amapiano

Borrowed from Zulu [Term?] (literally “the pianos”).

Coordinate term: kwaito

A new generation of amapiano artists reference kwaito not only in terms of its style but for what it meant to the culture, as the soundtrack to a generation breaking free from the oppression of Apartheid.

2021 September 22, Nkgopoleng Moloi, “Amapiano: inside South Africa’s sound of freedom”, in Dazed

(music, South Africa) A house music subgenre that emerged in South Africa, often incorporating jazz piano and lounge music.


emo rap

There was an exciting proliferation of punk rap, mumble rap, emo rap and trap-influenced SoundCloud artists.

2020, Adrian Besley, Billie Eilish: From e-girl to Icon, Michael O'Mara Books

Last fall, Bring Me the Horizon kicked off a new era of their band with a standalone single called "DiE4u", which sounded like a a heavy, metallic take on My Chemical Romance-style pop-punk mixed with the electronic flair of modern emo-rap.

2022 July 6, Eli Enis, “See Bring Me the Horizon's Horrifying, NSFW Video for New Song "sTraNgeRs"”, in Revolver

(music) A fusion genre of hip hop and emo.


SoundCloud rap

After the audio streaming platform SoundCloud, where this genre initially spread.

It was just another unpredictable, bruising night in the world of SoundCloud rap — a swelling subgenre that takes its name from its creators’ preferred streaming service — which in the last year has become the most vital and disruptive new movement in hip-hop thanks to rebellious music, volcanic energy and occasional acts of malevolence.

2017 June 22, Jon Caramanica, “The Rowdy World of Rap’s New Underground”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

SoundCloud rap is characterized by its distinct sound, which is typically a mix of trap, lo-fi, electronic, and hip-hop music. Artists of this genre are also known for the short length of their songs, their popular social media presences, and sometimes their dangerous drug use, especially Xanax.

2018, Vanessa Oswald, Hip-Hop: A Cultural and Musical Revolution, Greenhaven Publishing LLC, page 80

SoundCloud rap moved from the more hidden corners of the internet into mainstream consciousness in June 2017.

2018 December 6, Lauren Levy, “The Gatekeepers of SoundCloud Rap”, in Vulture

More than a year on from when we actively began the research into SoundCloud rap, nearly four years on from my first impulse to make a programme about the subject, we've finally embarked on a wholly new project, […]

2021, Louis Theroux, Theroux The Keyhole: Diaries of a grounded documentary maker, Pan Macmillan, page 67

(music) A short-lived subgenre of hip hop mixing trap, lo-fi, and electronic music.


the ghost walks

An allusion to a scene in Shakespeare's play Hamlet.

Ask the regular staff at any theatre when the ghost walks and the chances are that the answer will be — on a Friday, ie pay night (unless that happens to be on a Thursday!).

2010, John Harper, editor, Tales of Haunted Places

(theater, humorous) The manager comes to pay the company's salaries.


in the pocket

Throughout The Late, Late Show, Staton is right on the money (or right in the pocket, as musicians say)...

2010, Will Friedwald, “Dakota Staton”, in A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers, page 448

I've never thought that the groove was the beat; I always saw it as the space between the beats. I believe that's where the phrase "in the pocket" originated.

2013, Loren Weisman, The Artist's Guide to Success in the Music Business, page 229

Musicians who play funk and Latin tunes refer to the groove as the sense of being "in the pocket," while jazz players refer to the groove as the sense that a song is really "cooking" or "swinging"... Historically speaking, the term pocket originated in the middle of the previous century, when a strong backbeat (the snare drum striking on beats 2 and 4) became predominant in popular music... Many people feel that the question is not so much what the pocket is as much as how you know when you're in it; I guarantee that you'll know it when you feel it, because the music feels as though it's playing itself. It feels as though everything has merged together, with all the rhythmic parts being played by one instrument.

2016, Bobby Owsinski, The Music Producer's Handbook, 2nd edition

Use his approach for both songs to keep your rhythms in the pocket. You needn't be rigid; some stretching of the phrase is absolutely allowable for the sake of meaning. For the most part, however, ride the driving pulsations of the accompaniment with an equally grooving vocal approach.

2019, Joseph Church, Rock in the Musical Theatre, page 173

...Iyer argues that the backbeat in much postwar African-American popular music is seldom precisely on the beat: it is slightly delayed, lending it a more 'laid back' feel. Again, as with swing, playing the backbeat 'in the pocket'—just slightly behind the beat—does not disrupt the regularity of the beat so much as demand that we hear (and feel) the rhythm in a more subtle and integrated way...

2020, Paul Thberge, “Click/Beat/Body: Thoughts on the Materiality of Time and Tempo”, in The Auditory Culture Reader, page 344

Most musicians who play classical music usually play too "stiff" (rigidly) to perform on popular music recordings. All forms of popular music require musicians to feel the groove and to play in the pocket (playing within the feel of the rhythm section).

2021, Michael Zager, Music Production, page 97

Hell yes, use that take. She was in the pocket.

(music slang) Alternative form of in the zone, playing perfectly in time, perfectly in sync with others, or with a perfect groove.


Cemb.

Borrowed from Italian cembalo (“harpsichord”).

Abbreviation of harpsichord.

(music, always capitalized, used in musical notation to indicate staffs to be played with harpsichord)


hard-driving

en-adj

hard-driving (comparative more hard-driving, superlative most hard-driving)

more hard-driving (comparative)
most hard-driving (superlative)

The heavy metal band Gods of Fire struggled trying to write a hard-driving song about potato pancakes for their 2009 album "Hanukkah Gone Metal."

(Can we date this quote?), Stephanie Simon, Ann Zimmerman, The Wall Street Journal, volume Hanukkah Boosters Light a Fire Under Holiday

(music) Having a strong, fast-paced beat.


guitalele

(music) A musical instrument that is a hybrid between a small guitar and a ukulele.


five and nine

From the product numbering used by the Leichner cosmetics company.

Not much "beautiful dignity" about her now! she thought, looking at her smudged eyes and the tracks her tears had made in carefully applied five and nine. Her black tin box of makeup — her most treasured possession — sat before her, […]

1995, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Marking Time, page 263

[…] before many years had passed I would be plastered in the greasy 'five and nine' cosmetics beloved of the theatrical profession.

2014, Evadne Hinge, The Naked Doctor, page 69

The sticks of Leichner were notoriously hard and difficult to spread. […] In theatre dressing rooms the hot bulbs surrounding the actors' mirrors were often streaked with five and nine, which helped to soften the stuff.

2016, James Hayes, Shouting in the Evenings, page 80

(theater, informal) Basic facial greasepaint makeup.


guitarmony

The best thing to do is this: get a variable speed tape recorder. Slow down your favorite solos. Play along with them slowly. The pitch will be lower but don't worry about that - match the pace and the rhythm and think of it as a Guitarmony.

2003 November 21, Todd LaRoc, “The need for speed”, in alt.guitar.beginner (Usenet)

Grooved-out guitarmonies, blustering syncopations from two of indie rock's better drummers, and a subtle sense of humor on tracks like "Doing Research For An Autobiography" are the main attraction, and fans of either band should be able to spot their heroes under the surface.

Starting in the late '60s as the Sweetshop, they nicked from Jeff Lynne-era Move (whose "Do Ya" was a template), but their layered vocals, clever guitarmonies, and feathered hairstyles influenced Queen and Def Leppard, among many others.

(music) A harmonised melody played on guitar.


sul tasto

Borrowed from Italian sul tasto (“on the fingerboard”).

bor+

(music, chiefly violin) Bowed near the fingerboard for the duration of a passage


tetratonic

The two Creek Indian "Duck Dance Songs" from the north- eastern United States illustrate the use of a tetratonic scale, A, C, D, E ( Example 5a ), and a pentatonic scale, A, C, D, E, G ( Example 5b ).

1976, Bruno Nettl, Helen Myers, Folk Music in the United States, page 38

Pentatony can also come about through the simple complement and melodic development of the tetratonic melodic nucleus.

1994, János Kárpáti, Bartók's Chamber Music, page 111

This four-note pattern is called a tetratonic, or also sometimes referred to as a melodic structures (by saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi, and others). […] This is powerful because applying this tetratonic formula R235 or R345, you have something that works(!) to play on every chord change and on every beat.

2015, Andy McWain, Jazz Practice Ideas with Your Real Book

(music) Made of four different musical notes.

Of course such tetratonic music is capable of powerful expression in its own particular mood but there has apparently been no attempt to evolve form as such.

1974, I. E. N. Chauhan, Ethnomusicology-tribal Music: The Music of Kinnaur, page 20

Beyond these areas Sasak music largely diverges from pélog and slendro tonality, and there are a number of tetratonic forms — in compositions for gamelan beleq and kamput, for example.

2006, David D. Harnish, Bridges to the Ancestors: Music, Myth, And Cultural Politics, page 232

Tetratonic music was noted as common in Polynesia and Melanesia.

2020, Zhengbing Hu, Sergey Petoukhov, Matthew He, Advances in Artificial Systems for Medicine and Education III, page 197

(music) Pertaining to or using a tetratonic scale.


alboka

From Basque alboka, from Arabic الْبُوق (al-būq, “the trumpet”).

(music) A Basque single-reed woodwind instrument having two small-diameter melody pipes with finger holes and a bell traditionally made from animal horn.


autoparody

This was exactly why, for him, the autoparody became her inescapable prison. Above all, this EuroBrazilian artist had, and continued to have, a defining impact within Brazil's mainstream sense of selfhood, so much so that by the late[…]

2015 August 26, Cristina F. Rosa, Brazilian Bodies and Their Choreographies of Identification: Swing Nation, Springer

1–6 Another type of historical reference involves a type of reverse autoparody. Consciously or not, Bruckner reuses an imitative sequence from the Kyrie of Palestrina's Mass in his wellknown setting (ca. 1886) of the Gradual Christus[…]

2015 June 24, Chester L. Alwes, A History of Western Choral Music, Oxford University Press

As Osolsobě observes, parody was both a sign of reputation and a tool with which to achieve it, with eighteenth- century French authors of operas often creating parodies of their own works (autoparodies): parodies not only promote the[…]

2022, Christopher R. Wilson, Mervyn Cooke, The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Music, Oxford University Press, page 776

(literature, art, music) A parody of one's own work.


tech house

(music) A subgenre of house music that combines stylistic features of techno with house.


damenization

From the first syllables da, me, ni + -ization.

(music, historical) A singing system resembling solfeggio, developed by German composer and tenor Carl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759), and using the syllables da, me, ni, po, tu, la, be, to.


funeral doom

(music) An extreme subgenre of heavy metal music influenced by funeral dirges and played at a very slow tempo.


kick drum

(music) A relatively small bass drum forming part of a drum kit and struck with a beater attached to a pedal.


sompoton

(music) A woodwind instrument made of bamboo, used by indigenous people in Borneo.


scene pack

(theater) A set of flats stored together for use in a particular scene.


Bombarde

(music) A powerful, brassy reed stop on an organ of 8', 16' or 32'.


baroque pitch

en-noun

baroque pitch (usually uncountable, plural baroque pitches)

(music) A reference tuning pitch intended to imitate those used in the baroque period; usually using the standard of A415, but sometimes as low as A392.


Trompette Militaire

(music) A powerful, solo reed stop on an organ with a piercing, brassy tone.


Contra Bourdon

(music) A flute stop on an organ, almost always of 32', characterized by a very low, dark tone.


string stop

(music) An organ stop having the tone of a string instrument.


Bird Whistle

(music) An organ stop that is imitative of warbling birds, consisting of two or more small pipes with one end in water or a light oil.


flute stop

(music) An organ stop having the tone of a flute instrument.


block flute

Calque of German Blockflöte (“block flute”), so named for Blockflöte (“recorder”).

cal

(music) A flute stop on an organ of 4' or 2' that is imitative of a recorder.


Aeoline

(music) A string stop on an organ with a very soft tone.


khushtar

(music) A bowed stringed instrument from the Uyghur Region of China, having four strings in four courses.


T-pop

From T- (“Thai”) + pop, by analogy with J-pop.


lancaran

(music) In gamelan music, a cycle of 16 beats in the sequence TWTN TPTN TPTN TPTG, where T indicates the strike of the ketuk, P the kempul, N the kenong, G the simultaneous gong and kenong, and W the wela, the pause where the kempul is omitted.


TTB

1976, Miriam Gideon, Spiritual madrigals: for male voices (T.T.B.) with viola, cello and bassoon:

I accepted and set about creating a program of songs that I transcribed and arranged for TTB

2017, Velvel Pasternak, Behind the Music, Stories, Anecdotes, Articles and Reflections, page 78


unity of place

(theater, literature) The classical unity that states that a play should exist in a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place.


unity of action

(theater, literature) The classical unity that states that a play should have one action that it follows, with minimal subplots.


propman

(theater) A man responsible for looking after the props in a theater


propwoman

(theater) A woman responsible for looking after the props in a theater


props master

(theater, television, film) Short for property master.


Aretinian

Named after the Italian music theorist Guido of Arezzo (c. 991–992 – after 1033), who introduced it, modeled after Arretine.

(music) Of or relating to the solfège sight singing system.


prop master

“We’re doing our job if you don’t notice it,” Catherine Miller, the prop master for the series, said in a phone interview last week.

2022 May 4, Gina Cherelus, “The Stories Behind Some of the Weird Stuff on ‘Severance’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

(film, theater) Short for property master.


property master

en-noun

property master (plural property masters)

(film, theater) The person in a film or theatrical production responsible for the props.


melodeclamation

melodeclamation (countable and uncountable, plural melodeclamations)

One of these is found in the salon song for voice and piano, which is suddenly invaded by melodeclamations and mythological themes. One of the most prominent contributors here was Vladimir Rebikov (1866௅1920), whose piano cycles[…]

2016 June 22, Katerina Levidou, Katy Romanou, George Vlastos, Musical Receptions of Greek Antiquity: From the Romantic Era to Modernism, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, page 22

When combined with dialogue we get a kind of melodeclamation, and then both dialogue and music are faced with the demands generally presented to melodeclamation, that is to say, coincidence of rhythm, and their artistic symbiosis,[…]

2010 November 4, Mervyn Cooke, The Hollywood Film Music Reader, Oxford University Press on Demand, page 44

Then she found the sheet music for melodeclamation that she had taken from Russia , and that occasioned an explanation of the beauties of Russian diction . " It's a euphonious language — consonant , vowel , consonant , vowel — and I[…]

1996, John N. Kotre, Outliving the Self: How We Live on in Future Generations, John Kotre, page 129

(historical, music) The practice of reciting poetry while accompanied by concert music.


semiquaver rest

semiquaver rest (plural semiquaver rests)

(music) A pause or interval of silence equal in duration to half a quaver rest

(music) The corresponding symbol used in musical notation.


Celtic harp

(music) A triangular frame harp traditional to the Celtic nations of northwest Europe.


guitalin

(music) A musical instrument that is a hybrid between a banjo and a mandolin (despite its name).


stage business

(theater) Actions performed by an actor on stage done for dramatic effect


flat-wound

(music, of guitar strings) With a flat outer winding wire.


DI unit

(music) A unit that converts a high impedance signal to a low impedance signal to reduce interference, used to connect an instrument to a mixing console.


round-wound

(music, of guitar strings) With a round outer winding wire.


house band

For years, this 30-plus crew of session musicians, the house band at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studios, were crack accompanists.

1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, page 308

(music) A band that is regularly stationed at an establishment (restaurant, television studio, etc.)


degung

(music) A form of Sundanese gamelan music using a subset of modified gamelan instruments with a particular mode of pelog scale.


ragini

(music) The feminine counterpart of a raga in Indian music.


control booth

(theater) A room or area in a theater or studio which contains technical equipment for controlling things like lighting and sound for productions.


god mic

(On God mic.) We worked through this — AUDREY. I know and I want to be a team player. I want to be one of the guys and all that, but there are, what, eight hundred people coming tomorrow night and I don't know what the fuck I'm doing!

2015 May 15, Nicky Silver, Too Much Sun, Dramatists Play Service, Inc., page 9

COLLECTIVE RAGE: A PLAY IN 5 BETTIES premiered at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in September 2016. ... Scene titles: The scene titles are probably best projected but they might be announced before each scene by somebody with a God mic.

2018 January 24, Jen Silverman, Jen Silverman: Three Plays: The Roommate; The Moors; Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties., Bloomsbury Publishing

(theater) A microphone typically kept backstage or in the control booth for speaking to the audience from offstage.


non-equity

The United Professional Theatre Auditions holds combined auditions annually for actors who are available to work full ... Theater professionals from both Equity and non-equity theaters, summer and year-round theaters, dinner theaters,[…]

2008, Shelly Field, Career Coach: Managing Your Career in Theater and the Performing Arts, Infobase Publishing, page 212

(theater) Of a production: open to performers who are not members of the Actors' Equity Association union.


chord change

An unexpected chord change is thought to trigger a rush of dopamine in the brain similar to that created by food and sex.

2017 August 24, Victoria Allen, “The secret to the perfect pop song”, in Daily Mail

(music) A change in the harmony of a piece of music, as it progresses, from one chord to another.


director of music

director of music (plural directors of music)

musical director
musical director#English


run lines

en-verb

run lines (third-person singular simple present runs lines, present participle running lines, simple past ran lines, past participle run lines)

runs lines (present singular third-person)
running lines (participle present)
ran lines (past)
run lines (participle past)

Reporters: When you're not on stage, get together and run lines. As Sheriff Hartman can tell you, ... That group got together regularly to run lines and had great success. ... Using the Grief Sheet to Improve Community Theatre.

2002, Kenneth Anderson, Good Grief! Using the Grief Sheet to Improve Community Theatre Production: Telling the Story Better Than It Has Ever Been Told, iUniverse, page 274

In "Barrymore," Mr. Luce imagines that the actor, one month before his death, has taken over a Broadway theater for an evening to run lines from "Richard III," in anticipation of possibly recreating the role that provided him with his[…]

2014 October 13, C. S. Smith, The New York Times Theater Reviews 1997-1998, Routledge, page 51

(acting) To practice or memorize one's lines from a script outside of rehearsal, usually with another person.


IOT

(music, MIDI) Initialism of in-out-through.


Marxophone

From Marx + -o- + -phone, after Henry Charles Marx (1875–1947), who patented the design of its hammer mechanism.

(music) A fretless zither played via a system of metal hammers.


thaat

Borrowed from Hindi or Marathi थाट (thāṭ).

Coordinate term: (in Carnatic ragas) melakarta

(India, music) One of the basic musical scales or modes used by classical Hindustani ragas, characterized by seven notes (swaras).


varnam

(music) A type of composition in the Carnatic music system.


beatmatch

beatmatch (third-person singular simple present beatmatches, present participle beatmatching, simple past and past participle beatmatched)

beatmatches (present singular third-person)
beatmatching (participle present)
beatmatched (participle past)
beatmatched (past)

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


J-core

(music) A style of Japanese hardcore techno music that originated in the 1990s.


distorting mirror

en-noun

distorting mirror (plural distorting mirrors)

vääristävä peili

a curved mirror, often using convex and concave sections to achieve a distorted effect; a popular attraction at carnivals and fairs

(entertainment) A curved mirror, often using convex and concave sections to achieve a distorted effect, as:

With strong effect, as a popular attraction at carnivals and fairs: synonym of funhouse mirror.

With subtle effect, to mislead customers in clothing shops: synonym of skinny mirror.


singeli

electronic dance music
electronic dance music

(music) A fast, energetic form of electronic dance music from Tanzania.


overwinded

en-adj

overwinded (comparative more overwinded, superlative most overwinded)

more overwinded (comparative)
most overwinded (superlative)

The diapasons, very much overwinded, as I venture to think, puff and whistle to the exclusion of all other sounds.

1890, Proceedings of the Musical Association, volume 16, Great Britain: Musical Association, page 154

[…] the pressure of wind is too much, the tone being forced or overwinded; […]

1895, The Organist and Choirmaster, volume 3, page 43

(music) Of a musical instrument: provided with too much air or wind.


Eskibeat

Blend of Eskimo + beat, coined by the musician Wiley (Richard Kylea Cowie Jr., born 1979).

Wiley was the creator of Eskibeat riddim tracks (that were conflated with Grime) that were named after things associated with cold, such as Eskimo and Igloo.

2016, Kehinde Andrews, Lisa Amanda Palmer, Blackness in Britain, page 93

(music) An early form of grime music based around themes of anger and isolation.


RVW

Ralph Vaughan Williams
w:Ralph Vaughan Williams

(UK, music) Initialism of Ralph Vaughan Williams; an English composer.


backpack rapper

en-noun

backpack rapper (plural backpack rappers)

(music, slang) A performer of backpack rap music.


backpack rap

In reference to the backpacks in which records might be carried.

The sound of backpack rap dates to rap music's origins, but was popularized in the late 1980s and early 1990s by “Native Tongue” acts such as De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest.

2014, Geoff Harkness, Chicago Hustle and Flow: Gangs, Gangsta Rap, and Social Class

Backpack rap is often synonymous with underground rap, in which the focus is on lyrical craft. Backpack rappers tend to avoid topics that are common in mainstream commercial rap, such as money and expensive cars; […]

2018, Michael Berry, Listening to Rap: An Introduction

(music, slang) Underground or alternative rap music.


counterfugue

(music) A fugue in which the answer or imitation to the melody is played in an inverse manner.


knee stop

(music) A lever worked by the performer's knee, for regulating the air supply of a reed organ, etc.


outsider music

(music) Music created by self-taught or naive musicians.


outsider musician

outsider musician (plural outsider musicians)

(music) An untrained musician who works outside of the mainstream.


ambient music

(music) A genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm.


hyperbolaeon

Trite, the third; as, Trite Hyperbolaeon, the third string, reckoning from the top of the hyperbolaeon or highest tetrachord; […]

1835, W. Wilson, A new Dictionary of Music, page 278

1914, Vitruvius (translated by Morris Hicky Morgan), Ten Books on Architecture
In the middle range, place first at the extreme ends the vessels which give the note of the chromatic hyperbolaeon; next to them, those which give the chromatic diezeugmenon, a fourth below; third, the chromatic synhemmenon; fourth, the chromatic meson, a fourth below; fifth, the chromatic hypaton, a fourth below; sixth, the paramese, for this is both the concord of the fifth to the chromatic hyperbolaeon, and the concord of the chromatic synhemmenon.


quartole

A very able pianist might shift the phase of the trioles in such a way that their first stroke falls between two 3x8 = 4x6 strokes of a quartole.


moombahcore

(music) A subgenre of moombahton with dubstep influences.


slow jam

(music) A slow, romantic song, found mainly in R & B or soul ballads.


diezeugmenon

From Ancient Greek διεζευγμένων (diezeugménōn, “of the transposed (notes)”), aorist passive participle of διαζεύγνυμι (diazeúgnumi), from ζεύγνυμι (zeúgnumi).

bor

διεζευγμένων

(music) The last tetrachord, in the case where two tetrachords were placed separately from each other, but with only the interval of a tone between them.


soundscapist

There’s a new Brian Eno album on the way, but which Eno will show up? The master soundscapist who arguably invented ambient music, or the skewed pop auteur the world met on ’70s cult classics like “Here Come the Warm Jets”?

2022 September 8, Hank Shteamer et al., “75 Pop and Jazz Albums, Shows and Festivals Coming This Fall”, in The New York Times

(music) A person who creates soundscapes.


alternative pop

(music) A genre of pop music, usually produced by underground performers, characterized by an eclectic range of influences and musically challenging arrangements.


alt-pop

“Snail” is a quirky alt-pop number that observes the world from the perspective of a gastropod, while “Winter” is a sweetly sung exercise in introspection.

2020 November 13, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, “Benee’s ‘Hey u x’ illustrates the upside of TikTok-dominated pop”, in Financial Times


viola bastarda

From Italian viola bastarda (literally “bastard viol”).

Two more Viola Bastardas from the same collection are by “Batista fiel (son) d’Anto. Cicilian in Venetia.”

In 1672 he visited Salzburg to make delivery to the court of a viola da gamba and two viola bastardas;[…]

1943, Violins and Violinists Magazine, page 368

Another reference to Claudio Monteverdi’s court duties as a viola bastarda player is found at the end of his Scherzi Musicali, published in 1607.

2002, James Bates, “Monteverdi, the Viola Bastarda Player”, in Susan Orlando, editor, The Italian Viola da Gamba: Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Italian Viola da Gamba, Edition Ensemble Baroque de Limoges, page 54

(music) An altered viol maximizing players’ ability to play in a highly virtuosic style of composition or extemporaneous performance.


2-step garage

(music) A subgenre of UK garage characterized by its lack of the typical kick drum beat pattern.


distancing effect

en-noun

distancing effect (plural distancing effects)

(theater, literature) According to Bertold Brecht, performance in such a way that the audience is hindered from simply identifying itself with the characters in the play, and must evaluate their actions on an overt, conscious level.


quinquegrade

One has only to play or sing this quinquegrade scale to be reminded forcibly, though vaguely, of Irish and Scotch music.

1889, Sophie Willock Bryant, Celtic Ireland, page 205

(music) Of or relating to a kind of musical scale based on fifths.


Britfolk

From Brit- + folk. Compare Britpop, Britrock.

The 1970s also loom large over ‘Historian’, with the unlikely influence of Pink Floyd coming to the fore in the alt-rocking psychedelics of ‘The Shell’, the crunchy yet smooth ‘Timefighter’ featuring some moody guitar soloing and a prog-rock breakdown and ‘Pillar of Truth’ the haunting Britfolk of Sandy Denny.

2018 March 2, Leonie Cooper, “Lucy Dacus – ‘Historian’ Review”, in NME

(music) British contemporary folk music.


en travesti

(theater) in the dress of the opposite sex, usually applied to a female playing the role of a young man


lyrichord

(music, historical) A kind of vertical harpsichord.


machine head

(music) A geared apparatus for tuning stringed instruments by adjusting the tension of the strings.


daegeum

Interspersed with musical numbers, including a serene solo by Chung-Eun Han for the daegeum, or bamboo flute, the program also showcased “Buchaechum,” a fan dance.

2013 August 6, Gia Kourlas, “In Drums and Fans, the Spirit of Korea”, in The New York Times

(music) A large bamboo flute with a buzzing membrane that gives it a special timbre, used in traditional Korean music.


'50s progression

'50s progression (plural '50s progressions)

{\set Staff.midiInstrument=#"drawbar organ"1}

'50s progression in the key of C (C-Am-F-G)

For quotations using this term, see Citations:'50s progression.

(music) A chord progression, l–vi–IV–V, used in Western popular music, particularly common in the 1950s and early 1960s.


non-Aristotelian

From non- + Aristotelian; the general semantics sense was coined by Alfred Korzybski in the 1920s or early 1930s; the dramaturgical sense was coined circa 1930 by Bertolt Brecht.

(drama, theater, of a play) Whose dramaturgical structure departs from the features of classical tragedy in favour of the features of the epic.


madrigalesque

en-adj

madrigalesque (comparative more madrigalesque, superlative most madrigalesque)

more madrigalesque (comparative)
most madrigalesque (superlative)


Tristanesque

Tristanesque (comparative more Tristanesque, superlative most Tristanesque)

more Tristanesque (comparative)
most Tristanesque (superlative)

(music) Resembling Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.


WTTBP

A collective gasp goes around the room. When we look, they turn away. Some little fricker started playing WTTBP and everyone cried, not even paying attention to us. Fitz bought me a Beatles, Nirvana, 5 Seconds of Summer, 115.

(Can we date this quote?), Charlie Smith, My Paperback Book, Lulu.com, page 115

Welcome to the Black Parade
w:Welcome to the Black Parade

(music) Initialism of "Welcome to the Black Parade".


jiari

Coordinate term: jinashi

(musicology) with a bore internally coated with a lacquer made from tonoko powder, urushi lacquer, and water. Applies to shakuhachi bamboo flute.


ligable

(music) Able to be joined with a ligature.


garklein recorder

en-noun

garklein recorder (plural garklein recorders)

From German garklein (“very small”), from (archaic) gar (“very”) + klein (“small”).

(music) A recorder whose lowest note is C₆ (or otherwise in the range of B♭₆ to D₆).


top the charts

en-verb

top the charts (third-person singular simple present tops the charts, present participle topping the charts, simple past and past participle topped the charts)

tops the charts (present singular third-person)
topping the charts (participle present)
topped the charts (participle past)
topped the charts (past)

At the last count in late July, the accumulated mileage of the Pendolino had notched a mind-boggling 287,859,672 (unit 390132 City of Birmingham topping the charts with 5,482,316 miles having passed under its wheels).

2022 October 5, Nick Brodrick, “Pendolinos: a huge role to play”, in RAIL, number 967, page 38

(music, also idiomatic) To be the most popular recording at a particular time.


epic doom

Dread Sovereign draw deep from the well of epic doom bands like Candlemass and Solitude Aeturnus, though Nemtheanga’s voice is distinctive enough to draw in some of the Primordial appeal as well. […] This is epic doom for the ages, reinvented and born anew.

2017 March 31, Ian Chainey, Aaron Lariviere, “The Black Market: The Month In Metal – March 2017”, in Stereogum, 15. Dread Sovereign – “Twelve Bells Toll In Salem”

(music) A subgenre of doom metal having a heavy classical influence.


BMTH

Like most great BMTH songs from the last decade, it's both extremely catchy and also super energetic.

2022 July 6, Eli Enis, “See Bring Me the Horizon's Horrifying, NSFW Video for New Song "sTraNgeRs"”, in Revolver

Bring Me the Horizon
w:Bring Me the Horizon

(music) Initialism of Bring Me the Horizon: a British rock band formed in Sheffield in 2004.


pop metal

(music) A variation of heavy metal which features prominent pop music elements such as catchy hooks and anthemic choruses.


double fugue

(music) A fugue with two melodic subjects which are developed simultaneously.


mute cornett

(music, historical) A variant of the treble cornett, made from a single piece of wood that has been turned on a lathe, bored out and given finger holes.


Pickelhering

(theater) The nickname given to the comic character or stage buffoon in English comedy troupes that travelled through Germany in the 17th century.


Harlequin

(theater) The best-known of the zanni or comic servant characters from the Italian commedia dell'arte, associated with the city of Bergamo.


subpunctis

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


panduri

Borrowing of Georgian ფანდური (panduri).


praepunctis

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


arwhoolie

(music) A slow, introspective African-American song type that has its origin in solo work songs, featuring a meandering melody, irregular rhythms, and various forms of wordless vocalization.


field holler

They made up field hollers with long, sad, wailing blue notes in their voices that said how tired a man can be.

1954, Langston Hughes, The First Book of Jazz, New York: Franklin Watts, published 1955, page 9

The emergence of classic blues indicated that many changes had taken place in the Negro. His sense of place, or status, within the superstructure of American society had changed radically since the days of the field holler.

1963, Amiri Baraka, chapter 7, in Blues People: Negro Music in White America, New York: Morrow, page 87

I was terrified that once loose, once I lifted or lost my control, I would rise from my seat and dance like a puppet, up and down the aisles. I would open my mouth, and screams, shouts and field hollers would tear out my tongue in their rush to be free.

1976, Maya Angelou, chapter 3, in Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry like Christmas, New York: Bantam, published 1977, page 28

[…] she moans the remaining lines unhurriedly and with staggering self-possession, stretching out the vowels as if intoning a field holler.

2005, Bill Friskics-Warren, “Transcendental Blues: Bettye LaVette has found her joy—and maybe, at last, an audience the size of her voice”, in Mary Gaitskill, Daphne Carr, editors, Da Capo Best Music Writing 2006, Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, page 169


death disc

A macabre sub-genre of rock'n'roll singles, the songs on ‘death discs’ were usually about car or motorcycle fatalities, though occasionally referred to real-life deceased stars, and always seemed to involve teenagers!

2005, Mike Evans, Rock & Roll Facts, Figures & Fun, AAPPL, page 32

In Britain, these ‘death discs’ were often banned by the BBC due to their morbid subject matter—which, of course, only made them sell all the better.

2015, S. D. Tucker, Great British Eccentrics, Amberley Publishing Limited

(music, informal, historical) A phonograph record about teenage tragedy.


world song

Later, during an evening concert, Lomax was discussing a group of former convicts who were chopping wood and hoeing in time to world songs.

1965 August, Mississippi Phil Ochs, “The Newport Fuzz Festival”, in The Realist, number 61, retrieved 2022-11-13, page 11

However, more recent publications include world songs as a matter of course along with folk songs […]

2003, C. Michael Hawn, Gather Into One: Praying and Singing Globally, page 214

(music) A song from the genre of world music.


English cadence

en-noun

English cadence (plural English cadences)

From English + cadence. Coined in the 20th century due to its popularity with composers of the English Renaissance of the late 15th to the early 17th centuries.

(music) A perfect cadence characteristic of English Renaissance music, involving a flattened seventh note played against the dominant chord (containing a regular raised seventh); conventionally, the flattened seventh is played as part of a suspension on the penultimate beat, before resolving downwards to the sixth and then fifth of the final chord, while the raised seventh is held before resolving upward to the first; however, more complex variations are also possible.


perfect cadence

perfect cadence (plural perfect cadences)

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


dancepop

Too many factors to mention contributed to the 1980s’ glory days of dancepop, but one double-edged sword was radio’s fear of hip-hop, […]

2012 March 2, Nick Minichino, “A Quick Primer On Freestyle: 1980s Dancepop's Most Underheralded Genre”, in The Village Voice

In addition, he was one of the key players who helped develop the hit sound of the international dancepop icon Sandra.

2017, James Arena, Europe's Stars of '80s Dance Pop, McFarland, page 90

(music) A popular music subgenre that originated in the late 1970s to early 1980s, intended for nightclubs and contemporary hit radio.


guitar pick

(music) A small piece of plastic, metal, ivory, etc., for plucking the strings of a guitar, lyre, mandolin, etc.


From 200 + -step (“denoting a genre of electronic dance music, especially one influenced by drum and bass”). Coined by Japanese music producer Camellia (Masaya Oya) in 2017.

coinage

Ophanim's song will be 200step.

How do yall listen to music in bracket with a bpm under 150 idon get it

A 200step song, a tribute to my most favorite producer, Camellia.

(music) A genre of electronic music that combines dubstep wubs and rapid beat drops with a fast tempo of 200 beats per minute.


Original Pilipino Music

(Philippines, music) any musical composition created by a Filipino, whether the lyrics be in Filipino, English, or in any other language or dialect of the Philippines

Music of the Philippines#Original Pilipino Music (OPM)


gongche

Borrowed from the Hanyu Pinyin of Mandarin 工尺 (gōngchě), from 工 (gōng, “mi”) + 尺 (chě, “re”); two note names used in gongche notation. Compare English sol-fa.

(music) A system of musical notation using Chinese characters, used in traditional Chinese music.


bebization

(historical, music) A 17th-century system of singing.


imbal

From Javanese [Term?] (literally “repeat”).

(music) The gamelan technique of rapid alternation of a melodic line between instruments.


toplighting

Coordinate term: sidelighting

(film, theater, architecture) The lighting of a scene or location from above.


sidelighting

Coordinate term: toplighting

(film, theater, architecture) The lighting of a scene or location from the side.


-step

Derived from hardstep (“a subgenre of drum and bass music characterised by a gritty production style and urban feel”), which emerged around 1994.

dub + -step → dubstep

drum + -step → drumstep

jazz + -step → jazzstep

electronic dance music
electronic dance music#English

(music) Denoting a genre of electronic dance music, especially one influenced by drum and bass.


jazzstep

From jazz + -step (“denoting a genre of electronic dance music, especially one influenced by drum and bass”).

suffix

Tracks such as "Stoned Love" and Die's "Reincarnations" effect a nearly perfect synthesis of Alex Reece/Wax Doctor-esque jazzstep and the rumbling hardstep styles exemplified by outfits like DJ Recordings and Renegade Hardware.

1997 August, Tim Haslett, “Bristolian Renaissance”, in CMJ New Music Monthly, volume 48, page 50

Despite having played a big role in the gentrification process with his crusade for 'jazzstep', Fabio railed against the reduction of drum and bass to mere 'wallpaper fodder' by its use in TV links and commercials.

2013, Simon Reynolds, Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture, Faber & Faber

I was around 19 when I heard about more VST instruments like Massive and FM8, and the first track I actually made after the punk rock phase was this jazzstep jungle song - a liquid funk piece that was so badly done; the drums were just a loop I found online and so on.

2015 May 12, Xilent [Eryk Jerzy Kowalczyk], quotee, “Xilent on crossing genre boundaries and working with some of the biggest names in pop”, in MusicRadar, archived from the original on 2021-06-15

In wistful instrumental stretches the song slides into an extended keyboard solo of unexpected (even for Womack & Womack) minimalism and economy, a slow jazzstep in zero gravity.

2015 August 24, “The 200 Best Songs of the 1980s”, in Pitchfork, archived from the original on 2022-12-15

Jazzstep plays in the background, a five-year-old classic, 'Gyrating to the Rhythm' by Two Evil Uncles.

(music) A genre of electronic dance music which combines elements of drum and bass and jazz.


cross-rhythm

From cross- + rhythm, introduced in 1934 by the musicologist Arthur Morris Jones (1889–1980).


cross-beat

(music) The use of the rhythmic conflict found in polyrhythms as the basis of an entire musical work.


trailerize

en-verb

trailerize (third-person singular simple present trailerizes, present participle trailerizing, simple past and past participle trailerized)

trailerizes (present singular third-person)
trailerizing (participle present)
trailerized (participle past)
trailerized (past)

A creepy lullaby rendition of Disney’s classic “Once Upon a Dream,” a grungy version of Ben E. King’s feel-good “Stand by Me,” and a brooding interpretation of Robert Palmer’s bouncy ’80s anthem “Addicted to Love” all exemplify a growing trend: songs creatively covered and “trailer-ized” to market movies.

2014 May 28, Tim Greiving, “Re-imagined Covers of Familiar Tunes Breathe New Life Into Trailers”, in Variety

The first preview clip for The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson as the Caped Crusader, was set to a trailerized version of Nirvana’s “Something In The Way.” Turns out there’s more to that Batman-Nirvana connection.

2021 December 20, Chris DeVille, “Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne Is Inspired By Kurt Cobain Says The Batman Director”, in Stereogum

(transitive, music) To adapt (a piece of music) for use in the trailer of a film or television show.


trailercore

The “slowed-down cover” is a contagion that has spread through music to the point where it is acknowledged as its own self-contained genre: “trailercore”. / The first confirmed example of trailercore was in 2001, when Gary Jules’s tilt at Tears For Fears’s Mad World soundtracked an ad for the video game Gears of War.

2021 November 5, Ed Power, “Trailercore: how anodyne, slowed-down covers ruined pop music”, in The Telegraph

(music) A trend and genre in popular music, emerged in the 2010s, characterized by trailers of films, television shows, or video games being accompanied by cover versions of well-known songs performed in a somber and slowed-down style.


trailerization

en-noun

trailerization (countable and uncountable, plural trailerizations)

Composers are increasingly in demand for trailerization — reworking existing tracks by artists including Kate Bush, Nirvana and Kendrick Lamar to maximize their impact in film and TV previews. […] Many high profile trailerizations are applied to songs that are decades old: Remixes and overlays allow the trailers to tap into the nostalgia evoked by the original.

2023 January 6, Eric Ducker, “Movie Trailers Keep Tweaking Well-Known Songs. The Tactic Is Working.”, in The New York Times

(music)The act of trailerizing (adapting a piece of music for use in the trailer of a film or television show).


downslurred

en-adj

downslurred (comparative more downslurred, superlative most downslurred)

more downslurred (comparative)
most downslurred (superlative)


bardcore

From bard + -core (“denoting a genre of music”).

suffix

There's a Bardcore cover for every occasion: The Weekend's "Blinding Lights" for the after-banquet, Sia's "Chandelier" for when thine eyes doth begin to weep, Linkin Park's "Numb" for when the mood continues to spiral, and a cover of "I'm Blue (da ba dee)" by Eiffel 65 for those yearning for a simpler time.

2020 June 23, Elmira Tanatarova, “Exploring Bardcore: YouTube's obsession with medieval covers of Lady Gaga”, in i-D, archived from the original on 2022-11-06

Sure, bardcore's usage of modern melodies may not align with what scholars know about medieval melodies (written in an entirely different mode) and the insertion of faux-medieval phrases like taking out all the "you"s and using "thou" alongside contemporary lyrics may not be entirely accurate. But bardcore's reinvention of medieval music isn't all that different from what's framed as historically accurate medieval music today.

2020 August 5, Hazel Cills, “How Historically Accurate Is Bardcore Anyway?”, in Jezebel, archived from the original on 2022-12-25

The instruments he uses for the bardcore covers are downloaded from virtual sound libraries - a variety of lutes and harps, as well as the crumhorn, a curved wind instrument, and the psaltery, a kind of plucked zither.

2021 February 27, Olivia Ho, “Shakira, but make it mediaeval: Bardcore takes today's music back in time”, in The Straits Times, archived from the original on 2022-08-14

(music) A genre of music in which modern songs are covered in a medieval or ancient style, often involving the lyrics being adapted or translated into historically accurate language.


Salve Regina

Borrowed from Latin salvē rēgīna (“hail, queen”), the opening of the prayer in that language.

bor+

I have often been scolded for this by Reutter, and especially when I composed a Salve Regina for twelve voices.

1884, Franz von Seeburg, translated by J. M. Toohey, Joseph Haydn: The Story of His Life, page 40


tenor recorder

(music) A recorder whose lowest note is C₄ (or otherwise in the range of B♭₄ to D₄).


treble recorder

en-noun

treble recorder (plural treble recorders)

(music) A recorder whose lowest note is F₄ (or otherwise in the range of E♭₄ to G₄).


great bass recorder

great bass recorder (plural great bass recorders)

(music) A recorder whose lowest note is C₃ (or otherwise in the range of B♭₃ to D₃).


soprano recorder

soprano recorder (plural soprano recorders)

(music) A recorder whose lowest note is C₅ (or otherwise in the range of B♭₅ to D₅).


bass recorder

(music) A recorder whose lowest note is F₃ (or otherwise in the range of E♭₃ to G₃).


contrabass recorder

contrabass recorder (plural contrabass recorders)

(music) A recorder whose lowest note is F₂ (or otherwise in the range of E♭₂ to G₂).


sopranino recorder

sopranino recorder (plural sopranino recorders)

From sopranino + recorder, from Italian soprano + -ino (diminutive).

(music) A recorder whose lowest note is F₅ (or otherwise in the range of E♭₅ to G₅).


magadize

en-verb

magadize (third-person singular simple present magadizes, present participle magadizing, simple past and past participle magadized)

magadizes (present singular third-person)
magadizing (participle present)
magadized (participle past)
magadized (past)

From Ancient Greek μαγαδίζω (magadízō), from μάγαδις (mágadis).

(music, historical) To play a piece of music simultaneously at two different octaves.


deep tech

As deep tech evolved, it began to incorporate sonic bells and whistles from UK rave; chopped-up ragga, hip-hop and diva vocals, shuffling syncopations winding around the 4x4 beat, build-drop song structures, and most importantly, floor-rumbling, chest-rattling sub-bass.

2014 December 30, Dominic Morris, “Deep tech: clubbing's biggest success story”, in The Guardian


samvadi

(music) The second most prominent note of a given raga.


handbag house

(music) A subgenre of house music of the late 1980s, often with booming vocals.


(music) A 415 Hertz musical pitch, which usually serves as the tuning standard for the note A above middle C in baroque pitch.


neomodal

(music) Relating to the use of adapted ancient modes in modern music.


mirror fugue

(music) A piece of music consisting of two fugues, one of which is the mirror image of the other.


canon by contrary motion

en-noun

canon by contrary motion (plural canons by contrary motion)


mirror canon

(music) A canon in which the leading voice is played alongside its own inversion, i.e. upside down.


neotonality

(music) The replacement of the tonality of the common-practice period (i.e. functional harmony and tonic-dominant relationships) by one or more non-traditional tonal conceptions, such as tonal assertion or contrapuntal motion around a central chord.


undecuplet

(music) A group of eleven notes, typically to be played in place of eight.


comic opera

comic opera (countable and uncountable, plural comic operas)

(music) A sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue.


nazard

(music) An organ stop for the third harmonic.


blackgaze

California’s Deafheaven are blackgaze’s de facto poster boys, the most likely to open up black metal to an even wider audience.

2015 October 5, Tom Howells, “Blackgaze: meet the bands taking black metal out of the shadows”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

(music) A fusion music genre combining elements of black metal and shoegaze.


acousmonium

acousmonium (plural acousmoniums or acousmonia)

acousmoniums (plural)
acousmonia (plural)

(music) A large loudspeaker orchestra used for electroacoustic music performances.


minus-one

(Philippines, music) instrumental where vocals have been removed; backing track


copy song

Borrowed from Burmese ကော်ပီသီချင်း (kaupisihkyang:).

bor+

ကော်ပီသီချင်း

(Myanmar, music) A song written to the tune of another existing song.


Revolutionary

(music, informal) Chopin's 'Revolutionary Etude' Op. 10 no. 12.


Yodaya

Borrowed from Burmese ယိုးဒယား (yui:da.ya:), ultimately from Thai อยุธยา (à-yút-tá-yaa, “Ayutthaya”).

မဟာဂီတ မဟာဂီတ#Burmese

(music) Yodaya, a genre of Burmese classical music; see မဟာဂီတ (ma.hagita.)


palm mute

en-verb

palm mute (third-person singular simple present palm mutes, present participle palm muting, simple past and past participle palm muted)

palm mutes (present singular third-person)
palm muting (participle present)
palm muted (participle past)
palm muted (past)

(music) To soften the sound of the strings of a guitar (or other stringed instrument) by placing the palm of the strumming or picking hand lightly across the strings near the bridge while playing.


resonator guitar

en-noun

resonator guitar (plural resonator guitars)

(music) A type of steel-string guitar with a metal resonator attached to the front.


double-course

(music) Of a stringed instrument, having pairs of strings, commonly tuned an octave apart.


steel-string guitar

steel-string guitar (plural steel-string guitars)

(music) A type of acoustic guitar designed to be strung with metal strings.


single-course

(music) Of a stringed instrument, having a set of single strings.


thumbpick

(music) A type of plectrum that clips on to, or wraps around the end of the thumb.


thumbpick

en-verb

thumbpick (third-person singular simple present thumbpicks, present participle thumbpicking, simple past and past participle thumbpicked)

thumbpicks (present singular third-person)
thumbpicking (participle present)
thumbpicked (participle past)
thumbpicked (past)

(music) To use the thumb to pluck individual strings of a stringed instrument, usually to supply the bass part.


octave species

(music) In Ancient Greek music, a specific sequence of intervals within an octave.


Liszt fever

We all had heard of the phenomenon that was sweeping across Europe wherever the pianist, Franz Liszt, played. […] Most troubling, at least to the men who reported it, was that it was not maids or shopgirls who were succumbing to Liszt fever but respectable wives and daughters, well-trained women who should have known better.

2013 September, Lynn Cullen, Mrs. Poe, New York, NY: Gallery Books, page 163

(music, historical) Synonym of Lisztomania.


tontipop

(music) a Spanish genre and scene which draws directly from British twee pop, as well as yé-yé, bubblegum, and synthpop.


AOTY

en-noun

AOTY (countable and uncountable, plural AOTYs)

Into the Unknown is my AOTY without question, followed by SOTLB and Morningrise respectively.

2011 February 16, audiophile, “Re: 1996”, in alt.music.judas-priest (Usenet)

(slang, music) Initialism of album of the year. (music)


enharmonicism

(music) The use of enharmonic modulation.


Jankó keyboard

Designed by Paul von Jankó, a Hungarian pianist and engineer, in 1882.

(music) A kind of piano keyboard that, instead of one long row of keys, has an array of keys consisting of two interleaved manuals with three touch-points for every key lever, making six rows of keys. Each vertical column of three keys is a semitone away from the neighboring ones, which are in the alternate rows.


common practice period

(music, historical) An era of European music, lasting from the mid-Baroque period though the Classical and Romantic periods (around 1650–1900).


dronescape

Most of the sounds had been made by Eno's own hand, although Michael Brook, Daniel Lanois and Bill Laswell (and his Material bandmate, keyboardist Michael Beinhorn and guitarist Axel Gros) would have found earlier contributions peeking through Eno's murmuring, quivering dronescapes.

2008, David Sheppard, On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno, London: Orion Books, pages 355–356

Waves of sound are layered but don't disappear, and [Robert] Fripp sends textural pieces soaring with his signature sustain, creating a kind of dronescape continuum.

2010, Will Romano, Mountains Come Out of the Sky: An Illustrated History of Prog Rock, Milwaukee, W.I.: Backbeat Books, page 190

Nineteen eighty-nine's "How Does It Feel" was seven minutes of minimal electro blips, lightly phased, over a three-note guitar dronescape, with [Peter] Kember asking repeatedly, "So tell me, how does it feel?"

2014, Bob Stanley, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Story of Pop Music From Bill Haley to Beyoncé, New York. N.Y., London: W. W. Norton & Company, page 509

Branch held her pinging watch alarm up to the microphones, kicked her floor tambourine, and the band collectively developed a dronescape.

2021 December 14, Martin Longley, “Jaimie Branch gets Enjoy Jazz jumping”, in Jazzwise, London: Jazzwise Publications Limited, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-03-15

Elsewhere, the violist Mona Tian — an expert in the string quartet music of Wadada Leo Smith — was liable to place a dollop of edgy timbre or rhythmic pulsations into the dronescape whenever things threatened to go slack.

2023 April 23, Seth Colter Walls, “Now Celebrated, Julius Eastman's Music Points to a New Canon”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-04-28

(music) A soundscape or acoustic environment consisting of repetitive droning noises.


Shibuya-kei

Borrowed from Japanese 渋谷系(しぶやけい) (shibuyakei, “Shibuya style”).

ja-r

(music) A Japanese pop music subgenre and fashion aesthetic of the mid- to late 1990s, inspired by 1960s culture and Western pop music.


doom rock

More industrial rhythms and gothic, doom rock combined with suitably mocking voice to express the dark matters afoot in the songs, which this time dwell on the subject of suicide, making Manson the latest in a long line of heavy metal artists to do so.

2006, Steve Taylor, The A to X of Alternative Music, A&C Black, page 144

They're not death metal; they're calling it doom rock. It's essentially an updated version of early 70s Sabbath.]

[2007 March 16, Paul Lester, quoting Elijah Wood, “Frodo gets funky”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

By the 1990s goth had given rise to more broadly popular subgenres like ‘death rock’ and ‘doom rock’, whose stars, people like Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor, used self-harm as a significant motif within their lives and lyrics.

2015, Peter Steggals, Making Sense of Self-harm: The Cultural Meaning and Social Context of Nonsuicidal Self-injury, Springer

(music) A subgenre of rock music influenced by hard rock, protometal, psychedelic rock, progressive rock, and blues, commonly incorporating lyrics about the occult or referencing horror movies and books.


doom folk

While best known for lending her haunting pipes to doom-folk troupe Espers, Meg Baird's quavering voice reveals itself as singularly lucid and enchanting on her solo work.


punk-rocky

en-adj

punk-rocky (comparative more punk-rocky, superlative most punk-rocky)

more punk-rocky (comparative)
most punk-rocky (superlative)

Harvard's WHRB (FM 95.3) has everything from the punk-rocky “Record Hospital” at night to the country-ish “Hillbilly At Harvard” on Saturday mornings.

1998 January 24, “Boston: Vital Statistics (The Billboard Spotlight)”, in Billboard, volume 110, number 4, →ISSN, page 52

(music) In the style of punk rock music.


chart-topper

(music) A recording or artist that sells the most copies during a particular time.


accpt.

en-noun

accpt. (countable and uncountable, plural accpts.)


star factory

(entertainment) An academy for entertainment talent.


wavestacking

(music) The summing of waveforms to create a composite sound.


straight play

It is unthinkable for a straight play to enjoy a life span like those of the blockbuster musicals or to earn such astronomical grosses.

2004, Steven Adler, On Broadway: Art and Commerce on the Great White Way, SIU Press, page 221

(theater) A play relying on spoken dialogue to tell the story, in contrast to a musical.


freetekno

(music) A style of electronic music associated with these parties.


Bach trumpet

From its use in playing the high trumpet parts in music by Johann Sebastian Bach.


C melody

(music) A kind of saxophone, larger than an alto and smaller than a tenor, pitched in the key of C one whole tone above the common B-flat tenor saxophone.


daycore

From day + -core, coined by analogy with nightcore (“a style of music based on taking an original track and speeding it up and increasing its pitch”).

a daycore remix

Perhaps extending from their relative ubiquity on TikTok's predecessor Musical.ly, nightcore audios have a strong presence on the app; so do their opposites, "daycore" or "anti-nightcore" remixes, in which tracks are slowed down for a heady, sluggish effect.

2020 December 21, Cat Zhang, “The Year in Music on TikTok 2020”, in Pitchfork, archived from the original on 2023-03-28

If you've heard of the reverb + slowed trend, congrats, you've been listening to music on YouTube. The slowed trend is just one of many YouTube music trends, earlier versions of which include Nightcore and Daycore.

2022 June 3, Allia Luzong, “7 Weirdly Specific YouTube Channels That Are Perfect for Procrastinating”, in A Little Bit Human, archived from the original on 2023-03-27

(Internet slang, music) A style of music in which a song is slowed down and lowered in pitch.


unda maris

From Latin unda maris (literally “sea wave”).

(music) An organ stop similar to the voix céleste, but typically using a dulciana or a softer-scale string (or even flutes).


Memphis rap

Dungeon rap is a new hybrid style of hip-hop created by Yatsun. It merges Memphis rap – a style of lo-fi atmospheric southern hip-hop made popular by the likes of Three Six Mafia in the late 80s and early 90s – and dungeon synth, a sub-genre that blossomed in 1990s Scandinavia blending dark ambient and black metal.

2023 July 12, Daniel Dylan Wray, “‘I don’t believe in the idea of a future’: the Ukrainian producer who invented dungeon rap”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

(music) A subgenre of hip hop that originated in Memphis, Tennessee in the mid-late 1980s.


pigfuck

Originally coined by American music journalist (born 1942) Robert Christgau in 1983 to derisively describe the raucous sound of Sonic Youth. Later took on a meaning of its own, describing a style not specifically associated with the band.

coin

Finally, there's the folks at Sub Pop, who've cashed in on this new Singlesmania big-time, turning every indie/pigfuck record buyer into a rabid collector by deliberately limiting the pressings of their Singles Of The Month and then finding the hippest bands around to record.

1989 September, Jim Testa, Jersey Beat, number 38, Weehawken, N.J.: Jim Testa, →OCLC, Constant Listener, page 26

The camera is facing Slash’s back, so there is no way to see his reaction to the song that he is accompanying, but the crowd—thrown by the initial “cops and niggers,” even though Axl [Rose] builds a reaction into the song; “that’s right,” he sings, as if to say yes, I intended to say that—has caught up by the time he sings “immigrants and faggots,” and giggles appreciatively. It’s the Pussy Galore, Big Black, pigfuck era in post-punk terms. A lot of shit has been said at CB’s; this is just more.

2007, Eric Weisbard, Use Your Illusion I and II (33⅓), New York: Continuum, →OCLC, page 83

Monumentally caustic but hypothetically a dance band, Sleigh Bells sculpt infectious double-dutch funk from an unlikely acid bath of distorted drum machines and nasal pigfuck guitars.

2010 July, Christopher R. Weingarten, Spin, volume 26, number 6, New York, N.Y.: SPIN Media LLC., →ISSN, →OCLC, Reviews [Albums], page 90

That band [Shellac] hit the ground sprinting with 1994’s At Action Park, a thunderous debut that seemed obsessed with one-upping all the pigfuck and post-rock outfits that had sprung up in Albini’s wake.

2014 July 30, Jason Heller, “Steve Albini's 10 Best Records”, in Pitchfork, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast, archived from the original on 2023-05-06

In 2016, the group [Bruges] released a five-song demo of sludgy pigfuck noise-rock layered with distorted bass and ear-piercing guitar feedback, but on their brand-new singles “Through a Muted Lens” and “Atop a Precipice,” the group really show what they're made of.

2018 December, Luce Cimarusti, edited by Anne Elizabeth Moore, Chicago Reader, volume 47, number 11, Chicago, IL: STM Reader, LLC, →ISSN, →OCLC, Music, page 32

(music) A genre of punk rock that originated in the 80s American underground rock scene, incorporating more noisy, transgressive, and caustic elements than tranditional punk rock and primarily associated with such acts as Big Black, Butthole Surfers, and The Jesus Lizard.


refinger

en-verb

refinger (third-person singular simple present refingers, present participle refingering, simple past and past participle refingered)

refingers (present singular third-person)
refingering (participle present)
refingered (participle past)
refingered (past)

(transitive, music) To finger again or differently.


decatonic

(music) Being or relating to a musical scale of ten notes.


dip hop

Blend of deaf + hip-hop; coined by artist Warren "Wawa" Snipe in 2005.

Using hip hop as a foundation, dip hop emplys low frequency bass patterns for its beats and sign language for its lyrics, creating a flow between the two that is both visual and tactile.

2016, Knut Holtsträter, Michael Fischer, Lied und populäre Kultur / Song and Popular Culture 60/61 (2015/2016): Jahrbuch des Zentrums für Populäre Kultur und Musik 60./61. Jahrgang - 2015/2016. Musik und Protest Music and Protest, Waxmann Verlag, page 73

Other practitioners of dip hop, particularly grassroots rappers and dip hop groups, perform primarily for Deaf audiences and do not incorporate the use of oral language or bimusical elements.

2021 November 30, Marko Kölbl, Fritz Trümpi, Music and Democracy: Participatory Approaches, transcript Verlag

Rather than trying to correct deafness with hearing aids or cochlear implants, the Deaf community embraces new forms of communicating and experimenting with artistic practices. Movements such as Dip-Hop, or Deaf Hip-Hop, were born with the idea of a connection between languages[…]

2023 March 31, Iva Nenic, Linda Cimardi, Women's Leadership in Music: Modes, Legacies, Alliances, transcript Verlag, page 89

(music) a genre and broader subculture combining hip-hop with Deaf culture.


perpetual canon

en-noun

perpetual canon (plural perpetual canons)

(music) A limited type of canon in which three or more voices sing exactly the same melody at the unison (and may continue repeating it indefinitely), but with each voice beginning at different times so that different parts of the melody coincide in the different voices, but nevertheless fit harmoniously together.


duct flute

(music) A flute having a duct or fipple.


dungchen

Borrowed from Tibetan དུང་ཆེན (dung chen).

bor+

(music) A horn used in Tibetan Buddhist and Mongolian Buddhist ceremonies.


puzzle canon

(music) A canon in which only one voice is notated and the rules for determining the remaining parts and the time intervals of their entrances must be guessed.


soundtable

Coordinate term: soundboard

It has a short neck, a shallow oval wooden body, and a soundhole on the upper soundtable. The number of strings varies; four to eight bass (bunti) strings on the neck, plucked by the left hand, and seven to 30 metal strings (pidstrunki, tuned chromatically) across the soundtable, plucked by the right hand.

2014, Sofia Hrytsa, “Bandura”, in edited by Laurence Libin, The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, 2nd edition, volume 1, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 219

(music) A thin surface covering the opening of the sound box of a string instrument, which vibrates and amplifies the sound produced by the instrument.


zortziko

(music) A dance rhythm that originated in the Basque Country, with a distinctive 5/8 time signature consisting of three subdivisions of 1, 2, and 2 beats.


512th note

(music, US, rare) A note played for 1/512 of the duration of a whole note.


1024th note

[…] handles precise time distinctions (to a 1024th note). Many error correction and detection features are included in the program.

1970, Association for Computing Machinery, Proceedings of the National Conference (volume 25, page 330)

[…] 1024th notes in the first line of the "Thoreau" movement, an indication to the performer to play as fast as he can. (1024th notes are exceptionally rare in the musical literature.)

1979, Kenneth Ralph Gartner, The Expansion of Pianism Since 1945, page 42

[…] 1024th notes, atonality, and unbarred sections.

1979, Harry Raphael Garvin, James M. Heath, The Arts and Their Interrelations, page 125

(music, US, rare) A note played for 1/1024 of the duration of a whole note.


16th note

(music, US) Abbreviation of sixteenth note.


8th note

(music, US) Abbreviation of eighth note.


windcap

(music) A covering for the reed in an instrument, limiting the range of playable notes and preventing overblowing.


kinura

(music) A kind of organ stop with a quacking or buzzing sound.


hold the stage

en-verb

hold the stage (third-person singular simple present holds the stage, present participle holding the stage, simple past and past participle held the stage)

holds the stage (present singular third-person)
holding the stage (participle present)
held the stage (participle past)
held the stage (past)

(theater, of a play) To continue to be produced.


key change

(music) A change in key during a song or composition; a modulation.


tune down

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

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

Tune down the guitar a bit, you're slightly sharp.

(music) To tune an instrument by decreasing its pitch


chantered

The zampogna is an Italian double-chantered bagpipe.

(music, chiefly in combination) Having a (specified kind or number of) chanter.


wubstep

(music) A subgenre of dubstep created by MDK, descended from 2-step garage.


lalove

(music) A bamboo flute from Central Sulawesi.


karignan

(music) An African percussion musical instrument composed of a metal slotted tube that is scraped or hit by a long rod.


Bristol sound

The Bristol sound is back—and what a thrilling resurgence. Between them, Tricky's Knowle West Boy and Portishead's Third reflect both the bleakness and industrial decay of my favourite city's less salubrious environs.

2008 September 22, Owen Adams, “The Bristol sound is back. So where's Mark Stewart?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

(music) A sound influenced by dub and reggae produced in Bristol in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a precursor (and sometimes synonym) of trip hop.


swordography

Blend of sword + choreography. By surface analysis, sword + -o- + -graphy.

surf

Do you know what? I had so much fun. The swordography... you know, I think we needed more swordography, to be honest. Loved the sword fight.

2023, 31:26 from the start, in Strictly Come Dancing, season 21, episode 3, spoken by Zara McDermott

(theater, dance) Choreography using (prop) swords.


lyre-guitar

(music) A type of guitar shaped to look like a lyre, popular as a fad instrument in the late 1800s.


beaty

en-adj

beaty (comparative more beaty, superlative most beaty)

more beaty (comparative)
most beaty (superlative)

[…] beaty track with some rock elements too.

2002, Future Music, numbers 126-130, page 103

(informal, music) Having a pronounced beat.


flutophone

From flute + -o- + -phone; possibly originally a trademark.

Then he and Bob had to put off playing detective until they practiced on their flutophones.

2004, Nancy McArthur, The Mystery of the Plant That Ate Dirty Socks, page 81

Our fifth grade teacher organized the class into a flutophone band. The ones we played were a two piece instrument. The mouth piece was red and the body of the instrument was white.

2010, Richard Donald Pietz, A Walking Miracle: Just For My Kids, page 33

(music) A small wind instrument, resembling the recorder or clarinet, used in elementary music education.


xenharmony

Coined by Ivor Darreg, from xen- + harmony

(music) A genre of music characterized by the non-conformity to the common 12-tone equal temperament.


Hypolocrian

(music) Being or relating to the plagal counterpart to the Locrian mode.


coll'ottava

From Italian [Term?] (literally “with the octave”).

bor

(music) Having the notes played in two adjacent octaves simultaneously.


conscious rap

Ellipsis of socially/politically conscious rap.

ellipsis

In the late 1980s, a new generation of black university students enlisted the Afrocentrism of conscious rap in their interactions with both the white educational establishment and the black working class. Directed toward their professors, conscious rap became a tool in debates over the importance of multicultural education and African American Studies programs.

2019, Mitchell Ohriner, Flow: The Rhythmic Voice in Rap Music, Oxford University Press, page 128

(music) A subgenre of hip hop music that was developed in the 1980s, characterized by Afrocentricity and sociopolitical comments.


subminor

(music) An interval smaller in size than a minor interval but larger than the major interval preceding it.


harsh noise wall

Alternative form: (initialism) HNW

(music) An extreme subgenre of harsh noise music featuring noises layered together to form a consistent, static sound.


olio drop

(theater) A large canvas or drop that is attached at the bottom to a long rigid tube rigged to roll as it rises out, used in vaudeville theater.


FACE

(music, mnemonic) A mnemonic phrase to help remember the order of the four spaces of a musical treble clef in order from the bottom to the top.


shadow acting

(theater, film, rare) A form of film where an actor is obscured from view by the camera under dimmed lights, often used for true crime reenactments.


sound table

(music) Synonym of soundboard (“part of instrument”)


AMVcore

From AMV + -core, because of its later prominence in anime music videos.

amvcore album where everything sounds like linkin park and evanescence

2015 March 4, easynam, Twitter, retrieved 2023-11-21

Yeah I was listening to a lot of Scenecore, AMVcore, and Fourth Wave Emo/"Mall Emo" type stuff back then and even back then I never got the appeal for AA.

2018 December 16, MoogInRow, Last.fm, retrieved 2023-11-21

I was already listening to the incredibly popular AMVcore songs (Skillet, Three Days Grace and Evanescence).

2022 November 22, tankdempsey_, Reddit, retrieved 2023-11-21

(music, sometimes humorous) A hard alternative rock style that was popular in the 2000s and played by bands such as Linkin Park, Breaking Benjamin, and Evanescence.


Hornbostel-Sachs

Devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs.

(music, chiefly attributive) A system of musical instrument classification based on the nature of the sound-producing material.


test pressing

(music) A vinyl record created during the production process to ensure the quality and accuracy of the final product.


super-duo

(music) A duo formed of well-known musicians.


leadpipe

(music) The pipe or tube of a brass instrument into which the mouthpiece is placed.


oom-pah-pah

{\set Staff.midiInstrument=#"trumpet"\time3/4\tempo4=160\clef bass\repeat unfold2{c-.-.g,-.-.
}}

(music) A variant of oom-pah played in triple time.


singout

(music) An informal singing event or concert, especially in barbershop music.


The Lick

\relative c{\set Staff.midiInstrument=#"soprano sax"e8 fis16. g8 a16.\grace{e16}fis8. d8 e4~e2}

(music) A seven-note stock musical phrase in jazz, pop, and classical music.


antitonal

en-adj

antitonal (comparative more antitonal, superlative most antitonal)

more antitonal (comparative)
most antitonal (superlative)

(music) Deliberately flouting the conventions of tonality.


twelve-note

twelve-tone technique
twelve-tone technique

(music) Using or relating to the twelve-tone technique.


Choralcelo

(music, historical) An early electronic organ with two keyboards.


F-flat major

{\key fes\major fes'ges'aes'beses'cesdesesfes2}

(music) the theoretical major key with F-flat as its tonic and the notes F♭, G♭, A♭, B♭♭, C♭, D♭, and E♭.

(music) the major chord with a root of F-flat


set dresser

(theater, film, television) A person who prepares the set with props and furniture to give it the correct appearance and to make sure that each item is in the correct position for each performance.


G-sharp major

{\key gis \major gis'ais'bis'cisdiseisfisisgis2}

(music) The major key with the notes G♯, A♯, B♯, C♯, D♯, E♯, and F𝄪, the key signature of which has six sharps and one double sharp.

(music) The major chord with a root of G-sharp.


in the mix

(music) Acting as a deejay; mixing music


Guidonian hand

(music, historical) A mnemonic device to assist in learning sight singing, resembling a human hand divided into portions representing notes within the hexachord system.


ear training

(music) A form of study of music theory study in which musicians learn aural skills to identify pitches, intervals, melody, chords, rhythms, solfeges, and other basic elements of music, solely by hearing.


lounge singer

(music, entertainment) A singer, usually an amateur, who performs popular music influenced by swing and jazz, often played in cocktail lounges.


Jersey club

(music) A style of electronic dance music that originated in Newark, New Jersey, in the early 2000s, having an aggressive style with a fast, bouncy groove and the use of staccato, chopped samples, and heavy triplet kick patterns.


book-bearer

(theater, obsolete, archaic) A theatrical prompter.


on book

(theater, uncommon) Referencing a script; not recited from memory.


monolight

(theater, film) A self-contained photographic flash lighting unit, typically found in studios.


Nachthorn

From German Nachthorn (literally “night horn”).

bor

(music) A wide-scaled flute organ stop with a relatively small mouth, producing a soft but penetrating sound.


Maelzel's metronome

en-noun

Maelzel's metronome (plural Maelzel's metronomes)

Named after Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, who copied the design from Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel.

(music) A kind of mechanical metronome with a scale.


Mag and Nunc

/ˈmæɡ.ənˌnʌŋk/

Clipping of Magnificat + ellipsis of Nunc dimittis.

Magnificat and Nunc dimittis
Magnificat and Nunc dimittis#English

(Anglicanism, music, informal) Contraction of Magnificat and Nunc dimittis (“musical setting to be sung at evensong; especially when written and published as a pair”).


Magnificat and Nunc dimittis

(Anglicanism, music) A musical setting of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis to be sung at evensong; especially when written and published as a pair.


gyaling

Borrowed from Tibetan རྒྱ་གླིང་ (rgya gling).

bor+

(music) A horn used in Tibetan Buddhist and Mongolian Buddhist ceremonies.


bloghouse

From blog + house, referring to its propagation on the Internet.

(music) A subgenre of house music from the 2000s.


Tartini tone

Named after the violinist Giuseppe Tartini, who is credited with discovering these tones.

combination tone
combination tone#English


duple meter

(music) A musical meter characterized by a primary division of two beats to the bar.


Hypoaeolian

From hypo- + aeolian, coined by Henricus Glareanus (1547).

(music) Of or relating to the musical plagal mode on A, which uses the diatonic octave species from E to the E an octave above, divided by the final into a second-species fourth (semitone–tone–tone) plus a first-species fifth (tone–semitone–tone–tone): E F G A + A B C D E.


perfect time

Coordinate term: imperfect time

(music, historical) A system of timing in mensural notation in which a breve is equal to three semibreves.


pad room

(entertainment) A tent or a dressing room for performers of the circus.


double bar

(music) a symbol, consisting of two ordinary bar lines or a single heavy one, that marks the end of a composition or a section within it


rustle time

(music, musicology) The average time interval between the clicks of a Geiger counter.


John Audley

(theater, slang) A fictitious person mentioned (e.g. "is John Audley there?") as a signal to shorten the performance of a show, to make room for a fresh audience.


character piece

en-noun

character piece (plural character pieces)

That does not mean that all character pieces of this period present moods expressly, only that the musical term 'character' is not always telling for character pieces, to put it crudely.

2016, Erik Wallrup, Being Musically Attuned: The Act of Listening to Music, page 36

(music) A musical composition that expresses a specific mood or non-musical idea.


stop-time

(music, music theory) An accompaniment pattern interrupting, or stopping, the normal time and featuring regular accented attacks on the first beat of each or every other measure, alternating with silence or instrumental solos.


MGB

(music, historical) Initialism of Matthew Good Band.


quadruple time

(music, music theory) A time signature indicating four beats to the bar.


march-movement

(music, music theory) The rhythm of a march, specifically duple or quadruple time.


promotional copy

promotional copy (plural promotional copies)

(music, business) An audio or video recording distributed free of charge, usually in order to promote a recording that will soon be commercially available.


urlfest

playing at this urlfest, akifest on october 5th.

i hate urlfests now like i dont want to see actually talented ppl play at some shit called BUSSYFEST 2021

Oh yeah it's rad that Covid basically normalised smaller artists doing urlfests. I'm happy that all the big boys can do actual live shows again though.

2022 June 29, u/CucumberHorse21, “Online Festivals and showcases were the funnest highlight of my Covid lockdown”, in Reddit, r/pcmusic

yes i hosted two urlfests. yes i purposefully avoid a solid third of the people i encountered from that time. yes i am also gorgeoius. yes i exist

sorry im bad at not shilling this: would u ever be interested in performing at something like a urlfest (possibly a charity one for a dog's birthday for instance)

2023 November 22, u/Doctor_Number_Four, “Frost Children AMA! or else...”, in Reddit, r/indieheads

(Internet slang, music) An online music festival.


wombadelia

Blend of womb + psychedelia. Coined by Alternative Press' editor Dave Segal in 1992, to describe My Bloody Valentine's music.

When My Bloody Valentine released their debut album Isn't Anything in 1988 they essentially created a new genre of rock that one may venture to call "wombadelia". At once ethereal and sexual, oceanic and astral, blissed-up and fucked up, beautiful and noisy, […]"

1992 March, Dave Segal, “My Bloody Valentine: Rise of Wombadelia”, in Alternative Press, number 45, page 46

My Bloody Valentine is another group you may want to investigate if you are into the pretty-female-vocal-mixed-with-powerful-rhythms-and-high-density-sound genre (known in some critical circles as "wombadelia").

1992 April 6, MXP...@psuvm.psu.edu, “Cranes”, in rec.music.misc (Usenet)

Then comes Comet's true forte: starry-eyed, slowcore webs of patiently brushed cymbals and madly reverberated guitar. At their best, on "Sputnik," the Stones' slow-burning waves of woozy wombadelia creep up and double over into melodic explosions of bombast and beauty.

2005 August 12, Michael Chamy, “Comet's Feathers From the Wing EP Review”, in The Austin Chronicle, volume 24, number 50, page 61

Alternative Press (magazine)
My Bloody Valentine (band)


funkot

(music) An electronic dance music genre from Indonesia that combines eurodance and trance synths with the syncopated rhythm from dangdut koplo.


depressive suicidal black metal

depressive suicidal black metal (uncountable)

depressive black metal
depressive black metal#English

(music) Synonym of depressive black metal


neoclassical darkwave

The leads, two thin girls with dark eyes and darker threads, unleashed a sticky brand of soul. With a blend of ethereal and neoclassical darkwave, they kicked off their set with a slow song about lost love, isolation and melancholy.

2010, Stephen Pytak, The Wild Damned, Mazz Press, page 144

Her music's what they call "neoclassical darkwave." It sounds like a chorus of dark angels took their harps and violins and staged a revolt against heaven, all crashing, soaring and broody, layered over with Euphoria's smokey-smexy vocals.

2018, Genevieve Iseult Eldredge, chapter 1, in Derailed: A Moribund Prequel Novella, Monster House Books, LLC, page 10

Some other bands, like Dead Can Dance and In the Nursery, began incorporating elements of classical orchestral and chamber music to create a style known as classical darkwave.

2019, Eric S. Strother, edited by Janet Sturman, The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture, SAGE Publications, page 1304

(music) A subgenre of darkwave that emerged in mid-1980s, characterized by a dark and melancholic atmosphere combined with elements of Western classical music.


wombadelic

The bass sound in today's jungle lacks the wobbly glee and wombadelic warmth of hardcore rave; instead, there's the sinister radioactive glow of the 'Dread Bass' sound, or dry, metallic, atonal B-lines that palpitate joylessly and tunelessly.

1996 May, Simon Reynolds, “Wargasm: Militaristic imagery in popular culture”, in Frieze, number 28

At times, it adds up to an earthier version of My Bloody Valentine's wombadelic bliss, most apparent on the standout "Electric Surgery."

2000 November 24, Michael Chamy, “Experimental Aircraft (Devil in the Woods)”, in The Austin Chronicle, volume 20, number 13

The band’s playing cuts off their new album MAKE OUT ROOM (release date TBA). They do what Black Kids are doing, but rather than lean on the wombadelic shoegazer side, they tend more towards Gary Numan. In such a good way.

2010 May 17, “New Wave rockers LIVING DAYS play a free show tonight at Silverlake Lounge”, in Music Zeitgeist, archived from the original on 2024-04-20

To this day, listening to Loveless feels like swimming in a warm bath of opiates and lust. It’s a primal, wombadelic, every-direction, every-color echo of what it feels like to be human, to be a mess of synapses, sexual desire, anxiety, obsession, fears, and hopes.

2013 February 16, Jonathan Patrick, “Review: My Bloody Valentine, m b v”, in Slant Magazine, archived from the original on 2024-04-20

Is there anything more comforting than drone? It’s the wombadelic sound of pre-ego existence, the sonic warmth of a life free from the burdens of the world, music awash in the primal need to express our thoughts through sound.

2013 May 3, Jonathan Patrick, “sunn 0))) entire discography up for free streaming on Bandcamp; this will forever be newsworthy”, in Tiny Mix Tapes, archived from the original on 2024-04-20

As tempting as it is to indulge my wee-lad love of all things dream pop and compare Star’s fresh take on shoegaze to early-90s wombadelic practitioners

2020 October 29, Steve Krakow, “Chicago trio Star become modern noise-pop greats on Violence Against Star”, in Chicago Reader, archived from the original on 2024-04-20

(uncommon, music) Pertaining or related to wombadelia; shoegazey.


xuc

(music) A danceable traditional music style from El Salvador developed in the 1940s; a dance related to said style.


touring member

Pino Palladino, the Welsh bassist ... who is now a permanent touring member of the Who.

2009 June 14, Graeme Thomson, “Pop stars anonymous”, in The Observer, London

White was a touring member of Green Day from 1999 until 2012, playing lead guitar at the majority of their live shows. In late 2012, he became the official fourth member of the band.

2014 December 6, Brian Kraus, “Green Day guitarist Jason White diagnosed with tonsil cancer”, in Alternative Press magazine

After playing on many Beach Boys sessions, Mr. Campbell became a touring member of the band in late 1964, when its leader, Brian Wilson, decided to leave the road to concentrate on writing and recording. He remained a Beach Boy into the first few months of 1965.

2017 August 8, Michael Pollak, “Glen Campbell, Whose Hit Songs Bridged Country and Pop, Dies at 81”, in The New York Times

(music) A person, not credited as a full member of a music group, who performs as part of the group while it is on tour


mashcore

(music) A subgenre of breakcore characterised by an extensive use of pop music samples, playful melodies and hard kicks.


hardcore breaks

(music) An electronic music style emerged in the 2000s, inspired by old school breakbeat, while being fused with modern production techniques .


time-point set

(music) A temporal order of pitches in a tone row indicating the instants at which the notes begin.


slow time

slow time (countable and uncountable, plural slow times)

(military, music) A slow marching pace, consisting of about sixty to eighty paces per minute, traditionally used at funerals and on ceremonial occasions.


hexd

(music) An electronic genre characterized by significantly distorted vocals, altered to be faster and higher-pitched, and with the heavily compressed and distorted production.


prick of perfection

prick of perfection (plural pricks of perfection)

(music) The dot placed after a musical note to increase its length by a half.


perfect chord

(music) A concord or union of sounds of three or more simultaneous notes according to the rules of harmony.


simple time

(music) A musical rhythm characterized by two or three beats to a measure.


HK-pop

From HK (“Hong Kong”) + pop, by analogy with J-pop.


corrido tumbado

(music) A music style derived from sierreño featuring trap's overall hazy and drugged-out atmosphere.


mash up

en-verb

mash up (third-person singular simple present mashes up, present participle mashing up, simple past and past participle mashed up)

mashes up (present singular third-person)
mashing up (participle present)
mashed up (participle past)
mashed up (past)

The DJ mashed up Britney Spears and Daft Punk.

(transitive, music) To remix two or more songs together into one.


baritone clef

(music) An F clef placed on the third line of a five-line staff, used for the left hand of keyboard music or for baritone parts in vocal music.


progressive jazz

(music) A form of big band music that is more complex or experimental, originating in the 1940s.


barber beats

Coined by Aloe City Wrld music label, when describing the production style of Haircuts for Men.

People still trying to dismiss barber beats as “low effort” fail to realize that most of the high effort stuff, or even the sample free nonsense, misses the point of vaporwave entirely. I bet when it started, real musicians felt the same about the scene as a whole.

2022 December 8, @derivativenc, Twitter, archived from the original on 2024-03-16

Capturing the elements of Vaporwave with the utilization of warm soul samples and Lo-Fi Hip-Hop in musical arrangement, Barber Beats prominently provided a new yet, familiar taste.

2023 January 7, Jeremy Adrian Eudin, Village Pipol, archived from the original on 2024-03-16

i never really got into barber beats, for some reasons pad touched on in his video, and also some other things that weren't discussed.
the artwork is cool though.

2024 March 15, @nmeshofficial, Twitter, archived from the original on 2024-03-16

(music) a chillout style that emerged in mid-2010s, heavily inspired from vaporwave techniques, downtempo, trip hop and instrumental hip hop.


city pop

From Japanese シティ・ポップ (shiti poppu), itself from English city pop.

(music) a form of Japanese pop music that emerged in the late 1970s and peaked in popularity during the 1980s, including influences such as funk, disco, R&B, AOR, soft rock, and boogie, and associated with the country's nascent economic boom and leisure class.


midtempo bass

(music) an electronic dance music style which features harsh synth leads and a usual tempo of around 90-110 bpm.


rawstyle

(music) a hardstyle subgenre which features a distinctly harsh, simplistic, raw, and dark sound, with fast bpm.


flashcore

(music) an electronic music style that grew out of speedcore and industrial hardcore, characterized by wandering soundscapes, scattered rapid short-duration sounds, complex avant-garde structures and abstract sounds.


future garage

(music) A UK garage subgenre that incorporates elements from 2-step garage, characterized by jittery, broken rhythms, vocal chops, and warm synth pads and plucks.


future funk

A lot of people would say that future funk just rips off the original song, but I disagree. It brings a new meaning and feeling to it. There’s a lot more effort put into it than a lot of people think. It also brings a lot of attention to the original song.

2019 November 12, Margaret Cataldi, “Classical composer explains future funk”, in The Prospector, archived from the original on 2020-12-18

Where many future funk producers make soundtracks for kawaii dance halls and coastal drives, SUI UZI's feels more at home at a darkening club after last call, or on a lonely drive home from a first date gone wrong.

2020 February 29, deliriously...daniel, “A Twilit Trist: Looking Back at SUI UZI's Night Songs Trilogy”, in Private Suite Magazine, number 11, page 25

This can include the use of looped GIF animations and manipulated pop music tracks in Future Funk YouTube videos, which adapts eighties pop culture from Japan to the Vaporwave style of lo-fi and retro remixes and samples.

2023 October 15, Daniel Johnson, Textual Cacophony: Online Video and Anonymity in Japan, Cornell University Press, page 30

(music) a house offshoot which emerged from vaporwave in the early 2010s, characterized by reverb effects, more rhythmic structures, and often, vocal samples from city pop and anime.


quadruple stop

(music, stringed instruments) An instance of four notes being played simultaneously.


triple stop

(music, stringed instruments) An instance of three notes being played simultaneously.


virtual duet

Her song featured a virtual duet between her and Frank Sinatra, through sampling several of his songs.

(music) A duet created from combining two separate and unrelated performances (as opposed to a single performance featuring two people).


HTTT

(music) Initialism of Hail to the Thief. (Radiohead album).


dungeon synth

(music) a genre of electronic music that merges elements of black metal and dark ambient that emerged in the early 1990s.


grindage

There's plenty of punishing grindage on the Brooklyn quartet's fifth album, The Coma Imprint.

2002, SPIN, volume 18, number 8, page 110

(music, slang) The grindcore style of music.


imperfect time

Coordinate term: perfect time

(music, historical) A system of timing in mensural notation in which a breve is equal to two semibreves.


keller synth

(music) a subgenre of dungeon synth, close related to tänzelcore


Midwest emo

(music) a subgenre of emo which employs unconventional vocal stylings, distinct guitar riffs and arpeggiated melodies, drawing on indie rock and math rock approaches.


Dariacore

From Daria + -core, coined by Jane Remover for her 2021 album Dariacore, after character Daria Morgendorffer from adult animated sitcom Daria.

There's already a crop of new artists making diverse variations of the dariacore style of spliced sounds and berserk beats

2021 November 24, Kieran Press-Reynolds, Business Insider, archived from the original on 2024-04-11

“Dariacore” isn’t just a single artist’s mixtape series; it’s an entire genre in and of itself, taking hyperpop’s silliest tendencies to their logical conclusions by weaving in vocal samples[…]

2022 May 23, Raphael Helfand, The Fader, archived from the original on 2024-04-11

dariacore is difficult i feel like im learning hyperpop for the first time all over again except its harder

2022 August 11, @desuc0re, Twitter, archived from the original on 2024-04-11

“Hyperflip”, or as it’s commonly known, “Dariacore,” is my favorite trend in electronic music at the moment. Its mindmelting blend of Hyperpop, EDM, 2000’s pop samples, and Jersey Club is truly something to behold.

2023 February 7, DMC Woodstock, WKNC 88.1 FM, archived from the original on 2024-04-11

there’s dariacore rave tn but all signs pointing me not to go bc life is so #LeSigh

2024 April 5, @HOAPISS, Twitter, archived from the original on 2024-04-11

(music) A genre of electronic music related to hyperpop, which features prominent vocal samples, chaotic and distorted production, and influences from future bass, mashup, nightcore and Jersey club.

Daria
Daria Morgendorffer
Dariacore (album)


synth bass

en-noun

synth bass (countable and uncountable, plural synth basses)

(music) The use of a synthesizer for a bassline.


coon song

(US, music, historical) A song in a genre of music that presented a stereotype of black people.


música cebolla

(music) A genre of Chilean music emphasising sentimentality and intimacy.


Cubatón

Borrowed from Spanish cubatón, a blend of Cuba + reggaetón.

(music) A variation of reggaeton from Cuba.


Otamatone

ō-täʹmä-tōn′

/əʊˈtɑː.mɑːˌtəʊn/

ō-täʹmä-tōn′

Borrowed from Japanese オタマトーン (otamatōn, “Otamatone”), from a blend of オタマジャクシ (otamajakushi, “ladle, tadpole”) + トーン (tōn, “tone”).

blend

Tosa for example performed on his then newest item, the Otamatone.[…]Otamatone is a saxophone-shaped plastic instrument, 27 cm tall, and battery-powered.

2014 March 31, Sarah M. Schlachetzki, Fusing Lab and Gallery: Device Art in Japan and International Nano Art, Transcript Verlag, page 35

The humble Otamatone is a cute (or aggressively annoying... to each their own) instrument that makes digital synthesizer-like noises when you tap or slide your finger along the neck.

2018 May 29, Thuy Org, “This Kirby Otamatone is the musical instrument you need”, in The Verge, archived from the original on 2018-03-29

[…]long shelves filled with robot parts, circuit boards, audiovisual equipment, and Otamatones—small, tadpole-shaped synthesizers from Japan.

2021 April 20, Gregg Behr, Ryan Rydzewski, When You Wonder, You’re Learning: Mister Rogers’ Enduring Lessons for Raising Creative, Curious, Caring Kids, Hachette Books

(music, neologism) An electronic musical synthesizer.


talking blues

en-noun

talking blues (countable and uncountable, plural talking blues)

From the song “Talking Blues”, recorded by Chris Bouchillon in Atlanta in 1926.

The talking blues were first recorded in 1926, performed by a mandolinist named Chris Bouchillon.

2005, Dick Weissman, edited by Richard Carlin, Blues, Infobase Publishing, page 232

If Guthrie's talking blues are comedic powerhouses, the same can surely be said of his singing blues.

2019, Will Kaufman, Mapping Woody Guthrie, University of Oklahoma Press, page 26

(music) A form of folk music characterized by rhythmic speech or near-speech where the melody is free, but the rhythm is strict.