Printing Is Comfortably Correcting How We Heal”, in design-milk.com, retrieved 2015-10-27:

Brooklyn garage-rockers Sharkmuffin are hitting the road with their 14th drummer. It's Spinal Tap-ian.

2015 July 29, Jess Hahne, “Look out, it's Sharkmuffin!”, in Creative Loafing Charlotte, US, retrieved 2015-10-27:

The fact remains that Trudeau, with a few minutes of presence in a space open to the public, dialled up the contrast between himself and the outgoing PM to a Spinaltapian eleven.

2015 October 26, Colby Cosh, “Trudeau’s subway ride after the election was both a clever tactic and a good thing to do”, in National Post, Canada, retrieved 2015-10-27:

(informal, usually mildly humorous) Of, pertaining to, or resembling the fictitious rock band Spinal Tap, especially with respect to its excessive behavior, its very high turnover of members, or its use of sound amplifiers with a maximum setting of 11 (instead of the usual 10).


bit crusher

(music) A lo-fi digital audio effect that produces a distortion by reducing the resolution or bandwidth of the audio data.


klapa

A traditional form of a cappella singing in Dalmatia, Croatia.


flatpick

en-verb

flatpick (third-person singular simple present flatpicks, present participle flatpicking, simple past and past participle flatpicked)

flatpicks (present singular third-person)
flatpicking (participle present)
flatpicked (participle past)
flatpicked (past)

to play acoustic guitar in the flatpicking style.


flatpicking

From flat, referring to the plectrum, + picking.

a style of bluegrass acoustic guitar played with a plectrum.


saxotromba

A valved brasswind instrument designed for the mounted bands of the French military.


black as the ace of spades

en-adj

black as the ace of spades (not comparable)


watchnight

New Year's Eve

whereas watch night is the night that begins at sundown on New Year's Eve and ends with sunrise on New Year's Day

not identical to watchnight – New Year's Eve is the entire day before New Year's Day

And there is one night in the year I have always observed – the good old Methodist vigil called Watch-night, popularly described as "seeing the old year out and the new year in." […] I have only been a Methodist once a year; and peculiar, accordingly, have my watch-night emotions been. There stands the old portico in —— street; can it be a year since I ascended those steps? These are the aisles, the columns, the pulpit, the recess with its inscriptions, the Christmas evergreens yet fresh over the Communion Table – silent preachers all, that seem to say: "You and I are a year older, friend; but we have seen more watch-nights than you, and are likely to see more yet;[…]["]

1861, “Watch-night in the Channel”, in The Sunday at Home: A Family Magazine for Sabbath Reading, London: The Religious Tract Society, →OCLC, page 260:

This was the first watchnight meeting among the Methodists. The people met at half-past eight; the house was filled from end to end; and "we concluded the year," says [John] Wesley, "wrestling with God in prayer, and praising Him for the wonderful work which He had already wrought upon the earth."

1872, L[uke] Tyerman, The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., Founder of the Methodists. … In Three Volumes, volume I, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, page 333:

Wesleyan Methodist Twentieth Century Celebration: Order of Watchnight Service to be Held in Every Wesleyan-Methodist Place of Worship in Great Britain on the Night of Monday, 31st December, 1900, Being the Last Night of the Nineteenth Century

[1900], Wesleyan Methodist Twentieth Century Celebration, London, Aylesbury: Hazell, Watson and Viney, →OCLC, cover title:

The first watch night services ever held in Grace Protestant Episcopal Church were but poorly attended, […]

1901 January 1, “Watch Night Services”, in The New York Times, page 2:

Watchnight. December 31 This is a midnight service that summarizes the past year. In recent centuries, the Moravians and early Methodists have celebrated it as a vigil service focusing on newness, the spiritual life, and covenants.

1999, R. Mark Liebenow, And Everyone Shall Praise: Resources for Multicultural Worship, Cleveland, Oh.: United Church Press, →ISBN, page 77:

(Christianity) A religious service involving a review of the past year and preparation for the year ahead participated in by Methodists and members of other Christian denominations which starts late on New Year's Eve and ends after midnight on New Year's Day; hence, the night that begins on December 31 and ends on January 1.


bailecito

en-noun

bailecito (countable and uncountable, plural bailecitos)

A high point of the group's performance was "Canto Popular," written by Ambar Canales. Using the traditional "bailecito" rhythm of Argentina with Judit Moschkovich playing congas (she's the Argentine, Canales is the Puerto Rican) the piece celebrates the people's song movements of Latin America and all the meetings and exchanges between us.

1982 August 7, Arora Levins-Morales, “Cross Currents: Multi-Cultural Spirit in San Francisco”, in Gay Community News, page 6:

(music) A genre of traditional style of dance music of Bolivia and Northern Argentina in 6/8 time.


backlining

backlining (countable and uncountable, plural backlinings)

(uncountable, music) The positioning of amplifiers behind the performers when playing on a stage.


steel band

A band (musical group) who perform with steelpans.


megafire

Coordinate term: megastorm

This increase means that almost every aspect of the Earth’s climate system is now influenced by humanity, and the consequences – droughts, heatwaves, megafires, melting glaciers and rising oceans – are now well understood.

2015 November 20, Tim Flannery, “Climate crisis: seaweed, coffee and cement could save the planet”, in The Guardian:

There remains much that can be done to limit the damage to come, to brace against the coming megafires and superstorms and save lives and hold onto a thriving civilization.

2020 September 22, John Branch, Brad Plumer, “Climate Disruption Is Now Locked In”, in New York Times:

Across the Western United States, a summer of record-breaking drought, heat waves and megafires exacerbated by climate change is forcing millions of people to confront an inescapable string of disasters that challenge the future of growth.

2021 July 20, Jack Healy, Sophie Kasakove, “A Drought So Dire That a Utah Town Pulled the Plug on Growth”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

A very large wildfire, typically one covering more than 100,000 acres.


heliocentricity

The quality of being heliocentric; heliocentrism.


albous

Whites:- albous or albus is a pure white […]

1841, Edward Newman, John Van Voorst, A Familiar Introduction to the History of Insects; Being a New and Greatly Improved Edition of The Grammar of Entomology:

Frons: piceous, scarcely convex; rugose-punctate; sparse, lanceolate, small, griseo-albous squamae.

1940, Stanford University, Natural History Museum, Microentomology: Contributions to Entomology from the Natural History Museum of Stanford University, Volumes 5-8:

These included dark coloured flower, light coloured flower, albous flower, pink flower, red flower, small flower, biflorate and triflorate mutants.

1998, Society of Cytologists and Geneticists, India, The Journal of Cytology and Genetics, Volume 33:


nigrous

Of pillared mists, in nigrous smoking gloom, […]

1816, George Thomas, Freedom; with other poems:

Sternum: nigrous, clad less densely with longer, usually fusiform, similarly colored squamae; […]

At this hour, just before dawn, another nigrous presence came hovering over him to darken his face.

2008, Glen Craney, The Fire and the Light: A Novel of the Cathars and the Lost Teachings of Christ:


cinerous

From Latin cinereus, suffixed with -ous.

For quotations using this term, see Citations:cinerous.

Alternative form of cinereous (“ash-colored”)


coccineous

From Latin coccineus, suffixed with -ous.

coccineous:

This is allied to Lanieri, but is at once distinguished by the thorax, posterior coxae, femora and tibiae being entirely coccineous, and the four anterior legs black.

1872, Transactions of the American Entomological Society:

The species is well distinguished in its soft delicate texture, much convoluted plicate thallus, bright coccineous medulla up to the apices of the laciniae, […]

1975, Dharani Dhar Awasthi, A monograph of the lichen genus Dirinaria:

Because I have over 300 photos and no longer a limit of 24-27 shots on this new camera, I was able to snap a couple of pictures of this coccineous bird.

2007, Sand-dee Rose Waybill, The Fortieth Year of a Wollongong Woman:


badious

From Latin badius (“reddish brown, chestnut colored”), with the suffix adapted to -ous.

uder

Head castaneous; thorax latericious; abdomen badious; legs ochraceous.

1898, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 26, Linnean Society of London:

Abdomen subovate and short; basal segment apically badious with postpetiole punctate, […]

1919, Zoological Society of London, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London:

Its branching type and vaguely badious colour suggest a close relationship with B. spiralifera, which shares the same habitat.

1977, Societas, Opera Botanica, Issues 41-45:

badious:

badious:


singback

en-noun

singback (countable and uncountable, plural singbacks)

(music) An exercise where the pupil is instructed to sing back a sequence of notes previously played or sung.


subcontraoctave

(music) The octave on the bass clef ranging from three octaves below the staff (C0) to two octaves below the staff (B0).


clapback

clapback (countable and uncountable, plural clapbacks)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-clapback.wav

(uncountable, countable, music) An exercise where the pupil is instructed to repeat a previously played rhythm by clapping.


radiometabolism

The scientific study of metabolism using radioactive markers.


laouto

Borrowed from Greek λαούτο (laoúto). Doublet of lavta, lute, and oud.

A Greek or Cypriot musical instrument of the lute family.


anthracosilicosis

Advanced pneumoconiosis resulting from inhalation of coal dust.


cromorne

A French woodwind instrument resembling the crumhorn.


clarsach

Borrowed from Scottish Gaelic clàrsach (“harp”) by the 1810s, possibly from clàr (“board, plank; table”). The word is cognate with Irish cláirseach (“harp”).

And I, beside the lake of swans, / Shall hunt for thee the fallow deer; / And build thy hut and bring thee home / The wild fowl, and the honey-comb; / And berries from the wood provide, / And play my clarshech by thy side.

1810, Thomas Campbell, “O’Connor's Child, or, The Flower of Love Lies Bleeding”, in The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell. […], Baltimore, Md.: Printed for Philip H[oulbrooke] Nicklin & Co., […], stanza VIII, page 209:

[S]he sate down at a little distance upon the bench on which Allan M‘Aulay was placed, and tuning her clairshach, a small harp, about thirty inches in height, she accompanied it with her voice.

1819, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter VI, in Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. […], volume III (A Legend of Montrose), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 274:

He is particularly delighted by her skill in music, which is so exquisite, that she far exceeds the best performers in this country in playing on the clashach or harp.

1819, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter V, in Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. […], volume IV (A Legend of Montrose), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 306:

They [the country people] preferred the sprightly springs of the fiddle when intent on the dance; or if pouring forth the sweet melody of the song, their choice accompaniment was unquestionably the clarsach (harp).

1876 July, “Gaelic Songs”, in Alexander Mackenzie, Alexander Macgregor, editors, The Celtic Magazine: A Monthly Periodical Devoted to the Literature, History, Antiquities, Folk Lore, Traditions, and the Social and Material Interests of the Celt at Home and Abroad, volume I, number IX, Inverness: A. & W. Mackenzie, […]; Edinburgh: J. Menzies & Co., and Maclauchlan & Stewart; Glasgow: William Love, →OCLC, page 295:

After long thought, he took his clàrsach and went up through the ancient forest and out upon the desert of the great mountain which towers above all others in Emhain Abhlach. He played gently upon his clàrsach as he went, so that no wild thing molested him.

1899, Fiona Macleod [pseudonym; William Sharp], “Honey of the Wild Bees”, in The Dominion of Dreams, Westminster, London: Archibald Constable and Co., →OCLC; 5th edition, Westminster, London: Archbald Constable and Co., […], 1899, →OCLC, page 248:

The craft of making clarsachs or harps continues despite the fact that of the three principal instruments played in Scotland over the centuries the clarsach is almost certainly the oldest.

1974, Michael Brander, Scottish Crafts and Craftsmen, Edinburgh: Johnston and Bacon, →ISBN, page 66:

[T]here are two examples of the earliest clarsachs in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. The Caledonian or Lamont harp is believed to date back to 1464, and the Queen Mary harp dates back to about 1564. Mary Queen of Scots was an ardent clarsach player, as was King James I. The clarsach was popular in Scotland until the middle of the eighteenth century, when the destruction of the clan system had its concurrent effect on this instrument. It was not until the 1890s that the clarsach was heard from again.

1986, Emily Ann Donaldson, The Scottish Highland Games in America, Gretna, New Orleans, La.: Firebird Press, Pelican Publishing Company, →ISBN, pages 196–197:

A small triangular wire-strung harp of Gaelic origin.


Harpocrates

From Ancient Greek Ἁρποκράτης (Harpokrátēs), from Egyptian ḥr-pꜣ-ẖrd, from ḥr (“Horus”) + pꜣ (“the”) + ẖrd (“child”).

(Greek mythology) The god of silence, secrets and confidentiality.

Roman goddess of trust and confidentiality


oversouling

From over- + soul + -ing, coined by the music journalist and producer Jerry Wexler.

(music, derogatory) The excessive use of melisma in singing.


belloneon

The belloneon, likewise mechanical, seems to have been a complete military band which executed marches and flourishes with a unity, precision, and correctness beyond the reach of the most practiced artists.

1976, Otto Mayr, Philosophers and machines:

(historical, music) A mechanical musical instrument consisting of twenty-four trumpets and two kettle drums.


dectet

This medium is divided by the total of performers involved, ranging from duos to dectets, with the compositions in each section discussed alphabetically.

1981, Arthur Cohn, Recorded Classical Music: A Critical Guide to Compositions and Performances:


duodecet

From decet on the model of Latin duodecim (“twelve”).

(music) A group of twelve musicians; a piece of music written for such a group


madal

A type of drum used in Nepalese folk music.


pyromanic

Several pyromanic boys before coming to the Orthogenic School set fires because they so much enjoyed watching the pumps throw streams of water at burning buildings.

1954, Bruno Bettelheim, Symbolic wounds: puberty rites and the envious male, page 186:


digital hardcore

The best recent VC discs start from the relentlessness of gabber and digital hardcore, and yank it in a weirder direction.

1999, SPIN, volume 15, number 3, page 145:

A fast, abrasive music genre that melds hardcore punk with electronica.


extended play

(music) A musical recording that contains more music than a single, but is usually too short to qualify as a full studio album or LP.


aureolin

In preparing a palette for it the colors used were aureolin, cobalt, crimson-lake, yellow ochre, brown ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, light-red […]

aureolin:

A yellow pigment used in painting, composed of potassium cobaltinitrite.


C-sharp

(music) A musical note one semitone higher than a C, notated C♯.


enneatonic

In m.11 (ex. 6.4b), an eighth-note variant of this enneatonic fragment is harmonized by a half-diminished-seventh chord on A resolving to an A♭-major triad; as shown beneath the lower staff of example 6.4b, this harmonization generates an enneatonic collection different from that implied by the melody.

2005, William Kinderman, Katherine Rae Syer, A Companion to Wagner's Parsifal, →ISBN, page 226:

Now the enneatonic diatonic descending genus, išartum: cbagfedcb consists of two junct pentachords: cbagf and: fedcb containing two octochords: cbagfedc and bagfedcb .

2005, Richard J. Dumbrill, The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East, →ISBN, page 53:

The complete pitch content of the opening seven measures is the enneatonic collection, the highly symmetrical nine-note mode of limited transposition that is the complement of an augmented triad.

2009, Evan Allan Jones, Intimate Voices: Debussy to Villa-Lobos, →ISBN, page 217:


pyrophilia

A paraphilia in which gratification is derived from fire and fire-starting activity.


coal burner

(derogatory, ethnic slur) A nonblack person, usually a woman, who has sexual relationships with black people, usually men.


shitgaze

Finding the sweetness in the shitgaze pile Times New Viking have truly mastered the no-fi game: No matter how they defile their sound (with razor blades, broken glass, tape hiss), they make sure there's bubblegum at the center.

2009, Jessica Suarez, review of Times New Viking Born Again Revisited, SPIN, page 86

A genre of rock music with very heavy distortion and lo-fi recording.


-gaze

(music) Denotes a genre of music which makes heavy use of distortion effects and wall of sound production.


metalgaze

SanFran metalgaze band Deafheaven deliver New Bermuda to Casbah on Thursday.

2015 October 14, Barnaby Monk, “Deafheaven, a Heartbreaker, Hinds ...and the best of the rest in San Diego clubs this weekend”, in San Diego Reader:

(music) A musical genre derived from heavy metal, with minimalist ambient instrumentation and wall of sound effects.


burst into flames

en-verb

burst into flames (third-person singular simple present bursts into flames, present participle bursting into flames, simple past and past participle burst into flames)

bursts into flames (present singular third-person)
bursting into flames (participle present)
burst into flames (participle past)
burst into flames (past)

People on their way to work / And baby, what do you expect? / Gonna burst into flames

1983, Talking Heads (lyrics and music), “Burning Down the House”, in Speaking in Tongues:

burst into flame
burst into flame#English


fanfared

Pure fanfared melodies also occur, as we have seen, in rural Annam and in Cambodia.

1954, Egon Wellesz, New Oxford History of Music: Ancient and oriental music, page 188:

Fanfared music, on the other hand, is exclusive, as far is known, to Karesau and the central range. The area in which the panpipes are found and that in which fanfared music occurs are, therefore, by no means identical.

2013, Jaap Kunst, Music in New Guinea: Three Studies, →ISBN, page 31:


choir school

(music) A school, attached to a cathedral or abbey, that provides education to its choristers


BTX

(petrochemistry) Initialism of (mixture of) benzene, toluene, and xylenes.


gridle

gridle (third-person singular simple present gridles, present participle gridling, simple past and past participle gridled)

gridles (present singular third-person)
gridling (participle present)
gridled (participle past)
gridled (past)

He also gridled sacred hymns in the streets, and sung sporting songs in the alehouses.

1908, W. H. Davies, chapter 31, in The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp:

To sing as a form of begging, especially to sing hymns badly with the aim of soliciting donations out of sympathy.


string player

a musician who plays a string instrument, one where a bow is used, often in an orchestra.


Cav and Pag

/ˈkæv ən ˈpæɡ/

(music, informal) The two one-act operas Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci presented as a single event.


hate music

Music that expresses destructive desires against a demographic.


EDO

(microtonal music) Abbreviation of equal division of the octave.


dreampop

Fast becoming a sensation in the blogosphere, the latest persona of Austin-based Alan Palomo (best known from the electropop outfit Vega), this vaguely melancholy, synth-powered bit of dreampop comes off like a cross between MGMT and Todd Rundgren.

2009 July 18, John Sakamoto, “The Anti-Hit List”, in Toronto Star:


atabaque

Borrowed from Portuguese atabaque, from Arabic الطَّبَق (aṭ-ṭabaq, “plate”).

A tall Afro-Brazilian hand drum, traditionally having its shell made of jacaranda wood.


peckhorn

(music, slang) An alto horn or mellophone.


anthemlike

en-adj

anthemlike (comparative more anthemlike, superlative most anthemlike)

more anthemlike (comparative)
most anthemlike (superlative)

Garrett shows a remarkable (and utterly un-Clash-like) ability to connect with the audience through anthemlike choruses.

1988 November 25, Ted Cox, “Midnight Oil: rock around the apocalypse”, in Chicago Reader:


daughter isotope

en-noun

daughter isotope (plural daughter isotopes)

daughter nuclide
daughter nuclide#English


barium star

(astronomy) Any of a class of giant stars whose spectra show the presence of s-process elements (such as barium)


audiation

audiation (countable and uncountable, plural audiations)

/ɔːdɪˈeɪʃən/

/ˌɔdiˈeɪʃən/

Presumably audio + -ation, coined by American music researcher and educator Edwin E. Gordon (1927–2015), possibly in Learning Sequence and Patterns in Music (1976).

Audiation takes place when one hears music through recall or creation (the sound not being physically present) and infers musical meaning as compared to aural perception where one listens to music actually being performed.

1976, Edwin E. Gordon, “Development of the Taxonomies”, in Tonal and Rhythm Patterns: An Objective Analysis: A Taxonomy of Tonal Patterns and Rhythm Patterns and Seminal Experimental Evidence of Their Difficulty and Growth Rate, Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, →ISBN, footnote 2, page 7:

[P]erformance always faces the risk of failure. One may get the notes right but quite misconstrue the work. One can discover one’s problems and then correct them. Private ‘audiations’ are systematically insulated from the ambient environment critique performance lives in. If being acquainted with the work in one’s head involves the same demands as becoming acquainted with it in public, presumably one can get it all wrong.

1992, Stan Godlovitch, The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, →OCLC, page 7; republished as “Performances and Musical Works”, in Musical Performance: A Philosophical Study, London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 1998, →ISBN, part II (Challenges to the Model), page 91:

Some performers spend considerable time reviewing the score and experiencing the music through audiation, or engage in internal dialogue to get themselves into the right orientation to play while others complete a technical/physical warm-up with their instruments, playing both exercises and parts of the repertoire.

1995, John T[homas] Partington, “Pre-concert Preparation”, in Making Music, [Ottawa, Ont.]: Carleton University Press, →ISBN, page 127:

Children will stare for a few seconds at the parent, teacher, or another person as they become aware that there is a difference between their own singing or chanting and someone else's. […] In a sense, children are now attempting to enter the world of audiation. At this point, however, they do not know how to correct their singing, chanting, or movement and, thus, they are unable to begin to cope with audiation.

2003, Edwin E. Gordon, “Part Six: Imitation”, in A Music Learning Theory for Newborn and Young Children, Chicago, Ill.: GIA Publications, →ISBN, page 86:

Rock's fantasists and their immediate parents, like the Beats, invented their visions and audiations from a vocabulary of imaginary sound and time spaces (thus, perhaps, "audiochronotopes").

2008, Michael Long, “Listening in Dark Places”, in Beautiful Monsters: Imagining the Classic in Musical Media, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif., London: University of California Press, →ISBN, page 157:

(music) The comprehension and internal realization of music by an individual in the absence of any physical sound.


coronarography

(medicine) An X-ray of the coronary arteries


fire lane

firefighting apparatus
firefighting apparatus

(US) A passageway or access road that allows a firefighting apparatus such as a fire engine to pass through.

消防通道

passageway that allows a fire engine to pass through


funaná

(music) An accordion-based style of music from Cape Verde.


konpa

Wednesday at 7 p.m., Haitian konpa music by the group CaRiMi, in Brower Park, Brooklyn and St. Marks Avenues, Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

2009 July 31, Anne Mancuso, “Spare Times”, in New York Times:


ringle

Blend of ringtone + single. Coined by Sony BMG Music Entertainment.

The ringle is expected to contain three songs—one hit and maybe one remix and one older track—and one ringtone, on a CD with a slip sleeve cover.

2007 September 15, Ed Christman, “Ringles In, List Price Out?”, in Billboard, volume 110, number 37, page 21:

Meanwhile, label profit margins for the format are considered slim. The majors are gambling that the ringle can instill in consumers the mind-set to connect to the Internet via the CD.

2007 October 10, “Music industry betting on 'ringle' format”, in CNET, archived from the original on 2024-06-16:

The ringle is a physical CD that contains three songs — a hit, a remix and an older track by the artist—and a mobile phone ringtone. Both Sony/BMG and Universal Music Group are releasing ringles into the market in time for Christmas sales. Sony/BMG is experimenting with the release of 50 ringles, while Universal is releasing up to 20 during the same period.

2009 April 20, Proceedings: The 84th Annual Meeting 2008, number 97, National Association of Schools of Music, page 78:

(music, uncommon) A CD single which includes a shortened ringtone version.


tsymbaly

(music) The Ukrainian version of the hammered dulcimer.


Parsons code

Developed by Denys Parsons for his 1975 book The Directory of Tunes and Musical Themes.

A simple notation used to identify a piece of music through the falling and rising motion of its pitch.


pop chart

(music) A list of the most popular or best-selling pop music at a given time.


idioglot

Further north, in rural Lithuania, a folk clarinet has a cylindrical tube closed at the top, with idioglot reed taken in the player's mouth for its entire length.

1975, Sibyl Marcuse, A survey of musical instruments, page 729:

Pipes with idioglot reeds (not separate pieces of cane, but cut in the tube itself) have been identified from later civilisations, for example the Greek aulos and the Sardinian launeddas.

1995, Colin James Lawson, The Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet, →ISBN, page 2:

Alongside the clarinet of today, idioglot instruments are still played in many European countries, along the Baltic and in the Balkans, as well as Asia, Africa and South America.

2008, Eric Hoeprich, The Clarinet, →ISBN, page 13:

(music) Having a vibrating reed that is an integral part of the instrument.


idioglot

Masa (tongs) -an idioglot with a sound-rhythmical effect and with a secondary musical function; made of iron.

1987, The World of Music - Volume 29, page 69:

These simple instruments (idioglots) still found in Syria, Crete, Turkmenistan amongst others are also used by children who have a good supply of reeds nearby.

1988, Eric Montbel, Le Roseau et la musique, page 78:

The single reed iterations were often idioglots because of the simple structural design required to produce such a sound generator.

2016, Michael J. Pagliaro, Basic Elements of Music, →ISBN, page 88:


heteroglot

The more specific definition will become useful when we discuss the earliest manifestations of the eighteenth- century clarinet and distinguish these from the closest relative of the clarinet — the chalumeau with a heteroglot reed.

1992, Albert R. Rice, The Baroque Clarinet, →ISBN, page 1:

Depending on whether the reeds are single or double, slit from the pipe itself or inserted separately the bagpipe is an idioglot, a heteroglot, or mixed.

2000, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Musical Instruments, →ISBN, page 130:

Some reed-pipes are made not with what is termed an 'idioglot reed' - one sliced from the reed or cane material of the tube itself - but from a 'heteroglot reed', in which the vibrating reed is a separate sliver of reed or other suitable material, these days including plastic tied over an aperture in a reed-bearing mouthpiece.

2006, Rebecca Berkley, The illustrated complete musical instruments handbook, →ISBN, page 155:

(music) Having a vibrating reed that is made from a different material than the instrument itself and is often removable.


Prodge

The main event arrived later that year, when the Prodge began playing a new, punk-esque song called Firestarter […]

2010, John Harris, Hail! Hail! Rock'n'roll:

With its unsettling mid-way change of pace, it unexpectedly reveals a more thoughtful Prodge, dealing with darker themes […]

1999, Al Spicer, Rock: 100 Essential CDs: The Rough Guide, page 140:

(music, slang) The Prodigy, an English electronic music group formed in 1990.


quadtone

(music) An interval of four whole tones.


statite

A hypothetical type of artificial satellite that uses light sails to maneuver.


Rhodes piano

Named after American inventor Harold Rhodes (1910–2000).

named-after

The Rhodes piano wasn't the only keyboard available at the Apple studio.

2001, Andy Babiuk, Beatles Gear, page 237:

An electric piano whose keys activate hammers that strike thin metal rods of varied length, connected to tonebars, which are then amplified via an electromagnetic pickup.


silent as the tomb

silent as the grave
silent as the grave#English


CCR

Creedence Clearwater Revival
w:Creedence Clearwater Revival

(music) Initialism of Creedence Clearwater Revival.


(physics, medicine) The radioactive isotope of iodine, ¹²⁵₅₃I, having a half-life of 59 days; used as a radiation therapy.


utonal

(music) Exhibiting or relating to a utonality.


otonal

(music) Exhibiting or relating to an otonality.


kvlt

en-adj

kvlt (comparative more kvlt, superlative most kvlt)

more kvlt (comparative)
most kvlt (superlative)

You gotta wear make-up at kvlt gigs or you'll be thrown out.

(music, slang, humorous) True to the ideology of black metal or a stereotypical manifestation of that subculture.


gold record

(US, music) An album or single that has sold 500,000 or more copies.


slap bass

(music) A percussive playing style in which the strings of a bass guitar are thumped (often with the thumb) or pulled away from the instrument so they vibrate against the fingerboard.


antimatter rocket

en-noun

antimatter rocket (plural antimatter rockets)

A proposed form of rocket that would use antimatter as direct or indirect propellant


woodnote

If Jonsons learned sock be on, / Or sweetest Shakespear fancies childe, / Warble his native Wood-notes wilde, ...

(poetic) A natural musical sound, like birdsong in a forest.


lampadarius

From Latin lampada, from Ancient Greek λαμπάς (lampás, “candle”).

(Christianity) The leader of the second (left) choir of singers in Eastern Orthodox Christianity.


troparion

troparion (plural troparions or troparia)

Coordinate term: apolytikion

When awakened, Kyr Avram sits in bed and, as if out of fear, sings troparia and contakia in honor of his ancestors, whom the Serbian church has declared saints.

1988, Milorad Pavić, translated by Christina Pribićević-Zorić, Dictionary of the Khazars, Vintage, published 1989, page 31:

(Eastern Orthodoxy, music) A short hymn of one stanza, or organised in more complex forms as a series of stanzas.


deathgrind

A fusion of death metal and grindcore music.


death 'n' roll

A musical subgenre of death metal with hard rock elements.


yayue

Borrowed from Mandarin 雅樂／雅乐 (yǎyuè, literally “elegant music”). Doublet of gagaku and aak.

zh-m

(music) A form of Chinese ritual music performed at imperial courts since the Zhou Dynasty, and usually associated with Confucianism.


ndombolo

A fast-paced Congolese music and dance style.


funkadelics

Little Boss put a stop to the funkadelics of Maurice's new radio, but he was powerless to prevent his whistling as he walked about at a smart clip.

1992, Darryl Pinckney, High Cotton, page 232:

But guest producers like RJD2 and Joey Chavez help keep Acey's beats on track, from the velvet lounge vibe of "The Saga Continues" to the folksy funkadelics of "Ace Cowboy."

2003, Vibe, volume 11, numbers 7-12, page 156:


Benedicite

/ˌbɛnəˈdiːt͡ʃɪteɪ/

From Latin benedīcite, a plural imperative of benedīcō (“I bless, I praise”, literally “I say well [of]”).

But one or two, who nourished in their bosoms respect for the downfallen hierarchy—casting first a timorous glance around, to see that no one observed them—hastily crossed themselves—bent their knee to sister Magdalen, by which name they saluted her—kissed her hand, or even the hem of her dalmatique—received with humility the Benedicite with which she repaid their obeisance; […]

1820, [Walter Scott], chapter XIII, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 266:

A canticle, the Latin version of which begins with the word benedīcite (“praise ye!”), which may be used in the order for morning prayer in Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.


meriyasu

Borrowed from Japanese メリヤス (“a stretchy knit fabric”)

bor+

A style of instrumental music used as scoring in kabuki


aerophonic

(music) Of or relating to the aerophones.


albumblatt

en-noun

albumblatt (plural albumblatts or albumblatter)

albumblatts (plural)
albumblatter (plural)

(music) A short instrumental composition, usually performed on the piano and light in character.


jet propellant 1
jet propellant 1#English

(aviation) Initialism of jet propellant 1 (a highly refined kerosene; a type of jet fuel).

avgas

aviation gasoline; similar to leaded automotive petrol gasoline; not a jet fuel

Jet A

a type of jet fuel, similar to automotive diesel fuel


rocket propellant 1
rocket propellant 1#English

(astronautics) Initialism of rocket propellant 1 (a highly refined kerosene; usually used in combination with LOX).


light intensity

light intensity (countable and uncountable, plural light intensities)

the amount of light given by a light source.


army green

army green (countable and uncountable, plural army greens)

Any of several hues of dull green used by various militaries for their uniforms.


Pingju

From the pinyin romanization of Mandarin 評劇／评剧 (píngjù).


mesonoxian

From meso- (“middle”) + Latin nox (“night”) + -ian.

af

A tumble would have had serious consequences. It had been unforgivable recklessness, but also tremendously sexy. YouTube found the graphic documentation of my mesonoxian madness too explicit but it was present on a few other video sites […]

2014, Malcolm James Thomson, TheodoraLand:

Glancing at the gold clock on the mantelpiece I see that it is already midnight, the most potent time of night for Lazarus witches, so that all our most important events are timed to start to coincide with the mesonoxian hour.

2014, Paula Brackston, The Midnight Witch:

Mesonoxian wanderer, bathed in moonlit shadows […]

2015, Dena M. Ferrari, Charmed Times Three, page 110:


gunmetal gray

en-noun

gunmetal gray (countable and uncountable, plural gunmetal grays)

She's wearing a gunmetal gray dress that’s tasteful in front, and practically obscene from the back.

2012, John Locke, Wish List (Donovan Creed), John Locke Books, →ISBN, page 18:

(US) Alternative spelling of gunmetal grey.


radiomitigation

Mitigation of the harmful effects of radiation.


aeolopantalon

(music) An obsolete musical instrument combining the aeolomelodicon with a piano, allowing them to be played separately or together.


aeolomelodicon

In the æolopantalon, invented about the year 1830, by Dlugosz of Warsaw, the æolomelodicon was combined with a pianoforte, so arranged that the player could make use of either instrument separately or both together.

1879, Sir George Grove, A Dictionary of Music and Musicians (A.D. 1450-1889), volume 1:

Naturally, the "foremost Polish pianist", the 15-year-old Chopin, was called on to give a public recital on the aeolomelodicon, a strange instrument invented by Brummer and Hoffman.

1968, Adelaide Murgia, The life and times of Chopin, page 13:

One was to launch a new keyboard instrument, a hybrid between the pianoforte and the organ, which during its brief life span was known as the aeolomelodicon.

1978, Ruth Jordan, Nocturne: a life of Chopin, page 45:

(music, historical) An obsolete musical instrument derived from the aeolodicon but having brass tubes affixed to the reeds, making it more like an organ.


aeolodicon

(music) An obsolete keyed wind instrument resembling the harmonium, its tone produced from steel springs.


shruti box

During the “Gayatri Mantra” her voice soared over the hypnotic drone that one hand coaxed from her shruti box, while the other hand energetically massaged the air.

2006 December 2, Vivien Schweitzer, “Prayer, Texts and Chants, Along With Some Improv”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(music) A musical instrument resembling a harmonium, used to provide a droning accompaniment in Indian classical music.


timbrally

Perimeter Drive explores the potential for a single instrument to function timbrally, harmonically, and rhythmically as a multiple resource.

1984, Carol Gertrud Isaac, Three compositions: Perimeter drive, A quartet, Shot?, page v:

The first represents the degree of variation of successive harmonic peaks in the spectrum (this would indicate a timbrally rich music); the second, the relative strength of a tonal centre (e.g. a stable, predictable music); and the third, the degree of minor-to-major tonality, so that a higher value is ‘more major’ (see [30 ], p. 112, 127, and 129).

2015 December 8, “Colour Association with Music Is Mediated by Emotion: Evidence from an Experiment Using a CIE Lab Interface and Interviews”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI:


tristropha

(music) A neume that trebles the value of the first note in a series.


strophicus

(music) A neume resembling an apostrophe, possibly indicating a small variation in pitch.


salicus

(music) A neume consisting of an ascending group of three notes, resembling the scandicus but having the second note emphasized.


distropha

(music) A neume that doubles the value of the first note in a series.


oriscus

(music) An ornamental neume of unclear meaning, usually found added to another neume as an auxiliary note.


trivirga

(music) A neume that trebles the value of the first note in a series of virgae.


bivirga

(music) A neume that doubles the value of the first note in a series of virgae.


daseian

(music) Using or relating to a medieval form of musical notation with varying numbers of staves and a system of four shapes rotated to represent eighteen pitches.


economy picking

(music) A guitar picking technique designed to maximize efficiency. When picking multiple notes on a string, alternate picking is used, and when changing to a new string, sweep picking is used.


nu-disco

A 21st-century dance music genre associated with a renewed interest in 1970s and 1980s disco and related genres.


doomcore

A dark and minimal subgenre of hardcore techno music.


Bachian

en-adj

Bachian (comparative more Bachian, superlative most Bachian)

more Bachian (comparative)
most Bachian (superlative)

Of or relating to Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), German composer and musician of the Baroque period.


darkpsy

Indeed, by the early 2000s, the music and cultures of psytrance (from psybient to darkpsy) was^([sic]) becoming entheogenically liminalised, a popular state of affairs from Europe to Israel, America to Australia and Brazil to South Africa.

2010, Graham St John, The Local Scenes and Global Culture of Psytrance, →ISBN, page 224:

Having said this, darkpsy antagonists are committed to reproducing an atmosphere that is certifiably gothic by comparison to "morning trance" and "progressive trance."

2011, Graham St. John, “Rave from the Grave: Dark Trance and the Return of the Dead”, in Zombies Are Us: Essays on the Humanity of the Walking Dead, →ISBN, page 31:

In 2010, over one hundred acts (mostly DJs) would perform a variety of styles (including 'progressive psychedelic', 'tech-house', 'full on', and 'darkpsy') on a high performance sound system.

2012, Carole Cusack, Alex Norman, Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production, →ISBN, page 545:

A darker, more morbid genre of psytrance music.


aulode

(historical) A singer who accompanies a song played on the aulos.


handcrew

A team of firefighters responsible for constructing firelines.


widdly

widdly (comparative more widdly, superlative most widdly)

more widdly (comparative)
most widdly (superlative)

25 November 2016, Malcolm Jack, Judas Priest review – a fans-only affair picks up in the final act in The Guardian
The new material is largely a fans-only affair – anyone not entertained by widdly guitar solos would have been advised to bring a book for the likes of Halls of Valhalla..

Not even the Seventies' prevailing trend for widdly, interminable guitar frottage in could mask Gwynne's basic lack of talent. As soon as the Dream Team's tour finished, Gwynne was told, in no uncertain terms, to fuck off.

2004, Patrick Browning, The Smell of Old Dreams:

(music, colloquial) Characterized by a lot of long fast guitar riffs


neurofunk

A subgenre of drum and bass music with various influences including funk.


superluminous spiral galaxy

en-noun

superluminous spiral galaxy (plural superluminous spiral galaxies)

(astronomy) a type of supergiant spiral galaxy of the local universe that is much larger than most giant spiral galaxies, and whose stellar creation rate is much higher than typical spiral galaxies because it is more luminous


polonide

(inorganic chemistry) Any binary compound of polonium and a more electropositive element.


can belto

can + belt (verb), modified to resemble bel canto

(singing, humorous) A vocal performance that is impressively powerful, but lacking in subtlety, nuance, and technical skill.


motivically

In contrast to the motivically imprinted accompagnato, however, in which the motive has a purely accompanying function, the arioso often contains motivic imitation between the vocal and instrumental parts.

2005, Alfred Dürr, Richard Douglas Jones, The Cantatas of J.S. Bach: With Their Librettos in German-English Parallel Text:

(music) In accordance with, or by means of, a motif.


likembe

Borrowed from Lingala likembé, from li- + kembé.

One of the lesser pygmies had a small musical instrument in his lap, a hollowed-out box affair with small strips of metal set across a bar on top which, if I remember right, is called a "Likembe."

1946, James Riddell, In the forests of the night, page 204:

This instrument became interregionally known as the likembe, and it spread like wildfire among porters and employees in the Belgian colonial service throughout the French and the Belgian Congo, thus paralleling the spread of the trade […]

1999, Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje, Turn Up the Volume!: A Celebration of African Music, page 44:

A new artist, Antoine Mundanda of Brazzaville, brought his likembe troupe to Ngoma in 1954, recording several songs that seemed to confirm the link between traditional likembe and modern guitar picking.

2003, Gary Stewart, Rumba on the River: A History of the Popular Music of the Two Congos, page 71:

Like elsewhere in central Africa, the likembe in Angola was an instrument of the emerging working class and, as such, it was also inter-ethnic.

2010, Theory of African Music, Theory of African Music, volume 1, page 385:

musical instrument
musical instrument#English

A musical instrument found in sub-Saharan Africa; a kind of lamellophone.


otonality

Multiples up from otonalities, whereas divisors change the harmonic center and introduce new tonal sense (utonality).

1966, Jonas Mekas, Film Culture - Issues 40-42, page 6:

A similar correlation is evident in the physical layout of the Kithara II, which consists of twelve banks of six strings, each bank tuned to a specific, although incomplete, otonality or utonality.

1982, Percussive Notes - Volume 21, page 71:

So an otonality based on the 1-limit would have a 1-Identity (its first pitch), a 3-Identity (its second pitch), a 5-Identity (its third pitch), and so on.

2014, S. Andrew Granade, Harry Partch, Hobo Composer, →ISBN, page 214:

(music) A family of pitches that can all be expressed as ratios with a specified fixed tone, such that all ratios have the same denominator.


utonality

Fixed tonal systems find utonalities disturbing. There are four utonalities prominent in the chromatic gamut.

Contrasting otonality and utonality allows Johnston to mark distinctions between a melody and its inversion.

1995, 1/1: The Quarterly Journal of the Just Intonation Network:

(music) A family of pitches that can all be expressed as ratios with a specified fixed tone, such that all ratios have the same numerator; a subharmonic series.


forestroke

Yes, and we call it a waving forestroke. It sometimes waves upward, sometimes downward.

1882, Harmony Simplified: Text-book of the Harmony Circle

The particular kind of forestroke was also indicated by double letters.

1901, The Musical Herald and Tonic Sol-fa Reporter:

(music) An ornament in which one or more notes are added before the principal note, such as an appoggiatura or acciaccatura


songman

They have epic material so that it takes sometimes forty years to become a songman.

2014, Anne Waldman, Laura Wright, Cross Worlds: Transcultural Poetics: An Anthology:

A singer, especially a singer of songs; a gleeman.


country rap

So as the genre feels increasingly unmoored from the rural experience, it leaves a gap for country-rap, which is often, word for word, far more specifically rural than what’s on the radio.

2014 May 23, The New York Times, “Country Music Opens Its Ears”, in The New York Times:

A genre of popular music combining country music and hip-hop-style rapping, typically accompanied by guitar, fiddle, and drum machine.


zeze

A stringed instrument of sub-Saharan Africa.


out-chorus

1991, Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., "Ring Shout! Literary Studies, Historical Studies, and Black Music Inquiry" in Gena Dagel Caponi (ed.), Signifyin(g), Sanctifyin’, & Slam Dunking: A Reader in African American Expressive Culture, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999, p. 149, https://books.google.ca/books?id=Nn6y4iHj6_MC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
I also hear the trombone's held-notes in the out-chorus (B⁷) as evocative "shouts" that Signify black religious shouting and its counterpart expression in secular life—calls, cries, and hollers […]

[…] the treatment of Monk's classic blues from 1947, "Misterioso," includes a torrent of notes from Adderley's cornet in the opening solo chorus matched by a hot, intense solo by Johnson before the out chorus.

2001, Joshua Berrett, Louis G. Bourgois III, chapter 7, in The Musical World of J. J. Johnson, Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, page 189:

(jazz) The return to the main written melody following the chorus (improvised solo section) in a small group performance


jangle pop

A 1980s genre of alternative rock music that marked a return to the jangly guitar melodies of the 1960s.


anaphone

(music) A particular sign as represented in music; a sound or melody that represents something, such as motion or romance.


umpan

A cloud-shaped gong rung in a Zen monastery to announce mealtimes, etc.


lavani

WATCH: Sairat fame Rinku Rajguru performs lavani with Madhuri Dixit

2016 June 23, “Bosco Martis and Terence Lewis battle it out for Mouni Roy”, in The Times of India:

(India) A genre of music and dance popular in Maharashtra.


musicography

The unanimous testimony of scores and of musicography is to this effect, and establishes, as an inviolable rule, the close on the inferior dominant.

1919, Phillips Barry, “Greek Music”, in The Musical quarterly, volume 5, page 611:

Other now standard histories of music in Latin American nations that skirt developments after 1820, 1901, or 1950 emphasize an ever-present problem in Latin American musicography. The only histories of music in their nations with which reigning Latin American composers are pleased are those narrated by themselves.

1991, Carleton Sprague Smith, editor, Libraries, History, Diplomacy, and the Performing Arts: Essays in Honor of Carleton Sprague Smith:

We may jump a century and a quarter in English musicography but will find that with a very few exceptions the romantic effusion deepened while scholarship lessened, both of them considerably.

1997, Paul Henry Lang, Musicology and Performance, page 60:


ghost note

(music) A musical note with a rhythmic value, but no discernible pitch when played, sometimes represented by an X in musical notation.


backflash

The hazardous situation where the flame propagates backward down the hose of an oxyfuel welding and cutting system.


high doh

high doh (countable and uncountable, plural high dohs)

(music) The eighth note in the sol-fa system, being an octave above doh.


Five Finger Death Punch
w:Five Finger Death Punch

(music) Initialism of Five Finger Death Punch.


torsatron

A stellarator with continuous helical coils, or with a number of discrete coils that produce a similar field.


heliotron

A stellarator in which a helical coil is used to confine the plasma, together with a pair of poloidal field coils to provide a vertical field.


keybed

The long rail of a piano or other keyboard instrument that limits how far the keys can be pressed down.


Bieberish

en-adj

Bieberish (comparative more Bieberish, superlative most Bieberish)

more Bieberish (comparative)
most Bieberish (superlative)

Lots of girls in our school think he's cute because of his Bieberish hairstyle.

(informal) Similar to or resembling Justin Bieber.


Bieberism

(informal, rare) The fandom of Justin Bieber.


Bieberesque

Bieberesque (comparative more Bieberesque, superlative most Bieberesque)

more Bieberesque (comparative)
most Bieberesque (superlative)

a Bieberesque teen with bangs in his eyes and hair on his shoulders

2013, Chuck Thompson, “Religion”, in Better Off Without 'Em, pages 24–25:

[Y]ou whisper in your wristwatch receptor: "Beam me out, Justin!" (...[I]n the near future, your mate will change his name to something less Bieberesque.)

2014, Mark Brake, “Teleportation”, in Mark Brake's Space, Time, Machine, Monster, page 63:

To the tune of Bieber's 'Despacito', he criticizes Trump by singing 'Desperate Cheeto' while wearing a blond Bieberesque wig.

2020, Lyndon Way, Analysing Politics and Protest in Digital Popular Culture:

(informal) In the style or manner of Justin Bieber.


Belieberism

Among my faves this Christmas were two Justin Bieber tunes. Experts also found that Belieberism takes control of the subject's mind and strives to infect as many people as possible.

2012, Maria-Elana Kassab, "Treble Clef", RAGMAG, March 2012, pag e 48

Yet this no more means anti-Semitism is rampant in France than that Belieberism has infected the United States.

2014 January 3, Robert Zaretzky, “How 'Quenelle' Salute Creator Dieudonne Built Bridge to Anti-Semitic Far Fight”, in Jewish Daily Forward:

The first non-Purpose performance of the night was the Bieber classic "Boyfriend," and at this, the crowd perked up; Belieberism is strongly rooted in its original texts.

2016 March 10, Dylan Rupert, “Justin Bieber Finds New 'Purpose' at Seattle Tour Kickoff”, in Billboard:

(informal, rare) The fan phenomenon of Justin Bieber viewed as a religion or epidemic.


podatus

(music) A neume representing two notes ascending.


quilisma

(music) A neume of uncertain meaning, consisting of several jagged lines.


flutina

(music) An early precursor to the diatonic button accordion, having one or two rows of treble buttons, configured to have the tonic of the scale, on the "draw" of the bellows.


synth pad

A sustained chord or tone generated by a synthesizer, often employed for background harmony or atmosphere.


clownstep

(music, sometimes derogatory) A subgenre of drum and bass music with simplistic bouncing basslines.


verrophone

(music) A musical instrument consisting of an arrangement of open-ended glass tubes of various sizes, which are rubbed or struck with a mallet to produce the sound.


chernobylite

(mineralogy) A technogenic crystalline zirconium silicate containing uranium as a solid solution, discovered in the corium produced by the Chernobyl nuclear accident.


sympathetic string

en-noun

sympathetic string (plural sympathetic strings)

(music) Any of a set of auxiliary strings found on certain musical instruments, generally not played directly by the performer but used to provide resonance in response to the main strings.


pyramidon

From pyramid + -on (after accordion, harmonicon etc.).

(music) An organ stop having wooden pipes in the form of an inverted pyramid, giving very deep notes somewhat like those of a stopped diapason.


trench effect

The phenomenon of a fire rushing quickly up an inclined surface, due to a combination of the Coandă effect (which causes the fire to hug the inclined surface) and flashover (where the surface of a space near the fire — in this case the surface of the more elevated regions of the incline — is heated until it self-ignites).


jet fuel

jet fuel (countable and uncountable, plural jet fuels)

Near-synonym: (often synonymous) lamp oil

(aviation) The fuel that powers a jet aircraft.

(sometimes humorous, hyperbolic) Kerosene.

The fuel that powers a jet aircraft.
Kerosene.


kabam

(onomatopoeia) The sound of a loud explosion; pow, blam, bang.