A kind of vocal music, sung from the 1200s to the 1500s. These songs were based on poems about love and country life.
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A kind of vocal music, sung from the 1200s to the 1500s. These songs were based on poems about love and country life.
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Italian word for a very good musician or leader of a group.
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A stepwise series of whole and half steps arranged: whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole half.
This creates major intervals at the third, sixth, and seventh steps of the scale.
See also: Interval
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A string instrument like the lute, but with a neck like a guitar. The neck is shorter, but the mandolin is played like a guitar.
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A rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music
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Music used in parades. A march keeps the same time (for example, “1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4”) so that everyone moves at the same time.
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A percussion instrument from Mexico, the marimba is like the xylophone, but has wooden bars that you hit with a mallet.
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A Polish dance in 3/4 time.
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Traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe, a mbira is usually made of a wooden board with attached metal tines, and is played with the thumbs.
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This is the space between two lines drawn through the music staff. You can tell how fast or slow a piece of music is by looking at how many beats there are in a measure.
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Notes that are played one after the other to make a tune (a melody).
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The rhythmic pattern made in music by putting together strong and weak beats (strong beats last longer than weak beats).
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A tool to help a musician count the right number of beats. A little rod swings back and forth to count each beat. The speed of the metronome is set to the speed of the piece of music.
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Italian for “half.” Examples: mezza voce means half the vocal (or instrumental) power; mezzoforte (mf) means half loud or moderately loud; and mezzopiano (mp) means half soft or moderately soft.
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A woman’s voice with a range between contralto and soprano; also, a person having this voice.
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An electronic device that people speak, sing or play into that helps make sounds louder on radio, TV, and for concerts. Also used to help record sounds on tapes and CDs.
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The note C in the middle of the keyboard.
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A kind of scale (like the major scale). There are many ways it is different from a major scale. One main difference is that the third note of a minor scale is always a half step lower than the third note of a major scale.
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A musician in the Middle Ages.
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A slow, graceful dance in ¾ time that started in the 1700’s in the French court. Gradually, the minuet began to be used as a musical form, especially as the third movement of symphonies.
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Scales used to compose music. Ancient modes were established in the Middle Ages. Two of them are today’s major and minor scales: the Ionian mode is the major scale, and the Aeolian mode is the natural minor scale.
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Having a single unaccompanied melody
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A section within a larger musical work. It is usually self-contained and separated by silence from other sections.
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A wooden double-headed drum, originally from southern India.
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Sound organized by using elements of melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre.
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A simple string instrument used by a number of South African peoples, that consists of a flexible stick and strung end to end with a taut cord, usually metal. It can be played with the hands or a wooden stick or branch.
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The study of music.
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The name of different tools used to soften the tone of instruments. For example, a drum mute is a piece of cloth spread over the top of the drum, and horn mutes are put in the bell so the sound is more quiet.
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