Atonality
Music lacking a tonal center or key
Ballet–classical
A style of dance based on precise conventional steps performed with graceful and flowing movements. Adheres strictly to technique
Beat
Rhythm
Cadence
A progression of (at least) two chords that concludes a phrase, section, or piece of music. Alternatively, a characteristic rhythmic pattern indicating the end of a phrase
Chromatic Scale
A 12-note scale including all the semitones of the octave
Diatonic Scale
A scale with eight notes in an octave; all but two are separated by whole tones
Diatonic Scale
A scale with eight notes in an octave; all but two are separated by whole tones
Concerto
A composition, usually in three parts or movements written for a soloist accompanied by an orchestra
Dissonance
Harmonically unresolved chord/notes
Consonance
A stable or harmonic interval (chord)
Dynamics
the volume of a given note(s)
Fugue
a musical form consisting of a theme repeated a fifth above or a fourth below its first statement. The various themes are called “voices”
Harmony
The use of simultaneous pitches and/or chords of stable intervals
Improvisation
The creative activity of immediate musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other
musicians
Jazz
The music genre that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions
Libretto
The text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, musical, ballet, etc.
Major Scale
A diatonic scales made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. Its notes are separated by whole tones except for the 3rd-4th and 7th-8th
Minor Scale
A diatonic scale with notes separated by whole tones except for the 2nd-3rd and 5th-6th
Meter
Rhythm as given by division into parts of equal duration
Motif
A short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition
Octave
A musical interval of eight tones
Pitch
The property of sound that varies with variation in the frequency of vibration
Prelude
Music that precedes a fugue or introduces an act in an opera
Symphony
An extended musical composition, scored almost always for orchestra.
Syncopation
A variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak beats in a meter (pulse)
Theme
The material, usually a recognizable melody, upon which part or all of a composition is based
Theme and variations
The formal technique where material (in this case the theme) is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these
Timbre
The term used to denote the tone color of a specified instrument or piece of music, for example, “rough” or “bell-like.”
Twelve-tone
A system of composition developed by Schoenberg in which each note of the chromatic scale is used as part of a melody before any other note gets repeated