arranger
person who adapts (or arrangers) the melody and chords to songs to exploit the capabilities and instrumental resources of a particular musical ensemble
ballad
a type of song in which a story, often about a historical event or personal tragedy are sung to a repeating melody (this sort of musical form is called STROPHIC)
beats
the underlying pulse of a song or piece of music; a unit of rhythmic measure in music
blues
a genre of music originating principally from the field hollers and work songs of rural blacks in the southern US during latter half of 19th century
broadside
a large sheet of paper on which ballads were published; the predecessor of sheet music
call-and-response
a musical statement by a singer or instrumentalist that is answered by other singers or instrumentalists
chorus
a repeating section within a song consisting of a fixed melody and lyric that is repeated exactly each time that it occurs, typically following one or more verse
form
the musical structure of a piece of music, its basic building blocks and the ways they are combined
groove
a term that evokes the channeled flow of “swinging” or “funky” or “phat” rhythms
habenera
an african-influenced variant of the European country-dance tradition that swept the US and Europe 9in the 1880’s. The characteristic habenara rhythm – an eight-beat pattern divided 3-3-2 – influenced late 19th centry ragtime music
hook
a memorable musical phrase or riff
lyricist
a person who supplies the poetic text (lyrics) to a piece of vocal music; not necessarily the composer
lyrics
the words of a song
pleasure garden
a forerunner of today’s theme parks; one of the main venues for the dissemination of printed songs by professional composers in England between 1650 and 1850
riff
a simple repeating melodic idea or pattern that generates rhythmic momentum
strophic
a song form that employs the same music for each poetic unit in the lyrics
tempo
“time” in italian; the rate at which a musical composition proceeds, regulated by the speed of the beats or pulse to which it is performed
timbre
the quality of a sound, sometimes called “tone color”
verse
a group of lines of poetic text, often rhyming that usually exhibit regularly recurring metric patterns