silent disco

You heard “oh, Jeremy Corbyn” everywhere: at the silent disco, during Radiohead’s Friday night headlining set, midway through the Other stage appearance by rapper Stormzy, who gamely joined in.

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

(music) An event at which people dance to music that is transmitted through wireless headphones rather than played over a speaker system.


tremblement

en-noun

tremblement (usually uncountable, plural tremblements)

From French tremblement (“a shake, tremble”). By surface analysis, tremble + -ment.


namecheck

en-verb

namecheck (third-person singular simple present namechecks, present participle namechecking, simple past and past participle namechecked)

namechecks (present singular third-person)
namechecking (participle present)
namechecked (participle past)
namechecked (past)

(transitive, intransitive, music, especially in jazz) To announce the name of a person before they play a solo.


decet

From Italian decetto, from dieci (“ten”).

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


thrashy

en-adj

thrashy (comparative thrashier, superlative thrashiest)

thrashier (comparative)
thrashiest (superlative)


nerdcore

Many nerdcore anthems — “You Got Asperger’s” by MC Frontalot, “Fett’s Vette” by MC Chris, “View Source,” by Ytcracker (“Eagerly awaiting my macro advances/running with my beta cuz I’m taking chances”) — are as much efforts at comedy as they are attempts at sincere hip-hop.

2007 August 5, Alex Williams, “Dungeons, Dragons and Dope Beats”, in New York Times

A nerdcore track would take loop samples not from popular industrial tracks, but from the synthesizers of a popular NES game like Dig Dug…

Self-styled “nerdcore” rappers wear pocket protectors and rhyme about hard drives.

2008, Benjamin Nugent, American Nerd: The Story of My People

(music, humorous) An intentionally nerdy style of hip-hop music.


overpedal

en-verb

overpedal (third-person singular simple present overpedals, present participle overpedalling or overpedaling, simple past and past participle overpedalled or overpedaled)

overpedals (present singular third-person)
overpedalling (participle present)
overpedaling (participle present)
overpedalled (participle past)
overpedalled (past)
overpedaled (participle past)
overpedaled (past)

(music, intransitive) To overuse the sustaining pedal of a piano, causing the notes to sound too loud.


rompler

(music, informal) An electronic musical instrument that generates sounds by replaying samples stored in ROM, unable to synthesize sounds or to record new samples.


polytonal

(music) That uses two or more tonalities simultaneously.


maqam

Ultimately from Arabic مَقَام (maqām). . Doublet of mugham.

Elsewhere in the evening the young Iraqi-American trumpeter Amir ElSaffar, who has studied both jazz and traditional Arabic maqam patterns and combines them in modal pieces for improvisers, demonstrated with his sextet (including an oud and a santoor, the Persian hammered dulcimer) how hungry jazz still is for sources older than itself.

2008 January 14, Ben Ratliff, “Jazz Showcase Fever Propels a Mini Marathon”, in New York Times

At 18, late for a professional musician, he took up the oud, studying the mysteries of the Iraqi maqam, the complex system of tonal sequences and improvisation passed from master to student.

2008 May 1, Erica Goode, “A Fabled Iraqi Instrument Thrives in Exile”, in New York Times

But he hesitated when approached to do a project that combined maqam with jazz, even though that had been his pre-quest intention.

2009 April 2, Ashante Infantry, “Baghdad jazz”, in Toronto Star

(music) A modal structure characterizing the art of music of countries in North Africa, West Asia and Central Asia.


Madchester

Released late in 1990, the hit album Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches was a summation of the Madchester era.

2013 [1998], Simon Reynolds, Generation Ecstasy, Routledge

(music) An alternative rock genre and associated social scene that originated in Manchester, England, in the late 1980s, influenced by indie, psychedelic and dance music.


noncountry

(music) That does not have the characteristics of the music genre country.


manzello

(music) A modified saxello, with an upturned bell.


saxello

(music) A variation on the saxophone, with a slightly curved neck and tipped bell.


ARIA

w:Australian Recording Industry Association

(music) Acronym of Australian Recording Industry Association.


str

str.-quartet


rute

Borrowed from German Rute (“rod, switch (slender woody plant stem)”).

bor

(music) A bundle of thin sticks, typically made of wood, sometimes bound in such a way that the binding can be moved so that it varies the tightness of the binding.


half rest

(music) A pause or interval of silence equal in duration to two quarter rests or one half of a whole rest. In common or 4/4 time, its duration is two beats.

(music) A symbol used in musical notation drawn as a solid rectangle directly above the middle line of a staff whose height is half the distance between lines.


semibreve rest

(music) A semibreve rest is a pause or interval of silence equal in duration to two half rests or one half of a breve rest. In common or 4/4 time, its duration is four beats.

(music) A symbol used in musical notation drawn as a solid rectangle directly below the line above the middle line of a staff whose height is half the distance between lines.


whole rest

(music) A pause or interval of silence equal in duration to two half rests or one half of a breve rest. In common or 4/4 time, its duration is four beats.


perpetuum mobile

en-noun

perpetuum mobile (plural perpetua mobilia)

/pəːˌpɛtjʊəm ˈməʊbɪleɪ/

From Latin perpetuum (neutral inflection of perpetuus “perpetual”) + Latin mōbile (neutrum of mōbilis “mobile, moving”), used together as a noun, thus literally meaning “perpetual mover”. Although often said to literally mean “perpetual motion”, the latter in Latin is mōtus perpetuus. A perpetuum mobile is a device that exhibits perpetual motion.

(musicology) Pieces of music, or parts of pieces, characterised by a continuous steady stream of notes, usually at a rapid tempo.

(musicology) Whole pieces, or large parts of pieces, which are to be played repeatedly, often an indefinite number of times.


flip side

(music, dated, 1930-1980) The B-side of a phonograph record that carried a less popular recording.


quartal

(music, of harmony) Having a distinct preference for intervals of fourths.


chest voice

(phonology, music) A kind of voice of a medium or low pitch and a sonorous quality ascribed to resonance in the chest, or thorax; voice of the thick register. It is produced by vibration of the vocal cords through their entire width and thickness, and with convex surfaces presented to each other.


head voice

head voice (countable and uncountable, plural head voices)

(phonology, music) a kind of voice of high pitch and of a thin quality ascribed to resonance in the head; voice of the thin register. In producing it, the vibration of the cords is limited to their thin edges in the upper part, which are then presented to each other.


daf

From either Persian or Arabic دَف (daf), from Middle Persian 𐭣𐭯 (dap).

MOHAMMAD REZA SHAJARIAN (Thursday) Renowned in his native Iran, the vocalist Mohammad Reza Shajarian has been performing since the 1960s, and is now widely considered one of the finest classical Persian singers in the world. Mr. Shajarian’s son, Homayoun Shajarian, will provide additional vocals and tombak (goblet drum), while Ensemble Ava, a four-piece, will contribute additional instrumentation on the ancient Persian instruments barbat (short-necked lute), tar (long-necked lute), kamancheh (spike fiddle) and daf (frame drum).

2008 May 30, The New York Times, “Pop and Rock Listings”, in New York Times

(music) A large frame drum, resembling a tambourine, used to accompany popular and classical music in the Middle East.


neofolk

He produced Pink Floyd’s first single, “Arnold Layne,” and helped shape British folk-rock with albums by Fairport Convention, the Incredible String Band, Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan that have directly influenced the current generation of neofolk avant-gardists like Devendra Banhart, Espers, Joanna Newsom and P. G. Six.

2007 March 15, Ben Sisario, “Folk-Rock Memories, Psychedelic but Clear”, in New York Times

(music) A form of experimental folk music influenced by industrial music.


biguine

The band had three contrasting lead singers: Mr. Desvarieux, who was gruff and smoky; Mr. Marthely, a buoyant tenor; and Ms. Beroard, whose voice can be bright and poppy or sweetly affectionate. Mr. Naimro’s keyboards could sound like zinging dance-club synthesizers, an accordion, a steel drum or the clarinet used in old Martinican biguine music. Mr. Desvarieux’s guitar sometimes hinted at blues-rock or the intertwining lines of African rock before slipping back into the rhythm section.

2007 August 2, Jon Pareles, “A Wide Range of Sounds, From Antillean to Zouk”, in New York Times

(music) A style of music that originated in Martinique in the 19th century, combining the traditional bélé music with the polka.


unfretted

(music, of a musical instrument) Not fretted; without frets.


sea shanty

(nautical, music) A work song that sailors historically sang in rhythm to their movement.


popera

popera (countable and uncountable, plural poperas)

McLaren is a dozy Pinkerton, an uptight Don José ("Carmen is an animal/uncontrollable stuff..."), and his American-accented voices ride perfect over the beat. "Popera," someone said. The parts may be better than the whole, though.

The popera artist continued his rise to the top of the music charts earlier this year...

2004 August, Indianapolis Monthly, volume 27, number 14

Guests can enjoy the music of strolling musicians performing opera, "popera," and popular music as they sit, relax, and take in the sunset.

2006, Laura Lea Miller, Frommer's Walt Disney World and Orlando with Kids

...blockbuster popera acts handled by pop labels...

2007 November, Billboard, volume 119, number 47

(informal, music, uncountable) A crossover genre combining elements of pop music and classical opera.

(informal, music, countable) A musical or operatic work performed in this style.


keytar

(music) A relatively lightweight keyboard or synthesizer supported by a strap around the neck and shoulders, as a guitar is supported by a guitar strap.


hardstyle

hi jack. you just missed the best hardcore/gabba party: "thunderdome - a decade", here in amsterdam. 2 huge rooms filled with 15.000 people (the party had sold out weeks in advance), one room for oldstyle (92-97), one for the newer hardcore/hardstyle (97-02).

2002, mik, “gabber/terror/hardcore”, in uk.music.rave (Usenet)

Boiler Room hosted hard dance specials with young crews from across Europe, while American EDM’s absorption of Dutch hardstyle – a fusion of techno and hardcore – has reached truly terrifying levels through the likes of Guatemalan DJ Carnage.

2020 January 10, Joe Muggs, “Gift of the gabber: the return of dance music’s gloriously tasteless subgenre”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

electronic dance music
electronic dance music

(music) A genre of electronic dance music that combines elements of trance, techno, and hardcore, with origins in the Netherlands and Belgium.


changüí

(music) A style of Cuban music which originated in the early nineteenth century in the eastern region of Guantánamo Province, combining Spanish and African elements.


orpharion

(music) A musical instrument of the Renaissance, part of the cittern family, whose metal strings are tuned like a lute's and plucked with the fingers.


nonjazz

Nonjazz musicians play classical music.

An example of a nonjazz workout is a hip-hop aerobics DVD.


inharmonicity

fundamental frequency
fundamental frequency

(music) The degree to which the frequencies of overtones (known as partial tones or harmonics) depart from whole multiples of the fundamental frequency.


world music

world music (countable and uncountable, plural world musics)

Attributed to ethnomusicologist Robert E. Brown (1960s), later primarily used as a marketing term.

(music, rare) Traditional music, as opposed to popular music or classical music.

傳統音樂

traditional music, as opposed to popular music or classical music

While it can be considered a metagenre, world music is really more of a marketing category.

2016, Roy Shuker, Understanding Popular Music Culture, page 123

(music) Music that combines elements from traditional styles from the non-Western world along with modern, popular elements, in order to create something marketed towards Western audiences.

世界音樂

music that combines elements from traditional styles with popular elements


proslambanomenos

(music) The lowest note in Ancient Greek music, appended to the bottom of the scale.


gambist

(music) Someone who plays the viola da gamba


midset

And the band appears comfortable with its pop instincts: a pair of new songs, played midset, were even frothier and looser than its album.

2009 March 17, Jon Caramanica, “Surfing Along a Foamy Wave, Constantly Changing but Ever Cynical”, in New York Times

(music) In the middle of a set, in the middle of a gig.


rechart

en-verb

rechart (third-person singular simple present recharts, present participle recharting, simple past and past participle recharted)

recharts (present singular third-person)
recharting (participle present)
recharted (participle past)
recharted (past)

The boys would never make the stateside pop/rock 45 listings again, though British fans would later rechart the group name with takes on "My Brother Jake," "Little Bit Of Love," and "Wishing Well."

1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, page 263

(music) To chart again, to return to the music charts.


Japanoise

While we allow the sounds of Japanoise to challenge our ears, this practice of sound-making reveals not only the limits of origin stories, but also the limits of the concept of “ongaku,” […]

2021 [2001], Timothy Rommen, Bruno Nettl, editors, Excursions in World Music, 8th edition, Routledge, page 204

(music) A genre of postindustrial music of Japan, primarily in the 1980s and 1990s.


mbila

(music) In Southern Africa, an instrument similar to the xylophone, played by striking the bars with mallets.


retard

/ɹɪˈtɑː(ɹ)d/

From Middle English retarden, from Anglo-Norman or Latin, from Anglo-Norman retarder, from Latin retardāre (“to retard”), from re- + tardus (“slow”).

(music) A slowing down of the tempo; a ritardando.


set of pipes

The old man taught the boy to play the flute, and together they constructed a set of pipes—the pipes o' Pan—and out along the river they would play.

1916, Elbert Hubbard, “Savonarola”, in Little Journeys Vol. 7: Eminent Orators

(music) A wind instrument incorporating multiple pipes, such as a panpipe or bagpipe.


piphat

(music) An ensemble of wind and percussion instruments in central Thai classical music.


isorhythmic

(music) Pertaining to or using isorhythm.


isorhythm

en-noun

isorhythm (countable and uncountable, plural isorhythms)

Borrowed from German Isorhythmik, coined in 1904 by composer Friedrich Ludwig (1895-1970) (iso- + rhythm).

In his motets Machaut strove for all-over patterns of rhythmic unity through isorhythms, a system codifying a few set patterns of time value, the number of repetitions of a pattern within a composition depending upon the desired length […]

1953, Herbert Weinstock, Music as an art, page 31

Even when such preconceived structural arrangements are not used, as in the Gloria of the Machaut Mass, the idea of isorhythm is present in the suggestion of recurring and balancing strophic plans.

1955, Oscar Lee Rigsby, The Sacred Music of Elzéar Genet: Historical and analytical study

Meaning simply "same rhythm," isorhythm refers to the practice of using the same rhythmic pattern, called in fourteenth-century treatises a talea ("cutting"), over and over in one or more part as the structural base for a motet or mass movement.

2006, Kyle Gann, The Music of Conlon Nancarrow

(music) A technique that arranges a fixed pattern of pitches with a repeating rhythmic pattern, used in some medieval motets and in more recent works.


goblet drum

(music) A drum (membranophone) with a goblet-shaped body, usually one-headed.

(music) A drum, shaped like a goblet, from the Middle East and North Africa; a darbuka.

دَرْبُوكَة

drum from the Middle-East and North Africa


tumbao

From Cuban Spanish tumbar (“to knock off, fall”).

After all, its encore introduced some new musical elements, including a pulse faintly suggestive of an Afro-Cuban tumbao.

2007 February 12, Nate Chinen, “A Flamenco Master Is His Own Ensemble”, in New York Times

(music) The basic rhythm played on the conga drum and the bass in Afro-Cuban music.


antimusic

antimusic (usually uncountable, plural antimusics)

[…] the current vogue, on the internet, for creating “black midi” files using software to create musical performances with literally millions of notes being played […] is unlikely to appeal to the general listener and we should probably consider it a deviant case of anti-music made for frivolous purposes rather than any kind of polemic.

2015, Samuel Cameron, Music in the Marketplace: A Social Economics Approach, page 2

(music) Any form of music that defies convention to such a degree that some people would not recognise it as musical.

antimúsica

any form of music that defies convention


colorature

(music) An elaborate melody, particularly in vocal music and especially in operatic singing of the 18th and 19th centuries, with runs, trills, leaps, etc.


bongo drum

(music) Synonym of bongo (“either of a pair of small drums of Cuban origin”).


string orchestra

string orchestra (plural string orchestras)

(music) A music group consisting solely of stringed instruments.


philharmonic orchestra

philharmonic orchestra (plural philharmonic orchestras)

(music) A large group of musicians who play together on various instruments, usually including some from strings, woodwind, brass and/or percussion; the instruments played by such a group.


string ensemble

string ensemble (plural string ensembles)

jousiyhtye

A music group consisting solely of stringed instruments


rabiz

Borrowed from Armenian ռաբիզ (ṙabiz). See it for more.

(music) A popular modern Armenian music style that shows Middle Eastern influences and is related to Russian blatnyak and Azerbaijani mugham. Most of the songs have a 6/8 rhythm.


session musician

session musician (plural session musicians)

(music) A professional musician employed by other musicians or singers, either to play live or to make recordings.


downtempo

(music) A genre of house music and ambient music with an ethereal sound and a driving beat.


downtempo

en-adj

downtempo (comparative more downtempo, superlative most downtempo)

more downtempo (comparative)
most downtempo (superlative)


Riemannian

And not only theory: most central European composers of this century were schooled in Riemannian doctrine of one type or another.

1994, Daniel Harrison, Harmonic Function in Chromatic Music: A Renewed Dualist Theory and an Account of Its Precedents, University of Chicago Press, page 7

Or take, for example, the rehabilitation by late-twentieth-century North American theorists of Riemannian Tonnetze as a means to navigate the voice-leading intricacies of much chromatic and post-chromatic music.

2004, Jairo Moreno, Musical Representations, Subjects, and Objects: The Construction of Musical Thought in Zarlino, Descartes, Rameau, and Weber, Indiana University Press, page 1

The paper connects two notions originating from different branches of the recent mathematical music theory: the neo-Riemannian Tonnetz and the property of well-formedness from the theory of the generated scales.

2009, Marek Žabka, “Generalized Tonnetz and Well-Formed GTS: A Scale Theory Inspired by the Neo-Riemannians”, in Elaine Chew, Adrian Childs, Ching-Hua Chuan, editors, Mathematics and Computation in Music, 2nd International Conference, Proceedings, Springer, page 286

(music) Relating to the musical theories of German theorist Hugo Riemann, particularly his theory of harmony, which is characterised by a system of "harmonic dualism".


sadcore

Near-synonym: slowcore

As proof of this, Staub points to the wide variety of press coverage the band received, from spotlights in the usual music media to reports in People, Time, NPR (which identified the band as one of the leaders of the "sadcore" movement), and even Martha Stewart Living […]

Also, The Red House Painters were the first in a wave of bands that followed in AMC's wake, making slow, bleak music that the press would later dub "sadcore" […]

1999, Seán Body, Wish the world away: Mark Eitzel and American Music Club

Despite past disappointments, the undisputed king (and queen) of sadcore return […]

Even in 'serious' rock journalism, every sound was a kind of core: hardcore, slowcore, speedcore, sadcore. What next?

[…] one of the grayest sadcore bands on God's bleak earth, a band that for encores — however rarely it earned them — would slog through Irish jigs […]

2004, Jonathan DiMarco, Good Bullets Make Bad Neighbors

(music, uncommon) A form of alternative rock characterised by bleak lyrics, downbeat melodies and slow tempos.


-core

Derived from hardcore (“hardcore punk; a particularly fast and intense form of punk rock”).

gloom + -core → gloomcore

metal + -core → metalcore

rap + -core → rapcore

speed + -core → speedcore

(music) Denoting a genre of music, especially one influenced by hardcore music.


Arabic scale

{\set Staff.midiInstrument=#"clarinet"c'des'e'f'g'aes'b'c2}

(music) double harmonic scale, a scale with two augmented seconds:

\relative c'{c8 cih cis cisih d dih dis disih e eih f fih fis fisih g gih gis gisih a aih ais aisih b bih \bar "|" c2}

(music) quarter tone scale, or 24 tone equal temperament:

\relative c'{c8 cih cis d dih dis e f fih fis g gih gis a aih ais b c2}

(music) 17 equal temperament, a tuning dividing the octave into 17 equal steps:

{c'd'e'f'ges'aes'bes'c}

(music) major Locrian scale, a scale similar to Locrian:


horrorcore

Lots of us remember the pioneering zeal that the Gravediggaz unleashed on their debut disc, 1994's 6 Feet Deep — a ghoulish effort that spawned the so-called horrorcore genre.

(music) A subgenre of hip-hop music with horror-themed lyrics and imagery.


antimetric

(sound engineering, especially music) Going off the rhythm, especially during a transition from one time signature to another.


houselike

houselike (comparative more houselike, superlative most houselike)

more houselike (comparative)
most houselike (superlative)


pianistics

(music) The art or technique of playing the piano.


fipple

Perhaps related to Icelandic flipi (“lip of a horse”)

(music) The mouthpiece of a ducted flute, or the plug forming the floor of the windway.


dodecaphonist

International word formed circa 1950 from Ancient Greek δώδεκα (dṓdeka, “twelve”) + φωνή (phōnḗ, “sound”) + -ist, recorded in English since 1953, presumably modeled on German Dodekaphonist.

The pioneering Austrian composer Arnold Schönberg was the leading dodecaphonist.

The schism between the dodecaphonists and the priests of tonality.

1984 April 14, Richard Knisely, “Quintessential Narcissism”, in Gay Community News, page 13

(music) A practitioner or proponent of dodecaphony, i.e. use of the dodecaphonic musical scale, which has twelve tones per octave


nanga

The "shoulder harp" or "nanga" had a boat-shaped sound chest.

1950, Roslyn Rensch, The harp: from Tara's halls to the American schools

The nanga of Nubia is similar; here also, long wooden pegs prevent the strings from slipping.

1975, Sibyl Marcuse, A survey of musical instruments, page 403

The artist uses his voice, he sings his laws to the accompaniment of the nanga, the harp; he twists his body to the rhythm of the drums, to proclaim his rules.

(music) A simple wooden harp or zither used in central and eastern Africa.


guaracha

en-noun

guaracha (countable and uncountable, plural guarachas)

(music, uncountable) A genre of Cuban popular music with rapid tempo and lyrics.

“Harry was there to be able to tell us what is the difference between a guaracha and a mambo and what’s the montuno and who is really the top-notch danzón band,” she said.

2007 February 19, William Neuman, “Amid Squeal of Trains at Times Square, Melody of a Store’s Rebirth”, in New York Times

(music, countable) A piece performed in this style.


montuno

From Spanish montuno (literally “from the mountain”), referring to rural music.

bor

(music) The counterpoint in Cuban salsa music.


archicembalo

(music) A form of harpsichord that had extra keys and strings


white metal

en-noun

white metal (countable and uncountable, plural white metals)

(music) Christian-themed heavy metal, as distinguished from black metal.


zurna

From Turkish zurna, from Ottoman Turkish زورنا (zurna), from Classical Persian سرنا (surnā); see there for more. Cognate with English horn, Latin cornu (“horn”).

(music) A double-reed outdoor wind instrument, usually accompanied by a davul (bass drum) in Anatolian folk music.


aftertouch

aftertouch (countable and uncountable, plural aftertouches)

(music, uncountable) Pressure sensitivity on an electronic synthesizer, allowing the musician to change the tone or sound of a note after it is struck.


string quartet

(music) A group of four musicians playing string instruments, usually two violins, a viola and a cello.

(music) A musical composition for such a group.


boom bap

Imitative, representing the sounds of the bass drum and snare drum, respectively.

onomatopoeic

Imitative

A beat made with the 808 drum kit isn't boom bap!

The story of Boom Bap is closely associated with the development and practice of sampling, and as such, Boom Bap is often described as a production technique, a sound, a style, or a subgenre.

2023, Michail Exarchos, Reimagining Sample-based Hip Hop: Making Records within Records, CRC Press, page 1997

(music) A style/subgenre of hip hop characterized by hard-hitting drums, usually containing the kick drum/snare drum/hi-hat combination rather than claps, snaps, TR-808 bass drums, cowbells, shakers, and various other percussion sounds used for rhythm.


CMA

Country Music Association Awards
w:Country Music Association Awards

(music) Initialism of Country Music Association Awards.


soullike

en-adj

soullike (comparative more soullike, superlative most soullike)

more soullike (comparative)
most soullike (superlative)

(music) Resembling or characteristic of soul music.


reedist

In what's becoming an annual tradition, Chicago-via-Boston reedist Ken Vandermark is joined by his former Beantown cohort, drummer Curt Newton […].

1993 December 24, Peter Margasak, “Ken Vandermark & Curt Newton”, in Chicago Reader

(music) A musician who plays reed instruments (usually more than one).


Christian rock

(music) A genre of rock music with a Christian theme.


kosmische

Kosmische’s fertility is only matched by its desire to create something totally new, and it is that which has proved inspirational to successive generations of musicians from right across the spectrum.

2010 March 30, Jon Savage, “Elektronische musik: a guide to krautrock”, in The Guardian

Van Hoen produced music throughout the '80s, taking inspiration chiefly from Cabaret Voltaire and kosmische acts like Tangerine Dream. At the time, though, this was an entirely isolated pursuit.

2013 April 22, Angus Finlayson, “Mark van Hoen: Playing with time”, in Resident Advisor

Kosmische the genre was generally beatless, unmoored and astral in character, whereas at Kosmische the club the music was nailed… When the mood was right, you could play almost anything.

2015, David Stubbs, Future Days: Krautrock and the Birth of a Revolutionary New Music, Melville House

(music, also attributive) Ellipsis of kosmische musik.


nontonal

(music) Concerning atonal music with patterns and repetitions; Mildly atonal.


whistle note

(music, voice) A note extremely high in the register, but not falsetto.


by ear

(music) To learn to play (an instrument) or sing by listening to recorded music without reading or memorizing sheet music or without any formal instruction.


soulstress

Chicago-bred new-jack soulstress Chantay Savage performs material from her just-released debut Here We Go (RCA).

1994 August 5, Peter Margasak, “Spot Check”, in Chicago Reader


toppy

toppy (comparative more toppy, superlative most toppy)

more toppy (comparative)
most toppy (superlative)

(music) Characterised by lots of treble.


beatscape

She pits the lush 70s-style arrangements of Eumir Deodato against the oblique beatscapes of Mark Bell, who as a member of LFO led the UK charge to transform techno from euphoric hedonism into ominous paranoia.

1998 May 29, Peter Margasak, “An Adventurer Plays it Safe”, in Chicago Reader

(music) A musical piece or passage consisting of richly textured beats


biomusic

(music) A form of music based on the sounds of nature.


beauty and the beast

From the traditional fairy tale. See Beauty and the Beast at Wikipedia.

(music) An aesthetic in heavy metal, etc. that contrasts "angelic" female vocals with male growls or aggressive singing.


strummy

strummy (comparative more strummy, superlative most strummy)

more strummy (comparative)
most strummy (superlative)

In “The Delivery Man,” halfway through, he played electric guitar sparely, which made a huge difference in a very strummy show.

2009 June 12, Ben Ratliff, “Acoustic Set of Country, Rock and Old-Time Tales”, in New York Times


AOR

en-noun

AOR (countable and uncountable, plural AORs)

MTV is a singles medium, as is the hottest (warmest?) new radio strategy God help us, “adult contemporary”; even AOR devotes the contemporary portion of its programming to putative singles.

1990 January 2, Robert Christgau, “1980–1989: Rockism Faces the World”, in The Village Voice

album-oriented radio
album-oriented radio#English

(music, radio format, US, uncountable) Initialism of album-oriented radio.

album-oriented rock
album-oriented rock#English

(music, uncountable) Initialism of album-oriented rock.

(music, uncountable) Initialism of adult-oriented rock.


synthy

en-adj

synthy (comparative more synthy, superlative most synthy)

more synthy (comparative)
most synthy (superlative)

(informal, music) Based upon, or resembling, the sound of a synthesizer.


nonkeyboard

(computing, music) Not a keyboard, or lacking a keyboard.


agitpop

His keenest outrage is reserved for the Bush administration, which he tears into like a good punker should, but Gabel's lyrics and delivery have a subtlety and wit that more didactic agitpop singers lack. "

2006 April 28, Miles Raymer, “Against Me!”, in Chicago Reader

(music) Pop music of an agitational character


antirock

In their darkest hour, the antirock interests received a gift from the gods: the quiz-show scandal of 1958.

2002 October 11, Cliff Doerksen, “Same Old Song and Dance”, in Chicago Reader


antirock

Ut's slippery, semi-improvised antirock was shrill and swampy, an unpredictable amalgam of loose strumming and phantom sputtering.

2006 November 10, Jessica Hopper, “Ten Under the Radar”, in Chicago Reader

(music) Rock music that deliberately goes against the usual conventions of the genre

anti-rock

rock that deliberately goes against conventions


soundclash

en-noun

soundclash (countable and uncountable, plural soundclashes)

(music) Any of several forms of popular music based on strongly contrasting elements.

(music, countable) A Jamaican musical contest at which the audience reaction is used to choose the best DJ.


conservatoire

Borrowed from French conservatoire. Doublet of conservatory.

կոնսերվատորիա

school or educational institution that teaches music


overscored

en-adj

overscored (comparative more overscored, superlative most overscored)

more overscored (comparative)
most overscored (superlative)

(music) scored for too many instruments (or types of instrument)


afoxe

"Afros E Afoxes de Bahia" offers a sampling of afros and afoxe groups and features singers such as Gilberto Gil and Margareth Menezes.

1990 December 28, Fernando Gonzalez, “Two Daring Journeys into Brazilian Music”, in Boston Globe

It now brings together son, guajira, guaracha with New Orleans funk, Nigerian Afrobeat, South American cumbia, James Brown rhythms, Haitian compas, Brazilian afoxe, New York City boogaloo and even jam-band stuff predicated on electric guitars as much as hand drums.

2007 May 17, Ben Ratliff, “Cuban Music, Good for Dancing, and for Thinking About as Well”, in New York Times


bassless

(The band is bassless, consisting of guitarist Brace Paine, drummer Hannah Blilie, and Ditto.)

2006 March 3, Jessica Hopper, “Is This It?”, in Chicago Reader


barwalking

He sang in an urgent, desperate sort of chant, and on saxophone he exaggerated the squealing sharpness of the R & B barwalking tradition.

2003 October 31, Peter Margasak, “Punk Primer/Postscripts”, in Chicago Reader

(music) A form of showmanship in which a musician stands on the bar


bashy

bashy (comparative bashier, superlative bashiest)

bashier (comparative)
bashiest (superlative)

The record doesn't refuse to rock: the trebly attack of songs like "Drown" and "Route" is reminiscent of the bashy splendor of the earliest Tupelo releases.

1995 August 4, Bill Wyman, “Son Volt”, in Chicago Reader


basslike

basslike (comparative more basslike, superlative most basslike)

more basslike (comparative)
most basslike (superlative)

On tracks like "Mama's Gonna Make Us a Cake" one guitarist plays basslike parts while the other goes nuts in a scrappy way; for "Evil Operations Classified" Billotte and Wilcox drop into lockstep to exhilarating effect.

2004 April 16, Peter Margasak, “Causal Dots”, in Chicago Reader


beatless

Labradford's debut album, Prazision, was ambient music for indie rockers, blissfully devoid of both high-gloss digitalia and New Age goo--a series of drifting, beatless soundscapes created with analog synthesizers and heavily treated guitar.

1998 April 3, Peter Margasak, “Kranky and Proud of It/”, in Chicago Reader


balladic

balladic (comparative more balladic, superlative most balladic)

more balladic (comparative)
most balladic (superlative)

Still, my favorite moments are the quiet ones, like when Henry, the tell-me-about-the-rabbits-George deviate, croons his balladic confession, "I did a thing."

1989 July 21, Anthony Adler, “Game of Love”, in Chicago Reader

Vedder and the rest of the band are at their best when they're feeling balladic.

1994 December 2, Bill Wyman, “Posture After Posture”, in Chicago Reader


basswork

His basswork is both sure-fingered and mercifully sparse[…].

1994 April 22, David Whiteis, “Ernie Williams”, in Chicago Reader


raplike

raplike (comparative more raplike, superlative most raplike)

more raplike (comparative)
most raplike (superlative)

(music) Resembling hip-hop or the act of rapping.


ballade

Borrowed from French ballade. Doublet of ballad.

"Dead and gone!" as Andrew Lang re-echoes in a sweetly mournful ballade[…]

1915, Richard Le Gallienne, Vanishing Roads and Other Essays

Even a 10-minute Chopin ballade for piano, let alone Messiaen’s 75-minute “Turangalila Symphony,” tries to grapple with, activate and organize a relatively substantial span of time.

2007 December 30, Anthony Tommasini, “A Patience to Listen, Alive and Well”, in New York Times

(music) Any of various genres of single-movement musical pieces having lyrical and narrative elements.


authentic cadence

en-noun

authentic cadence (plural authentic cadences)

(music, chiefly US) A cadence involving the resolution of the dominant chord (V) to the root chord (I).

authentischer Schluss

cadence where dominant chord resolves to the root chord


allegro non troppo

From Italian allegro (“fast”) + non (“not”) + troppo (“too much”).


afrobeat

→ German: Afrobeat

→ Portuguese: afrobeat

→ Spanish: afrobeat

(music) Music that combines West African musical styles (such as traditional Yoruba music and highlife) with American funk, jazz, and soul influences, with a focus on chanted vocals, complex intersecting rhythms, and percussion.


salicional

/səˈlɪʃənəl/

From German Salizional, from Latin salix (“willow”) + -al.

(music) A labial pipe organ stop of eight-foot pitch.


beatmatching

(music) The synchronization of beats in two pieces of music, as performed by a disc jockey in order to mix tracks seamlessly.


filin

Borrowed from Spanish filin, itself from English feeling.

(music) A genre that emerged in late 1940s in La Habana, influenced by the melodic and expressive style of vocal jazz.


mirliton

/ˈmɜːlɪˌtɒn/

/ˈmɪɹləˌtɑn/

From French. Coined as a nonce to advertise a new women's bonnet, mirliton came to be applied to any trifle or trinket before acquiring several specific meanings. Compare the English word folderol.

In form the mirlitons resembled flutes, shawms, or other instruments, and were generally furnished with a parchment membrane.

1975, Sibyl Marcuse, A survey of musical instruments, page 172

Whistles, mirlitons, flutes, trumpets or horns, clarinets, and oboes are all played in one or more parts of the continent.

1990, Francis Bebey, African music: a people's art, page 64

The bars have air resonators below, and mirliton membranes are set over holes in the resonators (see Figure 10-3C).

1996, Bart Hopkin, Musical Instrument Design, page 145

(music) The eunuch flute, a kind of kazoo or membranophone.


suspended cymbal

suspended cymbal (plural suspended cymbals)

(music) a cymbal that is suspended horizontally and usually played with one or two sticks


mano sinistra

From the Italian mano (“hand”) and sinistra (“left”).

musical notation
musical notation#English

(music) In musical notation, an instruction for the pianist to use the left hand.


main droite

From the French main (“hand”) + droit (“right”).

(music) In musical notation, an instruction for the pianist to use the right hand.


mano destra

From Italian mano (“hand”) and destra (“right”).


m.d.

From French main droite and Italian mano destra.

(music) Indicating the right (as opposed to 'left') hand. Initialism of main droite or mano destra.


auto-tuner

(music) A device that corrects the intonation of an audio signal without affecting other aspects of the sound, sometimes used to fix off-key singing.


big band

big band (countable and uncountable, plural big bands)

(uncountable, music) The music produced by a jazz big band.


laptronica

Blend of laptop + electronica. The term gained a certain degree of currency in the 1990s.

More recently, the notion of using a portable computer on stage became a reality and new forms of music including laptronica, the synthesis of laptop and electronica, were born.

2012, Leigh Landy, Making Music with Sounds, Routledge, page 16

(music, computing) Musical output made with a laptop computer combined with electronic devices, portable enough for live performances.


motorik

en-adj

motorik (comparative more motorik, superlative most motorik)

more motorik (comparative)
most motorik (superlative)

...explores the anti-auto tirades of Peggy Suicide while (ironically) paying tribute to the motorik beat and highway sounds of Neu! and krautrock.

1996, Jim DeRogatis, Kaleidoscope eyes: psychedelic rock from the '60s to the '90s

Kraftwerk and Can both used the motorik style as did later electronic oriented bands like Ultravox...

2006, Steve Taylor, A to X of Alternative Music

...with occasional C-sharp and B chords thrown in there to relieve the tension, and a motorik beat.

2007, Phil Freeman, Marooned: the next generation of desert island discs

(music, informal) Having a rigid, repetitive, driving 4/4 beat, as in krautrock.


hosaphone

(music) A home-made musical instrument consisting of a length of garden hose with a funnel inserted at one end. It is played by blowing it in the manner of a trumpet.


agrément

From French agrément. Doublet of agreement.


wippen

(music) A component of the action of a mechanical keyboard instrument such as a piano or organ


shoegazey

shoegazey (comparative more shoegazey, superlative most shoegazey)

more shoegazey (comparative)
most shoegazey (superlative)

...unaffected harmonies over fairly conventional shoegazey rock, though usually to exceptionally beautiful effect.

1997, Ira A Robbins, The Trouser Press guide to '90s rock

(rare, informal, music) Having elements of the shoegaze style.


nonpiano

Is it that you're trying to create a nonpiano sound?

1991, Edward Strickland, American composers: dialogues on contemporary music

Piano music may profitably be viewed as a musical world distinct from the world of nonpiano music.

2003, J K Randall, Benjamin Boretz, Being about music: textworks 1960-2003

(music) Not of or pertaining to the piano.


neuro

en-noun

neuro (countable and uncountable, plural neuros)

(uncountable, music, informal) Clipping of neurofunk.


hydraulophone

Straying from classical music, there is Steve Mann's hydraulophone (which, even if not quite a match for a Silbermann organ, is great fun on a summer day): […]

2007 May 17, "aleksios" (username), "Re: music with unconventional instruments", in rec.music.classical and alt.music, Usenet

The creation of a novel instrument called the hydraulophone, whose sound production is created using water as a medium

2008, Richard Kronland-Martinet, Solvi Ystad, Kristoffer Jensen, Computer Music Modeling and Retrieval: Sense of Sounds

At the core of the Hydraulophone is the idea to create a new tool that encourages children to discover their sense

2009, David Gildiner, “The Hydaulophone: Music from water”, in Imagine: Early Childhood Music Therapy

On professional hydraulophones for concert performance, the water jets are often arranged like the keys on a piano, and the instrument is played by pressing down on one or more of the water jets, one for each tone of a diatonic or chromatic scale.

2009, Steve Mann, ACOUSTIC, HYPERACOUSTIC, OR ELECTRICALLY AMPLIFIED HYDRAULOPHONES OR MULTIMEDIA INTERFACES, US Patent http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0241753.html

(music) Any of several musical instruments that employ the movement of water rather than air.


power ballad

(music) An emotional rock song, generally focused on love, delivered with powerful vocals.


miskin

Now would I tune my Miskins on this Greene,

1593, Michael Drayton, Pastorals II: The Second Eclogue, published 1619


ECMA

East Coast Music Association
w:East Coast Music Association

(music) Acronym of East Coast Music Association.

East Coast Music Awards
w:East Coast Music Awards

(music) Acronym of East Coast Music Awards.


orchestrion

(music) A mechanical multiple musical instrument designed to sound like an orchestra or band.


ambitus

From Latin ambitus (“circuit, ostentation”). Doublet of ambit.

(music) The range of a melody, especially those of ecclesiastical chants.


pitchless

The first of the four continuous sections into which the work is divided begins with high pitchless percussion.


unpitched

In particular, the vast majority of research to date has focused on the unpitched percussion instruments found in Western popular music[…]

2006, Anssi Klapuri, Manuel Davy, Signal processing methods for music transcription


countertheme

(chiefly music) A theme that complements or opposes another theme.


stylophone

(music) A small synthesizer operated using a stylus.


cantaro

percussion instrument
percussion instrument

(music) A clayen pot used as a percussion instrument in South America.


mediant

From Italian mediante, from Latin mediānt- (“being in the middle”), present active participle of mediō (“I am in the middle”), from medius (“middle”), from Proto-Italic *meðios, from Proto-Indo-European *medʰyo- (“between”).

(music) The third degree of the diatonic scale.


auto-tune

From auto- + tune, a trademark registered to Antares Audio Technologies.

(music) An audio processor that corrects the pitch of a recorded track, also used to distort vocals in electronic music.


auto-tune

en-verb

auto-tune (third-person singular simple present auto-tunes, present participle auto-tuning, simple past and past participle auto-tuned)

auto-tunes (present singular third-person)
auto-tuning (participle present)
auto-tuned (participle past)
auto-tuned (past)

The singing is sometimes pure and sometimes processed into exaggeratedly AutoTuned “Alvin and the Chipmunks” automation.

2023 July 10, Zachary Woolfe, “Review: Ted Hearne’s Sweet, Sad American Elegy”, in The New York Times

(music, transitive) To correct the pitch of a vocal or instrumental performance.


progger

But the 90s being the decade of guilty pleasures, it's not uncommon these days to encounter ghosts of proggers past in the least likely places.

1997 June 27, John Corbett, “Broken Wire”, in Chicago Reader


chordless

But a profound melancholy had taken possession of Franz, the two hardly exchanged a word, the violin hung mute, chordless, full of dust, in its habitual place .

2008, Reginald Menville, Douglas Menville, Ancient Hauntings, page 119

It is a chordless affair, because it is out of commission .

2013, Henry T. Sampson, Blacks in Blackface: A Sourcebook on Early Black Musical Shows, page 285

(music) Not playing chords; silent or playing one note at a time.

A boat slowly drifts under the bridge and out to sea, and someone inside it plays an untuned piano with a slow chordless melody.

2007, Jason Murk, Tokharian Tales, page 96

Earlier work like the atonal music of pianist Sun Ra and bassist Charles Mingus as well as the chordless music of Coleman and Taylor foreshadowed free jazz.

2009, Waldo E. Martin, No Coward Soldiers: Black Cultural Politics in Postwar America, page 62

Nick's current projects include his sextet feature music from "Exposition", a chordless trio that performs regularly at Bar Next Door, a two-trombone duo with fellow Juilliard alumnus Joe McDonough, and freelancing with various ensembles and shows around the city.

(music) Without chords; involving one note at a time or dissonant combinations.


timepoint

(music) An instant, having no duration, and which cannot be heard.


staffless

(music) Without the use of staves in its notation.


cimbasso

(music) A cylindrical valved instrument in the low brass family, closely related to the trombone and normally pitched a fifth or an octave below the tenor and bass trombones.


chacha

Display rhythm instruments from other cultures, such as Tibetan singing bowls; carved frog and cricket wood rasps from Indonesia; rain sticks and goat hoof chachas rattles from Bolivia; the telavi from Ghana; and woven shakers from Africa, Brazil, and India.

2012, Joan Bouza Koster, Growing Artists: Teaching the Arts to Young Children, Cengage Learning, page 299

(music) A type of cylindrical metal rattle, derived from an instrument in the Haitian musical tradition, and used to play rhythm in certain Cuban genres (and in other nearby countries).


chop up

chop up (third-person singular simple present chops up, present participle chopping up, simple past and past participle chopped up)

chops up (present singular third-person)
chopping up (participle present)
chopped up (participle past)
chopped up (past)

(transitive) To separate or divide something that was whole.

(transitive, music) To convert a sampled audio file into short segments.


veena

From Hindi वीणा (vīṇā), and its source, Sanskrit वीणा (vīṇā), which is related to Middle Persian wn' (win, “veena, lute”).

When he wanted to test any of the principles he was enunciating or elucidating, he went over to the veena which sits in a glass case now and played for hours and substantially extended the vocabulary and scope of the instrument.

1997, Kiran Nagarkar, Cuckold, HarperCollins, published 2013, page 339

Shanmugavadivu continued to earn her income through her veena performances, and by introducing her daughters to the stage as soon as they were able.

2017, Sunil Khilnani, Incarnations, Penguin, page 375

(music) A plucked stringed instrument with five or seven steel strings stretched on a long fretted finger-board over two gourds, used mostly in Carnatic Indian classical music.


post horn

(music) A valveless musical instrument based on such a horn, used in orchestral music.


clairon

(music) the second register of a clarinet.


buisine

Borrowed from Old French buisine, busine (an earlier, Middle English-era borrowing bosyne did not survive into modern English), from Latin būcina. Doublet of buccina and posaune.

Coordinate term: buccina

It was marvellously great, and shewed such joy and satisfaction that the sound and bruit of their instruments, horns, buisines, and trumpets, were heard even as far as the castle.

1823, Archaeologia; Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, page 155

The clarion named in the above passages appears to have been a smaller kind of trumpet. The buisine (from buccina) was also a sort of trumpet: it was of a bent form, and made of brass.

1860, John Hewitt, The fourteenth century, page 310

(music, historical) A medieval wind instrument with a very long, straight and slender body, usually made of metal.


jor

Borrowed from Hindustani जोर (jor) / جور (jor).

(music) In Indian music, a formal section of composition in the long elaboration (alap) of a raga that forms the beginning of a performance.


angelot

Borrowed from French angelot, Late Latin angelotus.

(music) An old musical instrument of the lute kind.


white soul

One of the dangers of “white soul” that revives black music traditions outside of their original cultural context is that the cultural past may be resurrected not to be celebrated or reworked, but to be replaced by new narratives that enshrine white experience and benefit white musicians.

1998, “Soul's Revival”, in Monique Guillory, Richard C. Green, editors, Soul: Black Power, Politics, and Pleasure, NYU Press, page 156

(music) Rhythm and blues or soul music performed by white artists.

白人靈魂樂

rhythm and blues or soul music performed by white artists


eurythmic

en-adj

eurythmic (comparative more eurythmic, superlative most eurythmic)

more eurythmic (comparative)
most eurythmic (superlative)


simple quadruple time

(music) A meter or rhythm with four beats to a measure and four beats to a whole note; specifically common time.


crotchet rest

(music) A rest having the same duration as a crotchet; a quarter rest.


race music

In use from 1920, replaced by rhythm and blues in the 1940s.

LA's most popular “race music” radio shows featured a white disc jockey, Hunter Hancock, from Texas. He featured black artists on his “Harlem Matinee,” which aired every afternoon starting at four.

2015, Deena Weinstein, Rock'n America: A Social and Cultural History, University of Toronto Press, page 29

(dated, music) Commercially recorded African-American popular music from the early 20th century, including blues and jazz.


nebel

Two nebels were always to be played in the daily services of the Temple, and the number might not exceed six.

1879, Francis Roubiliac Conder, Claude Reignier Conder, “Part I”, “Chapter VIII. Art and Science among the Israelites”, in A Handbook to the Bible: Being a Guide to the Study of the Holy Scriptures; Derived from Ancient Monuments and Modern Exploration, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., page 167

(obsolete, music) A Hebrew stringed instrument, possibly the same as the nabla.


hocket

en-noun

hocket (countable and uncountable, plural hockets)

Hocket is a contrapuntal technique described by the early fourteenth-century Walter Odington as "A truncation … made over the tenor … in such a way that one voice is always silent while the other sings."

1977, Lloyd Ultan, Music theory: problems and practices in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, U of Minnesota Press, page 91

(music) In medieval music, a rhythmic linear technique using the alternation of notes, pitches, or chords. A single melody is shared between two (or occasionally more) voices such that alternately one voice sounds while the other rests.


requinto

(music) A smaller, higher-pitched version of another instrument, usually a guitar.


biordinal

(mathematics, music) Of the second order


conservatorium

conservatorium (plural conservatoriums or conservatoria)

conservatoriums (plural)
conservatoria (plural)

The band’s bass guitarist graduated from the conservatorium and has since played with Donavon Frankenreiter, John Butler, Angus Stone and Ash Grunwald.

2015 August 26, “Band of Frequencies”, in The Guardian


tarogato

Saturday night, with percussionist Gregg Bendian and bassist William Parker, he played a nearly model free-jazz gig: starting at absolute Mount Kilimanjaro intensity, two sets dipped and rose with the jagged topography of peaks and valleys, Brotzmann switching between tenor (his main ax), E-flat clarinet, alto sax, and tarogato (a wooden instrument about the size and shape of a soprano sax with a nasal, double-reedish sound).

1994 May 6, John Corbett, “Head Music”, in Chicago Reader

With his huge, coarse tone and urgent phrasing Brotzmann sounds like he could dominate any group using anything he plays, which includes saxophones, clarinets, and the tarogato, an eastern European reed instrument.

2003 December 19, Bill Meyer, “Brotzmann/Drake Duo”, in Chicago Reader

(music) a reed instrument originating from Hungary


vihuela

(music) A guitar-like string instrument of 15th- and 16th-century Spain, usually with six courses or sets of strings (twelve strings in total).

(music) A guitar-like string instrument of 19th-century Mexico with five strings, typically played in mariachi bands.


(countable, music) The TB-303 synthesizer.


bichromatic

Its title is "Musik mit Vierteltönen," and it contains the sum of the author's experiences with the "bichromatic harmonium" of his own construction.

1922, Oscar George Sonneck, The Musical Quarterly, volume 8, page 620

Bichromatic music on the electronic orchestra is the next step in the musical art of the 20th century.

1969, The Journal for the Study of Consciousness, page 83

In 1926 Straube built a Bichromatic Quartertone Harmonium for Mordecai Sandberg with white keys for the whole tones, black keys for the half tones and brown keys for the quarter tones.

1998, Robert F. Gellerman, Gellerman's International Reed Organ Atlas (page 233)

(music) Employing or relating to a quarter tone scale.


chipmusic

Some music, such as electronic dance music, is completely produced electronically and new practices have developed such as live coding, circuit bending, and chipmusic.

2014, William Forde Thompson, Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Encyclopedia

At the time, tracking chiptunes (i.e. using trackers) was the fundamental method of chipmusic-making.

2018, Dafni Tragaki, Made in Greece: Studies in Popular Music

(music) The musical genre made up of chiptunes.


soundcheck

soundcheck (countable and uncountable, plural soundchecks)

Soundcheck for the band, today, takes place at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. It is late afternoon and while the arena's 17,000 outdoor seats are still empty the four members of Mumford & Sons – prospering British folk band, in the middle of a long tour of Australia, the US and the UK, their newly released album Babel a smash on all fronts – wander to centre stage.

2012 November 15, Tom Lamont, The Daily Telegraph

(chiefly music) An activity that takes place before a concert, etc., when the performer and sound crew run through a small portion of the upcoming show on the venue's sound system to verify the volume and tonal frequencies.

hangpróba

activity when the performer and sound crew run through a small portion of the upcoming show on the venue's sound system


clivis

From Latin clivis (“by means of slopes”), ablative plural of clivus.

(music) A neume representing two notes descending.


clausula

(music) The conclusion of a passage; cadence.


æquison

Borrowed from Latin aequisonus, from aequus (“equal”) in combination with sonus (“sounding”).

Æquisons are those notes, which being stroke together, make one sound of 2.

1609, John Dowlan, Andreas Ornithoparcus: His Micrologus, or Introduction: Containing the Art of Singing, page 79

(rare, music) Archaic spelling of equison.


white label

US, 20th century. Originally used for musical vinyl records whose labels had been torn off or covered with a white label by competing DJs to conceal which records they were using.

2014, Chris Cunningham, quoted in Piers Martin, Aphex Twin: ‘His music is a perfect mix of mystery and adrenaline’ (in The Guardian) https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/19/aphex-twin-richard-james-bjork-ian-rankin
I started going to the record exchange in Camden two or three times a week to look for the Rephlex white labels or test pressings that would end up there. I actually got one of the original Caustic Window vinyl LPs from there.

(music) A vinyl record with a white label or white background (rather than artwork), typically used for test records or promotion.


folk rock

(music) A subgenre of rock music combining elements of folk music.


space rock

Apart from individual songs, there were certain bands that became associated with these sorts of extended sonic journeys, showing many traits of space rock without much or any overt interest in space topicality as such.

2017, William Echard, Psychedelic Popular Music: A History through Musical Topic Theory, Indiana University Press, page 201

(music) A subgenre of rock music, characterised by long psychedelic instrumental passages and lyrics dealing with science fiction or outer space.


studio album

Madonna’s 14th studio album is an engrossing mix of Latinate beats, political allusion – and Joan of Arc

2019 June 8, Kitty Empire, “Madonna: Madame X review – a splendidly bizarre return to form”, in The Guardian


intra-octaval

2005: Kenley Dove, “Aristotelian vs. Socratic Mimesis in Hegelian Perspective”; Dieter Wandschneider [ed.], Das Geistige und das Sinnliche in der Kunst: Ästhetische Reflexion in der Perspektive des Deutschen Idealismus [The Spiritual and the Sensual in Art: Æsthetic Reflexion in the Perspective of German Idealism], page 40 (Königshausen & Neumann; →ISBN
To resolve it the solution found and accepted has been to reduce all the intra-octaval ‘consonances’, fifths, fourths, major and minor thirds, etc., to what fits within the limits of an equally divided octave, which, of course, distorts the purity of the intra-octaval consonances. This solution has been called ‘twelve-tone equal temperament’. Without it, modern classical music, which requires modulation over a plurality of octaves, would not be possible. With it, the duration of modern classical music was limited by the persistent ability to hear pure (pythagorean) intra-octaval consonances.


octaval

(music) Of, pertaining to, or relating to an octave.


live album

(music) An album consisting of tracks recorded live during one or more concerts.


allegro ma non troppo

From the Italian allegro (“fast”) ma (“but”) non (“not”) troppo (“too much”).

(music) A tempo mark lively but not too much

allegro ma non troppo

passage played allegro, but not too much so


allegro ma non troppo

(music) Describing a passage having this mark.


countrylike

en-adj

countrylike (comparative more countrylike, superlative most countrylike)

more countrylike (comparative)
most countrylike (superlative)


concent

en-noun

concent (countable and uncountable, plural concents)

From Latin concentus, from concinō (“to sing together”).


concentus

Coordinate term: accentus

(music) A style of church music that emphasizes harmony.


C-pop

From C- (“Chinese”) + pop, by analogy with J-pop.

Mandopop and its Cantonese equivalent, Cantopop, are subsets of Chinese pop, or C-pop, whose roots stretch back almost 100 years.

2024 January 20, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, “An Asian megastar who fills arenas in Europe–so who is he?”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 14

(music) Chinese pop music influenced by western genres.


Mandopop

Last year, Mandopop streams went up 45 per cent on Spotify, which is unavailable in China.


K-pop

From K- (“Korean”) + pop, by analogy with J-pop.

Somehow, even I got sucked into this strange K-pop universe. Sure, the quality of the music is sometimes debatable.

2018 December 11, Kevin Liao, “At First I Was a K-Pop Skeptic. Not Anymore.”, in New York Times

(music) South Korean pop music influenced by Western styles.


chinrest

(music, lutherie) A shaped piece of wood, plastic, etc. attached to the body of a violin or viola to aid in the positioning of the player's chin against on the instrument.


diple

From Ancient Greek διπλῆ (diplê), from διπλοῦς (diploûs).

That is why players prefer to play the diple with bellows, because the bellows makes it possible for them to play continuously.

2014, Jasmina Talam, Folk Musical Instruments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, page 190

(music) A traditional woodwind instrument used in Serbian, Croatian and Montenegrin music.


Sturm und Drang

/ˈʃtəɹm ʊnt ˈdɹaŋ/

Borrowed from German Sturm und Drang with the same figurative meaning, from Sturm (“storm”) + und (“and”) + Drang (“pressure, stress; urge, impulse, longing”). The phrase is the title of the play Sturm und Drang (1776) by German dramatist Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger (1752–1831).
The fact that the phrase is often italicized suggests it has not been fully assimilated into English.

The best of the Stürmer und Dränger grew out of their Sturm und Drang, and it was necessary to indicate in what ways [Johann Gottfried] Herder and [Johann Wolfgang von] Goethe changed as they grew older. It should be stressed, however, that the very principles which forced them to burst the husk of the Sturm und Drang are in themselves a vital element within the Sturm und Drang.

1953, Roy Pascal, “Introduction”, in The German Sturm und Drang, Manchester: Manchester University Press, →OCLC, page xvi

[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich] Hegel's further observation shows the route taken by those who survived their Sturm und Drang and went on to produce more: "Because the sickness is in the essence itself, its isolated manifestations can be repressed [zurückdrängen] and the superficial symptoms suppressed [dämpfen]."

1985, Larry Vaughan, The Historical Constellation of the Sturm und Drang (American University Studies, Series I (Germanic Languages and Literatures); 38), New York, N.Y.: Peter Lang, page 61

[page 1100, column 1] The Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) was a literary movement that flourished in Germany in the 1770s and 1780s and represented the protest of a group of young university-educated men against the norms of polite society. […] [page 1101, columns 1 and 2] [T]he Sturm und Drang reflected the growth of modern individualism and the challenge that middle-class ideas of selfhood presented to so-called enlightened absolutism, that is to say, to political and cultural structures that sought legitimacy by assimilating elements of bureaucratic rationalism. […] The Sturm und Drang was nevertheless an important forerunner of Romanticism in its formal experimentalism, its enthusiasm for popular culture and the primitive, its acceptance of the power of unconscious, irrational forces, and above all its concern with individual experience.

2004, David Hill, “Sturm und Drang”, in Christopher John Murray, editor, Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760–1850, volumes 2 (L–Z, Index), New York, N.Y., London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, pages 1100–1101

It was precisely this reason, science and the eighteenth-century Enlightenment to account for genius in rational terms that allowed the non-rational thinkers who fueled the fires of the Sturm und Drang movement to vivify, and elaborate upon, the ancient Greek notion of genius as a numinous power associated with the Muses and the gods.

2006, Angus [James] Nicholls, Goethe's Concept of the Daemonic: After the Ancients, Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House Publishing, page 81

The complex figure of Clavigo is therefore a variant on the Sturm and Drang theme of the enemy brothers, which forms the framework for a far older theme: that of Shakespeare's Hamlet who kills Ophelia's brother Valentin. Goethe's play is in fact modeled after Shakespeare's tragedy, and the last act is riddled with references to the cemetery scene from Hamlet. A theme dear to Sturm and Drang is also revisited: fratricide. The period during which Goethe wrote Clavigo was that in which the young Sturm and Drang poets all flocked around the figure of Goethe.

2014, Katalin Nun, Jon Stewart, editors, Kierkegaard's Literary Figures and Motifs: Tome I: Agamemnon to Guadalquivir (Kirkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources; 16), Farnham, Surrey, Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, page 105

(literature, music, theater) A proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music which occurred from the late 1760s to the early 1780s, emphasizing individual subjectivity and the free expression of emotions.

狂飆突進運動

a proto-Romantic movement from the late 1760s to the early 1780s in German literature and music


tamburitza

Haque will guest on one of the 18 pieces on Ivanovic's HotHouse program, as will Branko Pavlovic, who plays a Balkan mandolin called a tamburitza.

2001 January 5, Ted Shen, “Goran Ivanovic”, in Chicago Reader

(music) Any of a number of different types of long-necked lutes found in the Balkans.


alto clef

(music) A type of C-clef when placed on the third line of the staff in musical notation.


superparticular

(mathematics, music) Pertaining to a ratio of any whole number to the next below it (e.g. tfrac 3 2, tfrac 8 7, etc.).


virgula

From Latin virgula (“twig; wand; scratch comma”), from virga (“branch; rod”) + -ulus (“-ule: forming diminutives”). As a dowsing rod, via virgula divina or divinatoria. Doublet of virgule.

der

(music, obsolete) Synonym of stem: the tail of a note.

(music, historical, obsolete) Synonym of virga: one of the neumes of medieval musical notation.


arsis

en-noun

arsis (countable and uncountable, plural arses)

From Ancient Greek ἄρσις (ársis, “lifting”), from αἴρω (aírō, “I lift”).

(music) The stronger part of a musical measure: the part containing the beat.

(music) The elevation of the hand, or that part of the bar at which it is raised, in beating time; the weak or unaccented part of the bar, opposed to the thesis.


noodly

en-adj

noodly (comparative noodlier or more noodly, superlative noodliest or most noodly)

noodlier (comparative)
more noodly (comparative)
noodliest (superlative)
most noodly (superlative)

Mitchell likes to play off O’Malley’s singing, doubling her voice with noodlier versions of her melodies or playing call-and-response with little shrieks and tweets of feedback.

1997 August, Douglas Wolk, “CHUG / Metalon / Alias”, in CMJ New Music Monthly, number 48, page 12

He felt the pangs intensifying, as if the noodly, repetitive sounds were some lost language he'd known but forgotten, a dialect discarded or repressed.

1998 January 16, John Corbett, “Cradle of Electronica”, in Chicago Reader

Both of those albums contained lots of what's charitably called filler--in the form of noodly hip-hop-inspired loops that never went anywhere--and it took the band five years to release the new Handcream for a Generation (Wiija/Beggars Banquet).

2002 May 17, Peter Margasak, “Cornershop”, in Chicago Reader

For a moment I thought he might ask me if I would sing, and I was excited, and afraid of that possibility. But he said, “A little more noodly, you know?[…]”

2005, Paul Ford, Gary Benchley, Rock Star, Plume, page 290

Mark P’s distaste was perhaps understandable on at least one level: this was two different bands, the original band that had demoed ‘Friction’, ‘Prove It’, ‘Venus De Milo’ and ‘Marquee Moon’ two years earlier with Island’s Richard Williams; and the altogether noodlier outfit, whose ‘Torn Curtain’, ‘Guiding Light’ and ‘Elevation’ seemed set in deliberate opposition to their original, earthier, aesthetic.

2007, Clinton Heylin, Babylon's Burning: From Punk to Grunge, Canongate, page 231

If the music becomes more “noodly,” why not try and trace the notes out in front of you with your fingers?

2008, Matt Pagett, The Best Dance Moves in the World…Ever!: 100 New and Classic Moves and How to Bust Them, San Francisco, Calif.: Chronicle Books, page 80

That’s one of our goals in improvisation, to come up with something that seems previously composed as opposed to a loose improvisation that’s more noodly.

2009, T. Virgil Parker, Jessica Hopsicker, Carri Anne Yager, Sausage Factory: The College Crier’s Infamous Interviews of the Freaks and the Famous, Inkwater Press, page 233

They have the preeniest frontman, with his piano safely off towards the wings of the stage, the prettiest drummer, the noodliest guitarist and the quietest bass player.

2019, Mark Radcliffe, Crossroads: In Search of the Moments That Changed Music, Canongate Books

(music, informal) Involving improvisation.


through-composed

strophic

antonym(s) of “with stanzas set to differing music”

(music) Of a song, composed so that each stanza may have different music, rather than the same being repeated for all of them.


pantonal

pantonal (comparative more pantonal, superlative most pantonal)

more pantonal (comparative)
most pantonal (superlative)

(music) Pertaining to, or exhibiting, pantonality.


pandiatonic

pandiatonic (comparative more pandiatonic, superlative most pandiatonic)

more pandiatonic (comparative)
most pandiatonic (superlative)

From pan- + diatonic, coined by Nicolas Slonimsky.

(music) Formed freely from all degrees of a diatonic scale without regard for their diatonic function, sometimes to the extent of no single pitch being felt as a tonic.


hyperbass flute

en-noun

hyperbass flute (plural hyperbass flutes)

(music) The largest and lowest-pitched instrument in the flute family.

flauto iperbasso

lowest pitched instrument in the flute family


demisharp

(music) In microtonal music, a note played a quarter tone higher than a natural.


demiflat

(music) In microtonal music, a note played a quarter tone lower than a natural.


Tristan chord

A reference to the chord used in the opening phrase of Richard Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde as part of the leitmotif attributed to the character Tristan.

(music) A chord in musical composition consisting originally of the notes F, B, D♯ and G♯ which can be translated more generally in intervalic terms as: augmented fourth, augmented sixth and augmented ninth above a root. Enharmonically it sounds like a half-diminished seventh chord (e.g. F-A♭-C♭-E♭), though in terms of musical analysis it can be interpreted in several ways.


piano accordion

piano accordion (plural piano accordions)

(music) an accordion with a keyboard similar to that of a piano.


augmented fourth

augmented fourth (plural augmented fourths)

e.g. C - F is a perfect fourth, C - F# is an augmented fourth, and C - F♭ is a diminished fourth.

(music) A type of tritone in musical composition. It spans four diatonic scale degrees like a perfect fourth but with an extension of a chromatic semitone. The number of diatonic degrees it spans is what distinguishes it from a diminished fifth.


diminished fifth

diminished fifth (plural diminished fifths)

C - G is a perfect fifth, C - G♭ is a diminished fifth, and C - G# is an augmented fifth.

(music) A type of tritone in musical composition formed by narrowing a perfect fifth by one chromatic semitones. In twelve-tone equal temperament, it spans five diatonic scale degrees like a perfect fifth but narrower by a semitone. The number of diatonic degrees it spans is what distinguishes it from an augmented fourth.


augmented fifth

augmented fifth (plural augmented fifths)

An augmented fifth on C
1

(music) A musical interval made by widening a perfect fifth by one chromatic semitone. In twelve-tone equal temperament, it consists of eight semitones, spans five degrees of the diatonic scale, and is enharmonically equivalent to a minor sixth.


irrelative

en-adj

irrelative (comparative more irrelative, superlative most irrelative)

more irrelative (comparative)
most irrelative (superlative)

Irrelative chords in music are those having no common tone.

(music) Describing two or more chords which do not share any notes in common.


heterophonic

(music) Exhibiting, or pertaining to, heterophony.


diminished fourth

en-noun

diminished fourth (plural diminished fourths)

(music) A musical interval made by narrowing a perfect fourth by one chromatic semitone. In twelve-tone equal temperament, it consists of four semitones, spans four degrees of the diatonic scale, and is enharmonically equivalent to a major third.


crossfade

(music) A fade in which the volume of one audio track is lowered as that of another is raised.


crossfade

en-verb

crossfade (third-person singular simple present crossfades, present participle crossfading, simple past and past participle crossfaded)

crossfades (present singular third-person)
crossfading (participle present)
crossfaded (participle past)
crossfaded (past)

(music, transitive, intransitive) To lower the volume of one audio track while raising that of another, so that they blend together.


minor sixth

(music) A musical interval in Western music that approximates a frequency ratio of 8:5. It is one chromatic semitone narrower than a major sixth. In twelve-tone equal temperament, it consists of eight semitones and spanning six degrees of the diatonic scale, and is enharmonically equivalent to an augmented fifth.


minor seventh

The minor seventh has a pitch ratio close to 57:32.

(music) A musical interval in Western music that is equal to or approximates a ratio of 9/5 or 16/9, depending on the context. In twelve-tone equal temperament, it spans ten semitones and seven degrees of the diatonic scale.


diminished octave

en-noun

diminished octave (plural diminished octaves)

(music) A musical interval in Western music formed by narrowing an octave by a chromatic semitone. It is one chromatic semitone narrower than a perfect octave. In twelve-tone equal temperament, it consists of eleven semitones, spanning eight degrees of the diatonic scale, and is enharmonically equivalent to a major seventh.


diminished seventh

diminished seventh (plural diminished sevenths)

(music) A musical interval equivalent to narrowing a minor seventh by one chromatic semitone. In twelve-tone equal temperament, it consists of nine semitones and spans seven degrees of the diatonic scale, is one semitone narrower than a minor seventh, and is enharmonically equivalent to a major sixth.


major sixth

(music) A musical interval in Western music that approximates a frequency ratio of 5/3. It is one chromatic semitone wider than a minor sixth. In twelve-tone equal temperament, it consists of nine semitones, spans six degrees of the diatonic scale, and is enharmonically equivalent to a diminished seventh.


major seventh

(music) A musical interval in Western music that approximates a frequency ratio of 15/8. It is one semitone wider than a minor seventh. In twelve-tone equal temperament, it consists of eleven semitones, spans seven degrees of the diatonic scale, and is enharmonically equivalent to a diminished octave.


augmented octave

augmented octave (plural augmented octaves)

compound minor second
compound minor second

(music) A musical interval of the Western twelve-semitone system consisting of thirteen semitones and spanning eight degrees of the diatonic scale. It is one semitone wider than a perfect octave and enharmonically equivalent to a minor ninth/compound minor second.


minor ninth

(music) A musical interval in Western music consisting of an octave widened by a diatonic semitone.


perfect octave

(music) A musical interval of the Western twelve-semitone system consisting of twelve semitones and spanning eight degrees of the diatonic scale. It is enharmonically equivalent to an augmented seventh and is commonly referred to as an octave.


Christian metal

(music) a genre of heavy metal with a Christian theme


shurangiz

bor

Persian شورانگیز

(music) A modern Iranian musical instrument, a member of the lute family, with a skin face and six strings.

شورانگیز

a member of the lute musical instrument family


riq

(music) A kind of frame drum (tambourine) with jingles attached, originating in traditional Arab music.


diastaltic

(music) Of Ancient Greek music: having an elevating influence.


slowcore

Near-synonym: sadcore

“Slowcore” was just a silly label that never caught on, but Galaxie 500 represented one of about a dozen varieties of indie rock that existed at the time.

1996, Pat Blashill, Noise from the Underground: A Secret History of Alternative Rock, Touchstone

Slowcore is a sound best left to the sexless and anal. (No disrespect intended.) Someone worked out that music sounds great stripped right back and left to linger softly in the air.

2001, Everett True, Live Through this: American Rock in the Nineties, Virgin Books Limited, page 114

(music) A subgenre of indie and alternative rock music, characterized by downbeat melodies, slower tempos and minimalist arrangements.


nagara

Ultimately from Arabic نَقَّارَة (naqqāra). Doublet of nacre

(music) A drum used in folk music in the Caucasus region.


sinfonietta

en-noun

sinfonietta (plural sinfoniettas or sinfoniette)

sinfoniettas (plural)
sinfoniette (plural)

Either:
* from the Italian sinfonietta;
* formed on the Italian roots sinfonia (“symphony”) + -etta (feminine diminutive suffix), either in English or in German (as Sinfonietta) and adopted thence; or,
* an alteration of the French symphoniette to resemble an Italian construction of the form sinfonia + -etta.
Compare the French–Italian hybrid symphonietta.

(music) A small-scale symphony (either in length or size of orchestra needed).


taqwacore

From taqwa + -core, coined in Michael Muhammad Knight's 2003 novel The Taqwacores, and later applied to real music inspired by it.

(music) A form of punk music or hip-hop that deals with Islamic culture or issues.


flanger

(music) An electronic device or software that alters the sound of an instrument by combining out-of-phase copies of its original sound.


counterline

(music) A secondary melody that contrasts with the main melody and is played at the same time.


noisecore

(music) A genre of hardcore punk music characterized by distorted feedback


hyperinstrument

(music) Any musical instrument whose output is transformed by computer control


phin

(music) A type of lute with a pear-shaped body, originating in Thailand and played mostly by ethnic Laotians in Thailand and Laos.


Tejano

Tejano (countable and uncountable, plural Tejanos)

From Spanish tejano, originally a translation of Texan from English.

Coordinate term: norteño

Calderon points out as evidence an increase in Tejano record sales worldwide, and the meteoric rise of the young late Tejano recording artist, Selena Quintanilla-Perez.

2000, David Maciel, Isidro D. Ortiz, María Herrera-Sobek, Chicano Renaissance: Contemporary Cultural Trends, University of Arizona Press

(music, uncountable) Various forms of folk and popular music originating among the Mexican-American populations of Central and Southern Texas.


aulos

(music) Any of a class of ancient Greek musical instruments resembling pipes or flutes.


tailpiece

(music, lutherie) An element, often triangular, to which the strings of a violin, guitar, etc. are attached at the lower end of an instrument.


invitatory

(music) A psalm sung, as an invitation to prayer, at the beginning of some services


zygon

From Ancient Greek ζυγόν (zugón, “yoke”).

Chopin's Prelude op. 28 no. 6 comprises 403 notes which give rise—in just one sub-domain (pitch class)—to around 13,000 potential primary zygons, 500 million potential secondary zygons, and 10¹⁸ potential tertiary zygons.

2005, Adam Ockelford, Repetition in music: theoretical and metatheoretical perspectives, page 121

Zygonic relationships, or zygons, are depicted using the letter Z.

2006, Neil Lerner, Joseph Straus, Sounding Off: Theorizing Disability in Music, page 142

Observe that the second melodic interval is deemed to exist in imitation of the first through the repetition of magnitude but not polarity through an "inverse" secondary zygon of pitch.

2012, Adam Ockelford, Applied Musicology: Using Zygonic Theory to Inform Music Education, Therapy, and Psychology Research, page 106

(music, plural "zygons") An affinity or connection in a piece of music between tones, chords, or phrases, such that one part appears to repeat, to imitate, or to derive from the other, especially when perceived as an organising principle in the music; a zygonic relationship.


mandore

(music) An early form of lute that gave rise to the mandolin.


harmolodics

(music) A form of improvised jazz associated with Ornette Coleman


tiple

(music) Any of several kinds of small, plucked stringed-instrument of the guitar family, used in the traditional musics of Spain and various Latin American nations.


cornett

Old French cornet, a diminutive of corne (“horn”), from Latin cornū.

(music) An early horn wind instrument used in European music of the medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods. Not to be confused with later brass instrument.


cassingle

Blend of cassette + single; originally a trademark.

(music) A small cassette containing a single track of popular music on each side


showband

(music) A band that plays cover versions of popular songs.


shantyman

(nautical, music) The sailor who sings the main line of a sea shanty (the other sailors singing the responses or choruses)


semidemisemiquaver

(music) hemidemisemiquaver (a 64th note)


sesquialtera

sesquialtera (countable and uncountable, plural sesquialteras)

From Latin sesquialtera, form of sesquialtera, from sesqui- (“a half and a”) + alter (“another, a second”).

(music) An organ stop that uses two ranks of different pipes.


yoik

yoik (countable and uncountable, plural yoiks)

(music, uncountable) A traditional style of Sami singing or chanting.

(music, countable) A song in this tradition.


conductus

(music) A medieval song, normally with a sacred text, often sung in Latin.


pentachord

(music) Five notes (pitch classes) in a scale.


gospeler

From gospel + -er (occupational suffix). Compare Middle English gospeler (“one of the Gospel writers or Evangelists; statue of one of the Evangelists; (of Old Testament persons) bringer of good news; Isaiah; book containing the Gospels; content of one of the Gospels”), from Old English godspellere.


pedal stool

A pedal-stool having an opening in its rear side to clear the piano-pedals.

1904, Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, CXII:ii, page 1,878

The sound-post of this instrument “extended above the ridge of heaven, while the pedal-stool was beneath hell.”

1998, David Nicholls, The Whole World of Music, page 22

(music) A stool with vertical foot levers that attach to the pedals of a piano, organ, or similar instrument, thereby assisting children and other players who cannot reach the pedals normally.


abruptio

(music) An abrupt pause or stop; an abruption.


pickguard

(music) A piece of durable flat material placed on the body of a guitar (or similar instrument) beneath the strings to protect the surface from being scratched by a plectrum (or similar device).


preclassical

(music) Of or relating to the period following the baroque.


pulsatory

(music, archaic) Played by beating, like a gong or a drum.


aftertime

(music) The process in which a harmony singer or background singer repeats a line or a series of words in a song separately after the lead singer rather than singing it in unison with the lead singer; prominent in country music and Southern gospel.


stompbox

(music) A guitar effect unit which can be controlled with the foot


power pop

Power pop was given the “pop” part of its name because the songs were based on well-crafted, memorable melodies with clever lyrics, as were some of the early songs by the Beatles. Power pop songs also often included catchy-sounding group harmonies like those sung by the Beach Boys in the early sixties.

1998, Katherine Charlton, Rock Music Styles: A History, McGraw-Hill, page 116

Then it’s early R.E.M. in excelsis: seething momentum, cascading guitar arpeggios, power-pop punch in the arrangements, […].

2018 October 25, James Parker, “R.E.M., in Retrospect”, in The Atlantic

(music) A genre of popular music inspired by 1960s British and American pop and rock music, with strong melodies, crisp vocal harmonies, economical arrangements, and prominent guitar riffs.


trance music

(music) A style of dance music with fast beats, short melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and down throughout a track, often played in nightclubs.


rebetiko

en-noun

rebetiko (countable and uncountable, plural rebetika)

Borrowed from Greek ρεμπέτικο (rempétiko, “rebetiko”).

I need another player to put a Greek melody over the top, perhaps a rebetiko of some sort.

1994, Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli's Mandolin

(music) A Greek urban folk song, characterised by lyrics about underworld activity, and played generally on stringed instruments including the bouzouki.

At the time, these earliest songs of the rebetika tradition were a symptom and a particular manifestation of a wider climate of violence, criminality and despair, whether real or imagined, that permeated the Greek capital around the turn of the century.

2019, Roderick Beaton, Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, Penguin, published 2020, page 172

(music, in the plural) This style of music; such music as a genre.


jug band

Not only do they sing but they broadcast tunes from their "jug band," consisting of a gallon jug, as washboard and a skillet, a fiddle and a guitar.

1933 March 18, “The Southern Singers”, in The Afro-American, page 9

A jug band, for those who haven't had the pleasure, is a band composed of unusual instruments which plays old timey jazz, country blues and folk music. The instruments in the Kweskin band, which are typical, include guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle, jug, washtub bass, washboard, kazoo, and penny whistle.

1968, "Jug Band: Washboard Virtuosos," Evening Independent (Florida, USA), 14 March, p. 5D (retrieved 23 Aug. 2010)

"We present to you, the jug band!" We pulled out straw hats, banjos, jugs, horrible buck-toothed dentures, and commenced to pickin' and grinnin'.

2004, Adam Copeland, Adam Copeland on Edge

(music) Especially in the US, a group of rustic musicians, specializing in bluegrass or folk music, whose instruments include empty jugs, bottles, and similar containers of various sizes which produce musical sounds when the player blows across the openings at the tops of their necks.


mellotron

(music) An early electronic keyboard instrument that played back prerecorded sounds.


noisemonger

Tomorrow’s bill has the most potential, with the veteran Japanese noisemongers Merzbow and Keiji Haino, as well as Demons, Religious Knives, Tom Recchion and Oblivia.

2007 May 18, The New York Times, “Pop and Rock Listings”, in New York Times

(music, slang) A musician who produces noisy music.


antimusical

en-adj

antimusical (comparative more antimusical, superlative most antimusical)

more antimusical (comparative)
most antimusical (superlative)

This does become monstrously antimusical in one scene: when Tchaikovsky’s music, softly depicting the sleeping palace (my favorite passage of this composer’s entire oeuvre, with its beautifully muffled oboe melody suggesting how beauty ripens in sleep like a chrysalis), is turned into an epic battle for the poor passive Prince, conducted between the wicked Carabosse, with her ghoulish minions, and the Lilac Fairy, with her elves.

2007 June 4, Alastair Macaulay, “Wake Up, Princess, the Movies Are Calling”, in New York Times


qanun

From Turkish kanun, from Ottoman Turkish قانون (kanun), from Arabic قَانُون (qānūn), from Ancient Greek κανών (kanṓn). Doublet of canon.

WISPS of mournful tunes from a cane flute mingled with the plucking, jangling arabesques of the zitherlike qanun, the oud and gentle drums.

2009 June 21, Daniel J. Wakin, “Ensemble Ambitions in a World Divided”, in New York Times

(music) A Near Eastern and Caucasian musical instrument related to the zither, dulcimer, or harp having either 26 strings and a single bridge, or 42 strings and two bridges.


minorish

minorish (comparative more minorish, superlative most minorish)

more minorish (comparative)
most minorish (superlative)

[…] especially in the mighty first movement that is Beethoven at his most C Minorish.

(chiefly music) Somewhat minor; minor to an extent.


partitur

From German Partitur, from Italian partitura (“partition, musical score”) , from Latin partito, from partīre (“divide, partition, share”) (Classical Latin partīrī) and -ura.

uder

The partiturs for the popular shows, though, were apparently sent out one time too many.

2011, Steven Suskin, The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations

(music, rare) A full score, conductor's score (with a separate line for every part).


cantoris

/kænˈtɔːɹɪs/

Borrowed from Latin cantōris (“of the cantor”).

All the extant voices participate fully in the decani-cantoris split at that point, so one is tempted to assume that the tenors split into decani and cantoris parts as well.

1988, Gordon Paine, Howard Swan, Five Centuries of Choral Music: Essays in Honor of Howard Swan, page 105

(music) The lower of two choral voice parts sung when a part splits into two; traditionally sung by members of the choir on the cantoris side.

(music) That half of the choir singing cantoris parts, collectively.


tintinnabuli

From Latin tintinnābulum (“a small monastic bell”).

(music) A compositional style characterized by two types of voice, the first of which (the "tintinnabular voice") arpeggiates the tonic triad, and the second of which moves diatonically in stepwise motion.


CSM

Cantiga de Santa Maria
w:Cantigas de Santa Maria

(music) Initialism of Cantiga de Santa Maria.


biniou

Borrowed from Breton binioù, plural of béni.

(music) A set of traditional Breton bagpipes.


happy hardcore

(music) A genre of rave music typified by a very fast tempo and a bright, cheerful sound, often coupled with solo vocals and sentimental lyrics.


deathcore

Former Hidden Camera Steven Kado and artist Brian Joseph Davis channel a little John Cage filtered through deathcore music with their performance Alvin Lucifer.

2009 May 21, “Critics' choice”, in Toronto Star

(music) An extreme fusion genre of death metal and metalcore.


inversus

(music) The inverted part of a composition.


come stà

From Italian come sta (literally “as it stands”). The accent mark is not present in standard Italian orthography.

bor

(music) An instruction to play without improvised ornamentation or rhythmic alteration.


descrescendo

en-noun

descrescendo (plural descrescendos or decrescendi)

descrescendos (plural)
decrescendi (plural)

“It’s probably the most difficult piece I’ve ever done,” he said before trying out several movements at a Wednesday evening concert, his fingers slinking from keyboard to keyboard and darting restlessly over the 729 stop-control tablets as phrase seamlessly followed phrase and crescendo climaxed and faded into descrescendo.

2007 June 9, Craig R. Whitney, “Amid the Shirts and Socks, a Concert Can Break Out”, in New York Times

(music) An instruction to play gradually more softly, the opposite of a crescendo.


indietronica

Coordinate term: indie rock

Delphic's debut album, Acolyte, was one of the hits of 2010 for its fizzing indietronica, a more youthful take on the collision of electronics and rock perfected by Manchester predecessors New Order.

2013 January 24, Dave Simpson, “Delphic: Collections – review”, in The Guardian

(music) A musical genre combining elements of indie, electronica, rock, and pop music.


Liszt

en-proper noun

Liszt (countable and uncountable, plural Liszts)

(music) Franz Liszt, a Hungarian composer, pianist and teacher.


modulin

(music) A variety of theremin in the form of a violin


kissar

(music) A five-stringed lyre used in Nubia, Abyssinia, and northern Africa.


porrectus

From Latin porrectus, from porrigō (“I stretch”).

(music) A neume denoting a set of three tones which first fall from the original tone, then rise.


off vocal

From Japanese オフボーカル (ofubōkaru), from English off + vocal.


RMI

Rocky Mount Instruments
w:Rocky Mount Instruments

(music) Abbreviation of Rocky Mount Instruments.


superius

(music) The highest voice or part in early polyphony.


soft pedal

(music, also attributively) The leftmost foot-pedal on most pianos which, when pushed, dampens the strings and so softens the note played.

hiljennyspedaali

leftmost foot-pedal on most pianos which softens the note played


intervallic

en-adj

intervallic (comparative more intervallic, superlative most intervallic)

more intervallic (comparative)
most intervallic (superlative)

The two Integrations of 1967 are the most intervallic of the selections here, emphasizing minor ninths and “minor” fifths (13 quarter tones), and, in the second Integration, setting up simultaneous “rotations” of descending and ascending “minor” fifths.

1979, Joel Flegler, Fanfare, volume 3, numbers 1-3, self-published, page 161

(chiefly music) Of, or pertaining to, intervals.


scabellum

(music, historical) A kind of percussion instrument played by the foot, used in dramatic performances.


dubby

dubby (comparative more dubby, superlative most dubby)

more dubby (comparative)
most dubby (superlative)

What's striking about the record is how PiL assimilated both the dread feel of roots reggae and the dub aesthetic of subtraction (stripping out instruments, using empty space), without ever resorting to obviously dubby production effects like reverb and echo.

2005, Simon Reynolds, Rip it up and start again: postpunk 1978-1984

As this "song with no words" rose from its dubby beginning to a roaring Crescendo, MacKayre sang, […]

2009, Mark Andersen, Mark Jenkins, Dance of Days: Updated Edition: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital

(music) In the style of dub music; having been heavily remixed, particularly with reduced vocals or emphasised bass.


Stroh violin

Named after its German designer, Johannes Matthias Augustus Stroh.

(music) A violin that amplifies its sound through an attached metal resonator.


Classical period

(music) the musical period of time following the Baroque period and preceding the Romantic period, spanning c.1750-c.1820.


Romantic period

(music) the musical period of time following the Classical period falling between about 1820 and the start of the twentieth century.


Galant

Borrowed from French galant (“gallant”).

(music) Principally during the transition from the Baroque to the Classical period, a few decades either side of 1750, the use of more classically simplistic traits in comparison to the highly embellished and texturally complex precedent in the Baroque period.


bhajan

"No, there was never a school," said the child; "but the patwaris bibi lets us come to her of a morning, and teaches us bhajans and our letters, and when we learn well she sometimes gives us fruit."

Did I detenct Father's deep and rumbling baritone in the chorus which accompanied my wife's first bhajan of the evening?

1997, Kiran Nagarkar, Cuckold, HarperCollins, published 2013, page 396

(music) A type of Indian devotional song.


flautino

(music) Any of several high-pitched woodwind instruments, including the zufolo, sopranino recorder, and piccolo.


diaphony

en-noun

diaphony (countable and uncountable, plural diaphonies)

From dia- + -phony or from Ancient Greek διαψωνία (diapsōnía, “discordance”).

der

(music) A form of harmony in which the parts proceeded by parallel motion in fourths, fifths, and octaves.


nondiegetic

(film music) That does not occur as part of the action, and cannot be heard by the film's characters; background.


didgeridooer

(music) Someone who plays the didgeridoo


semihemidemisemiquaver

(music, principally UK) quasihemidemisemiquaver.


sharp-and-a-half

(music) In microtonal music, a note played three quarter tones higher than a natural.


neutral clef

(music) A symbol used for pitchless instruments, such as some of those used for percussion instruments, for which each line can represent a specific percussion instrument within a set, such as in a drum set.


C clef

(music) A clef indicating the position of one-lined C on a staff.


lead single

(music) The first single released from an album


sing up

en-verb

sing up (third-person singular simple present sings up, present participle singing up, simple past sang up, past participle sung up)

sings up (present singular third-person)
singing up (participle present)
sang up (past)
sung up (participle past)

(music) to sing higher, to sing an ascending scale


compunctis

(music) A compound neume consisting of one or more notes appended both before and after a neume.


underhold

underhold (third-person singular simple present underholds, present participle underholding, simple past underheld, past participle underheld or underholden)

underholds (present singular third-person)
underholding (participle present)
underheld (past)
underheld (participle past)
underholden (participle past)

(music) To hold a note for a shorter duration than required.


stride piano

(music) A style of piano playing in which the left hand plays a four-beat harmony involving large intervals


jazz band

(music, jazz) A musical band that plays jazz music.


dal segno

Borrowed from Italian dal segno (literally “from the sign”).


neutral third

(music) A third that is between a major and a minor third in size; an interval of approximately three and a half semitones.


cut time

(music) A meter of two minims (half notes) per measure.


quarter rest

(music) A rest of the same duration as a quarter note.


raggamuffin

International reggae takes another spin with Kulcha Connection's Plus Haut (Subsonik, Canada), a rollicking raggamuffin release with clean, crisp backing tracks and alternating singer and dj segments delivered almost entirely in French.

2004, The Beat, volume 23, number 2, page 13

Reggae music is as old as the history of Africans suffering in the Carribean. But, as a result of the Americanization of this music to form raggamuffin, drugs are openly idolized. The singer called Bob Marley promoted the use of marijuana and among the African fans of raggamuffin, the use of marijuana is now standard.

2005, Ndirangu Mwaura, Kenya Today: Breaking the Yoke of Colonialism in Africa, Algora Publishing, page 191


arpeggiator

(music) A feature of some synthesizers that automatically steps through a sequence of notes based on an input chord, thus creating an arpeggio.

arpejador

effect that plays an arpeggio from an input chord