| mp. | abbreviation of mezzopiano (Italian: moderately soft) |
| MP3 | (English, German f.) short for 'MPEG-1, audio layer 3', MP3 is a form of digital audio compression that reduces the size of audio files without drastically compromising sound quality. MP3s reduce unnecessary data that is imperceptible to the human ear |
| MP3-Format | (German n.) MP3-format |
| MP3-Spieler | (German m.) MP3 player |
| MPB | abbreviation of Música Popular Brasileira literally "Brazilian Popular Music", designates a trend in post-Bossa Nova urban popular music. It is not a discrete genre but rather a constellation that combines original songwriting and updated versions of traditional Brazilian urban music styles like samba and samba-canção with contemporary influences, from folk to rock and pop. Signifying much more than the sum of the three words would indicate, "MPB" is a contemporary trend that has brought the world many renowned Brazilian artists. The term can mean either any kind of music with Brazilian origins or a voice and guitar style that arose in the late 1960s |
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| MPhil | abbreviation of 'Master of Philosophy' |
| MP(s) | abbreviation of 'Member(s) of Parliament' |
| Mridangam | also mrudangam or mrdangam, a double-headed barrel-shaped drum used in Carnatic (South Indian) classical music. It is played across the lap and legs while in a sitting position |
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| Mrdangam | see mridangam |
| Mrudangam | see mridangam |
| MS | reference to the catalogue of music by Johann Melchior Molter (1696-1765) prepared by Hafner |
| MS (s.), MSS (pl.) | abbreviated form of 'manuscript' and of the plural 'manuscripts' |
| M.S. | referring to Maria Rosa Moretti and Anna Sorento, the cataloguers of the music of Nicolò Paganini (1782-1840) |
| M.S., m.s. | abbreviation of mano sinistra (Italian: left hand) or 'manuscript' |
| MSc | abbreviation of 'Master of Science(s)' |
| Mshago | a dance from the Giriama and Digo people of the Coastal Region of Kenya. This harvest dance is performed during happy celebrations of successful community achievements and bumper harvest. The dance movements originate from the style of grinding millet, which emphasize the shoulder and waist with special accentuation of the upper torso |
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| MSLS | abbreviation of 'Master of Science in Library and Information Science' |
| MSM | abbreviation of 'Master of Sacred Music' |
| Msondro | (Comoros) a terra cotta pitcher covered with a goatskin, used originally for taarab |
| M.S. sopra, m.s. sopra | abbreviation of mano sinistra sopra, 'left hand above (right hand)' |
| M.S. sotto, m.s. sotto | abbreviation of mano sinistra sotto, 'left hand below (right hand)' |
| Mt | abbreviation of 'Mount' |
| MTNA | abbreviation of 'Music Teachers National Association' |
| mt(s) | abbreviation of 'music-theatre piece(s)' |
| mu | (French) mosso, moving |
| Muance | (French) a change or variation of notes, a division, a mutation |
| Much | a lot, molto (Italian), viel (German), beaucoup (French) |
| Muda | (Spanish f.) breaking (of the voice), mue (French), mue de voix (French) |
| Mudbedsh | Iraqi reed instrument |
| müde | (German) tired, languid |
| Mudiyettu | a ritual dance performed in some Kaali temples of Ernakulam and Kottayam districts (central Kerala). The dance celebrates the goddess's triumph over the demon Daarikan. Mudiyettu is performed by the Kuruppu or Marar who belong to the temple bound communities of Kerala in Southern India |
- Mudiyettu from which some of this material has been taken
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| Mudo | (Portuguese) mute |
| Mudra | the unique signature of a composer of Carnatic music, which is inserted in the composition, usually in the form of a few unique words added to the song |
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| Mue | (French f.) mutation, breaking (of the voice) |
| Mueddin | see muezzin |
| Mue de voix | (French f.) breaking of the voice |
| muer | (French) break (of the voice) |
| muerto | (Spanish) dead |
| muestra | (Spanish) sample, complimentary copy |
| Muet (m.), Muette (f.) | (French) dumb person |
| muet, muette | (French) dumb, mute |
| Muezzin | (Arabic) or mueddin, the man who calls the Muslims to prayer at the prescribed hours |
| Muffle | to reduce the sound of an instrument, for example, on a drum, by placing a cloth over the drumhead |
| Muffled | reduction of the sound of an instrument, coperto (Italian), gedämpft (German), assourdi (French) |
| Muffler | a cushion use to terminate or soften a note made by a keyboard instrument with strings |
| Mufti | (Arabic) a Moslem doctor of religion, the official head of the Turkish Moslem clergy in Constantinople |
| (English, probably from the Arabic) plain clothes worn by someone entitled to wear uniform |
| Mugo-chum | (Korean) court dance employing a drum |
| Mugam | (or mugham) the Azeri composer, Kara Karayev, writing in Sovietskaya Muzkya (1949) explains mugam |
| "the expression mugam is used in two senses in the folk music of Azerbaijan. On the one hand the word Mugam describes the same thing as the term lad (Russian for key, mode, scale). An analysis of Azeri songs, dances and other folk-music forms show that they are always constructed according to one (of these) modes. On the other hand the term Mugam refers to an individual, multi-movement form. This form combines elements of a suite and a rhapsody, is symphonic in nature, and has its own set of structural rules. In particular one should observe that the suite-rhapsody-mugam is constructed according to one particular Mode-Mugam and is subject to all of the particular requirements of this mode" |
| mugam also describes a specific type of musical composition and performance, which is hard to grasp with an understanding of western concepts of music most notably because mugam composition is improvisational in nature. This brings the music close to jazz. At the same time - and this is antithetical to the heart and soul of jazz - it follows exact rules. Furthermore, in the case of the suite-rhapsody-mugam the concept of improvisation is not really an accurate one, since the artistic imagination of the performers is based on a strict foundation of principles determined by the respective mode. The performance of such a mugam does not present an amorphous and spontaneous, impulsive improvisation. The songs are often based on the ancient poetry of Azerbaijan, and although love is a common topic in these poems, due to their immense complexity many of the intricacies and the spiritual and romantic allusions are lost on the untrained ear |
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| Mugam-jazz | (or mugham-jazz) the Azerbaijani composer Vagif Mustafa Zadeh was one of the founders of azeri jazz music and a founder of the new jazz trend, combining both traditional Azeri music and American jazz. This genre is called mugam-jazz or jazz-mugam. His wife Eliza Mustafa Zadeh (in Soviet times known as Eliza Khanom), a professional singer, was one of the first women to sing in the new mugam-jazz style |
| Mugham opera | a hybrid genre encouraged by Soviet culture commissars to merge the high traditions of Mussorgski and Tchaikovsky with what they wrongly considered to be the simple folk music - not the real "classical" music - of the Caucasus, just as Rimsky-Korsakov had done with Sheherazade. While the plots and settings came from such Azeri epics as those written by the sixteenth-century poet Fuzuli - who, ironically, lived in Baghdad and Mosul all his life - the music and orchestration is mostly Western except for a few token arias and accompaniments using mugham scales and the kemanche, a spike fiddle, and tar, an hourglass-bodied long-necked lute |
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| Mugham scales | or mugam scales, the 70-odd scales found in Azeri traditional music, the cousins of Southern Asia's ragas |
| Mughani | (Arabic) singing men |
| mugir | (French) moo (of a cow), bellow (of oxen), howl (figurative) |
| Mühe aufwenden | (German) take pains |
| mühelos | (German) effortless |
| mühsam | (German) stentando |
| Muhusemoi | vertical flute of the Warao of Venezuela, which has three finger holes and a wide notch mouthpiece, made from the tibia (shin bone) of a deer |
| Muiñeira, Muñeira | a Spanish jig in compound duple time |
| Muitos meios | (Portuguese) or multimídia, multimedia |
| Muixeranga | the collective name given to the performance of ancient street dances and human castles, originating in the Land of Valencia, which are still preserved in the town of Algemesí, 30 km southwest from Valencia |
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| Mukhannathûn | (Arabic) the first professional male musicians in Islam emerged in the seventh century, and continued the fusion of the arts of singing and sex. The mukhannathûn were effeminate freedmen known for their association with male prostitution. Ultimately, all kinds of professional male entertainers in Islam came to be called mukhannathûn. Inevitably, the passionate art of the qiyân and the mukhannathûn aroused hostility. A treatise by Ibn Abi 'l-Dunyâ (823~~94) condemned music as being in a class with such vices as chess, wine drinking, love poetry, qiyân, and homosexuality |
| Mukhavina | see nadaswaram |
| Mukhdas | in Hindustani classical music, the first line of a song or composition |
| Mukkuri | a tension jaw harp of the Ainu people of Hokkaido Island in Northern Japan made from wood and with a thick tongue |
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| Mula | one of the three güiros, or shakers, called the caja, mula and cachimbo, or the caja, dos golpes and salidor that feature in the music of Santería |
| one of the three conga drums, named, like the guïros mentioned above, caja, mula and cachimbo or caja, dos golpes and salidor |
| Mullah | (Hindi from the Arabic) a Moslem learned in theology or law |
| Mulliner Book, The | an important manuscript collection of mid-sixteenth-century English keyboard music compiled by the organist Thomas Mulliner which is now housed in the British Museum (MS Add. 30513). It contains a mixture of liturgical pieces based on chant (e.g. organ hymns), some arrangements, dance pieces and freer compositions |
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| Multitrack recording | also 'multitracking' or just 'tracking' for short, a method of sound recording that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources to create a cohesive whole. This is the most common method of recording popular music |
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| Multifônicos | (Portuguese) multiphonics |
| Multilingualism | the term multilingualism can refer to phenomena regarding an individual speaker who uses two or more languages; a community of speakers where two or more languages are used, or between speakers of different languages. Bilinguals and multilinguals outnumber monolinguals in the world's population |
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| Multimedia | or 'mixed media', contemporary works of art that employ several distinct art forms, such as sculpture and music or painting and light art |
| Multi-measured rest | see 'multi-rest' |
| Multimetric | music in which there are changing meters (time signatures); 4/4 to 5/8 to 6/8, for example, Stravinsky's La Sacre du Printemps |
| Multimídia | (Portuguese) or muitos meios, multimedia |
| Multiórgano | patented in Havana, Cuba in 1942, by Juan Blanco, this electronic instrument uses 12 loops of chromatic recordings of voices and instruments, recorded on magnetic wires |
| Multiphonics | called 'played' multiphonics, a single player performing two or more tones simultaneously on an instrument that is usually considered monophonic |
| called 'sung' multiphonics, a single player performing two tones simultaneously one on a wind-instrument and the other with the voice, each, when used normally produce, only produce one tone at a time |
| technique of producing multiphonics with the voice is called throat singing |
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| Multipistas | (Portuguese) multitrack |
| Multiple full bar rest | see 'multi-rest' |
| Multiple measure rest | see 'multi-rest' |
| Multiple stopping | to perform two or more notes simultaneously on a violin, etc. Because the strings are not level, the notes of a triple stop will not sound together unless the chord is played loudly. This is because when playing loud the middle string can be pressed down enough for the bow to make contact with all three strings. Very often a roll of the bow to create a slight arpeggio effect, which the ear will often perceive as a three note chord, is a more desirable way to play the chord than a loudly crushed triple stop |
| Multiple-Touch-Sensitive Keyboard | originally commissioned by John Eaton, this keyboard was finished and delivered by Robert Moog in 1992. Sensitive not only to which key was pressed, it was also sensitive to the position on a key and the pressure with which a key was pressed, allowing a performer to control several musical parameters with the same gesture |
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| Multiplication | in music and musical set theory, multiplication modulo 12 is a basic operation which may be performed on pitch or pitch class sets. Dealing with all twelve notes (tones), or a tone row, there are only a few numbers which one may multiply a row by and still end up with twelve notes (tones) |
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| Multi-rest | multibar rest, multi-measure rest, compases de espera (Spanish), pausa multipla (Italian f.), pause multiple (French), mehrtaktige Pause (German f.), Kirchenpause (German f.) |
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| where a number of bars contain only rests, in instrumental parts (and sometimes in scores), the bars are 'collected' together and shown as a single bar contain a rest together with the number of consecutive bars given by a large number placed centrally above the staff over the single bar |
| Multi-timbral | (English, multitimbral German) (electronic instruments) capable of producing more than one type of tone-color or instrument sound at the same time |
| Multi-tracking | a recording technique where several tracks of sound are recorded independently but are played back together |
| Multum in parvo | (Latin) a great deal in a small compass |
| Mu (µ) major chord | an add2 chord, sometimes also called an add9 chord (the 2nd and 9th degrees of the scale are, of course, the same note one octave apart). In terms of the notes used, there is no difference between a mu major chord and an ordinary add2 chord. What marks out the Steely Dan mu major chord as something a little different is the way the chord is voiced and used. Using different voicings for the chord alters its sound, and there are some particular voicings that are used frequently in Steely Dan songs, giving a distinctive sound. Also, the harmonic context in which the chord is used affects the sound. The chord vocabulary used by Steely Dan is much richer and more jazz-influenced than most other groups, so the sound of a mu major in this context will be different from the use of an "ordinary add2 chord" in the context of more simple chords |
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| Mumbler | see 'flea-hole' |
| Mummers Plays | Thomas Pettitt (in Folk Drama Studies Today - International Traditional Drama Conference 2002) writes that "the mummers' plays were born when a cluster of traditional, seasonal, perambulatory shows (it is convenient, but inaccurate to call them "mummings") acquired a distinctly dramatic item - let's call it a "play" - probably sometime in the late-sixteenth or early seventeenth century. A mummers' play is a mumming with a play in it (except that it's not really a mumming and not really a play)" |
| Mu-mu | also muu-muu or 'Mother Hubbard', a straight simple dress introduced into the Pacific islands by missionaries |
| Mund | (German m.) mouth |
| Mundart | (German f.) dialect |
| Mundharfe | (German f.) mouth harp |
| Mundharmonica | (German f., archaic) mouth organ, harmonica |
| Mundharmonika | (German f.) mouth organ, harmonica (English, Franch f.), armonica a bocca (Italian f.) |
| Mundloch | (German n.) mouth-hole, embouchure |
| Mundorgel | (German f.) mouth organ, harmonica |
| Mundspalt | (German m.) aperture |
| Mundstück | (German n.) mouthpiece, embouchure |
| Muñeca | (Spanish f.) wrist |
| Muñecas | the gentle rotary motions of the wrists and fingers which is typical of the art of flamenco. These motions are also known as flores |
| Muñeira | (Spanish) muiñeira |
| Muñeres | (Spanish) traditional jigs from Asturias |
| Munggang | see laras |
| Muni | sage, ancient seer |
| Munnharpe | Norwegian Jew's harp |
| Münster | (German) minster, cathedral |
| munter | (German) lively, animated, sprightly, briskly |
| muntere Lied | (German n.) a lilt (a type of song) |
| Munterkeit | (German) briskness, livliness, vivacity |
| muovendo | (Italian) moving, movendo |
| Muqam | (China) in the mid-sixteenth century, the imperial concubine of the Yarkant Kingdom devoted all her efforts to collecting and compiling muqam music, which was then scattered across Uygur-populated areas. Amannisahan herself was an esteemed poetess and musician. With the help of other musicians, she finally fashion 12 grand, light, and entertaining compositions that are now known as the 'Twelve Muqam'. Strictly following the astronomical almanac, each of the 'Twelve Muqam' is divided into three parts: Cong Naghma, Dastan, and Mashrap, each with 25-30 sub-melodies. The whole set of the 'Twelve Muqam' consists of 360 different melodies and takes over 20 hours to play in full |
| the melody type used in Uyghur music, that is, a musical mode and set of melodic formulas used to guide improvisation and composition |
- Muqam from which the second extract has been taken
- Muqam from which the first extract has been taken
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| Murali | (India) double clarinet with a wind chamber |
| (India) transverse flute |
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| Murcang | see murchang |
| Murchang | also murcang or mursing, a Jew's harp from India |
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| Murciana | one of the group of song and dance forms known as cante de levante |
| Murder ballad | a subgenre of the broadstreet ballad |
| see 'moritat' |
| Mur du son | (French m.) sound barrier |
| Murga | a form of popular musical theatre, a musical play consisting of a suite of songs and recitative (heightened speech) lasting around 45 minutes, performed primarily in Montevideo, Uruguay during the Carnival season. Murga groups also operate in Argentina, though to a much lesser extent. Murga has a counterpart in Spain from which it is derived, but over time the two have diverged into distinct forms |
- Murga from which this extract has been taken
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| Murguistas | the performers in murga theatre |
| muriendo | (Spanish) morendo |
| Murky bass | or 'murky', a keyboard playing style where the bass consists of quick alternating octaves rather than slower, longer notes, in either case, the progression would have been the same |
| murmelnd | (German) murmuring |
| murmullo | (Spanish) murmuring |
| murmurando | (Italian) murmuring |
| murmurante | (French) whispering |
| Mursing | see murchang |
| Murtosointu | (Finnish) arpeggio |
| Musa | (Italian f.) muse |
| (Latin ) a song |
| MusB, MusBac, Mus.B., Mus.Bac. | abbreviated form of the university degree 'Bachelor of Music' |
| Muscadin | a type of moresco, which occurs in a piece for virginals by Giles Farnaby (1560-1640) where it is also called 'Kempe's Morris', named for William Kempe (c.1560-c.1603), one of the most famous of Elizabethan clowns, a member of William Shakespeare's company of actors. Kempe was as well known for his dancing as for his clowning, and between February 11 and March 11, 1600 he danced the 'Morris' from London to Norwich, a feat known as "the nine days' wonder" |
| Muscle memory | proprioception (from Latin proprius, meaning 'one's own') is the sense of the position of parts of the body, relative to other neighbouring parts of the body. When a musician repeatedly replays a piece, a technical passage or an exercise, the body's ability to 'remember' the activation sequence of various muscles (for example, the fingers of a pianist) means that when next the piece or exercise is played the mind can concentrate on the 'musical aspects of performance' while the required coordination has been already been developed |
| muscm(s) | abbreviation of 'musical comedy (comedies)' |
| MusD, MusDoc, Mus.D., Mus.Doc. | abbreviated form of the university degree 'Doctor of Music' |
| Muse | (English, German f., French f.) a creative artist's inspiration, usually a person |
| see 'Muses' |
| Muselar | see 'virginal' |
| Museme | a minimal unit of musical meaning, analgous to a 'morpheme' in linguistics |
- Museme from which this extract has been taken
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| Muses | or Mousai, the Greek goddesses of inspiration, learning, the arts, and culture. According to Hesiod's Theogony, Zeus lay with the Titanis Mnemosyne (Memory) for nine days, and she gave birth to the Muses, who rejoice in their bright dancing places on Mount Helicon, "nine voices united in one song". Their companions are the Graces and Desire, and their leader is Apollo, the god of music and harmony. Mnemosyne was sometimes numbered amongst the three goddesses known as elder Muses: Mneme (Memory), Aiode (Song) and Melete (Practice) |
| name | neaning of name | domain | symbols |
| Calliope | the fair voiced | epic poetry | writing tablet |
| Clio | the proclaimer | history | scroll |
| Erato | the lovely | love poetry | lyre |
| Euterpe | the giver of pleasure | music | flute |
| Melpomene | the songstress | tragedy | tragic mask |
| Polyhymnia | she of many hymns | sacred poetry | pensive look |
| Terpsichore | the whirler | dancing | dancing with lyre |
| Thalia | the flourishing | comedy | comic mask |
| Urania | the heavenly | astronomy | celestial globe |
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| the Greek poetess Sappho (seventh century BC), 'the Poetess' as Homer was 'the Poet', was known as 'the Tenth Muse', 'the Pierian Bee'; the wise Solon wished to "learn a song of Sappho's and then die". Still Sappho was known and admired all over Greece soon after her death |
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| Musette | (English, French f., German f.) French bellows blown bagpipe with 2 small cylindrical keyed chanters, and a shuttle drone which found its place in the music of the French court unlike its poor relation, the cornemuse, which seldom strayed far from its folk-music roots |
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| a gavotte-like pastoral dance with a persistent bass drone imitating the bagpipe, popular in the French courts of Louis VIV and Louis XV |
| an air or dance with drones in imitation of the sound of the bagpipe |
| keyless folk oboe or shawm |
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| a tuning used in accordions, also called "wet" tuning, where two or more sets of reeds are tuned slightly off pitch from each other, giving a vibrato effect. The degree of "wetness" is determined by how far apart the reeds are tuned |
| on an accordion, a register setting of two middle reeds together (two "clarinet" reeds equalling a "violin" reed) plus a higher octave reed, producing a pleasant, bright sound that is associated with French accordion music |
| a style of French popular music featuring the accordion, which flourished in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s |
| a reed-stop on the organ |
| Musette bechonnet | (France f.) bagpipe from the High Loire |
| Musette de cour | (French f., literally 'court bagpipe') although the small bagpipe called musette de cour is not well known as a baroque woodwind instrument these days, by the late seventeenth century it was very popular in France. It blossomed in the eighteenth century, and painters of the period like Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), bear witness to this with their paintings of the instrument. The musette had developed alongside other woodwind instruments like the flute, oboe and bassoon in the workshops of French makers such as the Hotteterre family, because, among other things, it could execute articulation and staccato like other woodwind instruments |
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| Musette de Poitou | (French f.) according to Mersenne, Poitou refers to a type of reed cap instrument. However, in the section where Mersenne mentions the hautbois de Poitou there is a picture of a bagpipe which suggests that this instrument is, in fact, a mouth-blown bagpipe with a chanter with a single key and looks like a shawm (oboe). This bagpipe may be the musette de Poitou |
| Musette d'Italie | (French f.) see sourdeline |
| Musette ensemble | a type of ensemble that performed French popular music featuring the accordion, which flourished in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s |
| Music | (Greek, from mousike, literally 'the art of the muses', which may be applied to any of the arts or sciences governed by the Muses) music is an art, entertainment, or other human activity which involves organized and audible sound, though definitions may vary. Defining music is as difficult as defining art or any other subjective phenomenon. It is a problem that has been tackled at various times by philosophers, lexicographers, composers, teachers, semioticians or semiologists, linguists and other scientists, students, and various other musicians. The elements of music often have an implicit concept of time, pitch, and energy. The presence or lack of these elements can be used to classify music. They can be organized into units with interrelated rhythm, harmony, and melody. Organizing musical sound is part of composition and improvisation. Music can invoke or convey a sense of motion in time. Because of its ability to communicate, music is sometimes described as the "universal language". Yet the "meaning" of music is obviously culturally mediated. For example, in Western society, minor chords are often perceived as "sad", an understanding other cultures rarely share. There is significant complexity in the structural elements of music which warrant the perception of music as a language. For example, genres of music can be characterized by the manner in which sound and silence are articulated, organized, and disseminated. The composition of these elements gives rise to a system which is on par with the complexities and subtleties of 'language'.
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| die tönend bewegte Form, (form propelled by sound) Eduard Hanslick (1854) Vom Musikalisch-Schönen: Ein Beitrag zur Revision der Ästhetik der Tonkunst (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft; reprint 1991) |
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| Music I, II, III and IV | in 1957, Max Mathews, an acoustic researcher at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, wrote Music I and used it to generate the first examples of digital audio. During the next years, he finished Music II, Music III, and Music IV. In 1964, Jean-Claude Risset arrived at Bell Labs and used Music IV to digitize the sound of a trumpet. It was the first successful digital reproduction of a brass instrument. It also marked the beginning of acoustic research linked to digital synthesis. |
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| Musica | (Latin, Italian f.) music, musique (French), Musik (German) |
| Música | (Portuguese f., Spanish f.) music, musique (French), Musik (German) |
| Música académica | (Spanish f.) academic music |
| Musica aleatoria | (Italian f.) aleatoric music |
| Musica antica | (Italian f.) ancient music |
| Musica a programma | (Italian f.) programme music |
| Musica a quarti di tono | (Italian f.) quarter-tone music |
| Música árabe | (Spanish f.) Arabic music |
| Musica arrabbiata | (Italian f.) burlesque music, caterwauling |
| Música artística | (Spanish f.) artistic music |
| Musica assoluta | (Italian f.) absolute music |
| Musica barroca | (Italian f.) baroque music |
| Música barroca | (Spanish f.) baroque music |
| Música bizantina | (Spanish f.) Byzantine music |
| Música brasileña | (Spanish f.) Brazilian music |
| Música caipira | (Protuguese f., literally 'hillbilly' or 'country' music) a Brazilian Portuguese term used to designate the music of the inhabitants of rural, remote areas of some Brazilian states |
| Música callejera | (Spanish f.) street music, musique de rue (French) |
| Música campesina | (Cuba) a rural form of improvised music derived from a local form of décima and verso called punto and that has become an important influence on modern son, More recently as interest in the form has waned some artists have tried to renew the genre with new styles, lyrics, themes and arrangements |
| Música celestial | (Spanish f.) high-sounding words, empty promises (figurative) |
| Música celta | (Spanish f.) music of the Celts, particularly associated with the traditional music of Ireland and Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Brittany (France), Northumbria and parts of Spain (Galacia, Asturias and Cantabria) |
| Música clásica | (Spanish f.) classical music, music of the Classical period |
| Música clásica occidental | (Spanish f.) western classical music, music of the Western Classical period |
| Musica classica | (Italian f.) classical music, music of the Classical period |
| Musica colorata | (Italian f.) musica figurata with the addition of florid decoration |
| Musica concreta | (Italian f.) musique concrète |
| Musica contemporanea | (Italian f.) contemporary music, usually taken to be music composed in the last 25 years |
| Música contemporánea | (Spanish f.) contemporary music, usually taken to be music composed in the last 25 years |
| Música coral | (Spanish f.) choral music |
| Musica corale | (Italian f.) choral music |
| Música coral religiosa | (Spanish f.) religious choral music |
| Music acoustics | see 'musical acoustics' |
| Musica da ballo | (Italian f.) ballet music |
| Musica da caccia | (Italian f.) hunting music |
| Musica da camera | (Italian f.) chamber music, Kammermusik (German f.), musique de chambre (French f.), música de cámara (Spanish f.)
[clarified by Roberto Agostini] |
| Musica da chiesa | (Italian f.) church music |
| Musica da consumo | (Italian f.) functional music |
| see Gebrauchsmusik |
| Musica d'ambiente | (Italian f.) mood music |
| Musica da salotto | (Italian f.) salon music |
| Musica da tavola | (Italian f.) table music |
| Musica da teatro | (Italian f.) music for the stage |
| Musica d'avanguardia | (Italian f.) avant-garde music |
| Música de arte | (Spanish f.) art music |
| Música de cámara | (Spanish f.) chamber music, musica da camera (Italian f.), Kammermusik (German f.), musique de chambre (French f.) |
| Música de câmara | (Portuguese f.) chamber music |
| Música de concierto | (Spanish f.) concerted music |
| Música de fondo | (Spanish f.) background music |
| Música de la antiguedad | (Spanish f.) music of the ancients, ancient music (music written before 476 CE, the end of the era of Imperial Rome) |
| Música del siglo XX | (Spanish f.) twentieth-century music, music of the twentieth-century |
| Musica del dodicesimo secolo | (Italian f.) twentieth-century music, music of the twentieth-century |
| Musica della Passione | (Italian f.) Passion music |
| Musica dell'avvenire | (Italian f.) music of the future |
| see Zukunftmusik |
| Música de los pigmeos | (Spanish f.) music of the Pygmies |
| Música del rococó | (Spanish f.) music of the Rococo era |
| Música descriptiva | (Spanish f.) programme music |
| Musica descrittiva | (Italian f.) programme music |
| Musica di corte | (Italian f.) court music |
| Musica di gatti | (Italian f.) burlesque music, caterwauling |
| Musica di Natale | (Italian f.) Christmas music |
| Musica di scena | (Italian) incidental music |
| Musica di sottofondo | (Italian f.) background music |
| Música docta | (Spanish f.) academic (i.e. learned) or serious music |
| Musica dodecafonica | (Italian f.) twelve-tone music, dodecaphonic music |
| Musica domestica | (Italian f.) domestic music |
| Musica drammatica | (Italian f.) dramatic music |
| Música durangunese | see duranguense |
| Musica d'uso | (Italian f.) functional music |
| see Gebrauchsmusik |
| Musica elettronica | (Italian f.) electronic music |
| Musica enchiriadis | an anonymous musical treatise from the ninth century. It is the first surviving attempt to establish a system of rules for polyphony in western music. The treatise was once attributed to Hucbald, but this is no longer accepted |
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| Música erudita | (Portuguese f., Spanish f.) serious, 'classical' or 'art' music, a term applied to music that does not come from either folk or popular idiom traditions |
| Música eslovaca | (Spanish f.) Slovak music |
| Musica falsa | musica ficta |
| Musica familaire | (Italian f.) domestic music |
| Musica ficta |
| (English, German f., Latin) the term musica ficta carries two distinct although not unrelated meanings, one arising from medieval and Renaissance hexachord theory and the other from modern dilemmas of editorial and performance practice |
| in the medieval sense | musica ficta involves inflections extra manum (that is, 'outside the hand' - the Guidonian hand) used to define the standard hexachords and steps of the gamut. The term is in contrast to musica recta that involves hexachords and steps within this gamut - or a transposed version of it |
| in the colloquial modern sense | musica ficta can often mean 'unwritten accidentals' supplied in performance. So where accidentals are expressly indicated (e.g. in a medieval source) this would not be musica ficta in this modern sense. However, a given accidental may be musica ficta under the modern definition, but musica recta in medieval terms. Thus if a performer reading a piece without signature chooses to sing or play Bfa (Bb) rather than Bmi (B-natural), in order, for example, to avoid a vertical or horizontal tritone, this would be an inflection within the regular gamut (musica recta) - but, in the colloquial modern sense, also an exercise in musica ficta (in that the inflection is unwritten) |
| in both senses | if either thirteenth-century or modern musicians were reading the same composition from the Florence manuscript, and singing C# although it is not indicated in this manuscript, then this would be a case of musica ficta in both the medieval sense (an inflection outside of the standard gamut) and modern sense (an unwritten accidental) |
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| Musica figurata | (Italian f.) contrapuntal music in which time values are not common through the voices as they would be in 'note against note' counterpoint, for example, decorated plainchant |
| the decorated, florid style found in early Flemish polyphony, in this sense similar to musica colorata |
| Música folclórica | (Spanish f.) folk music, popular music |
| Musica folcloristica | (Italian f.) folk music, popular music |
| Musica funebre | (Italian f.) funeral music |
| Musica getuscht und angezogen (1511) | written by Sebastian Virdung (born c.1465) and published in Basel is the oldest printed manual on musical instruments. The first section of the treatise describes and classifies instrument families, the second addresses notation |
| Música griega | (Spanish f.) Greek music (generally meaning music of the ancient Greeks) |
| Música gospel | (Spanish f.) gospel music |
| Música hispanoamericana | (Spanish f.) Spanish-American music |
| Musica humana | see musica mundana |
| Música húngara | (Spanish f.) music of Hungary |
| Música india | (Spanish f.) music of India |
| Musica informatica | (Italian f.) computer music |
| Música instrumental | (Spanish f.) instrumental music |
| Musica instrumentalis deudsch (1529/1545) | written by Martin Agricola (1483-1556) and published in Wittemberg is an important treatise on musical instruments |
| Musica instrumentis constituta | see musica mundana |
| Música jibara | typical Puerto Rican music |
| Musical | (English, German n.) a popular successor to musical comedy, the first of which was Showboat |
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| Musical | said of someone who gives a sensitive, or more properly 'appropriate' performance of a piece of music, 'appropriate' in that the performance conforms to what is generally accepted as being 'musical', i.e. observing the appropriate conventions, or of the performance itself |
| Musical | (German n.) a musical |
| Musical (s.), Musicaux (pl.) | (French m.) a musical |
| musical | (French, Spanish) musical |
| Musical acoustics | or music acoustics, the branch of acoustics concerned with researching and describing the physics of music - how sounds employed as music work. Examples of areas of study are the function of musical instruments, the human voice (the physics of speech and singing), computer analysis of melody, and determination of stylistic parameters in compositions and performances |
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| Musical alphabet | the musical alphabet, in its simplest form, consists of the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G (these letters represent musical pitches and correspond to the white keys on the piano) and, in German, the letter H. Many composers have tried to extend the alphabet using the sound of letter to mimic the names of notes (usually German names) - for example, S sounds like es = E flat (German) |
| Musical analysis | musical analysis can be defined as a process attempting to answer the question "how does this music work?". The method employed to answer this question, and indeed exactly what is meant by the question, differs from analyst to analyst |
| see 'analysis' |
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| Musical appreciation | musical education specifically aimed at developing in the inexperienced listener of music an appreciation of what he or she is hearing. This should include an understanding of the characteristics of music from different periods or drawn from contrasting genres in terms of the sound (instruments, fluctuations of dynamics (volume), mood, etc.), harmony (or chords) (simple vs. complex, sweet vs. harsh, etc.), melody (short vs. long, single vs. multiple, singable vs. non-singable, etc.), rhythm (regular vs. irregular, light vs. aggressive, etc.), and form (repetition or symmetry, short vs. long, predicable vs. unpredictable, etc.) |
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| Musical arts | Marsilio Ficino, the leader of the Florentine Academy, wrote: "It is music that inspires the works of all creators; orators, poets, painters, sculptors, architects." He continued to call those arts 'liberal arts', though in accordance with his idea the proper name would have been 'musical arts'. His idea was never published but only expressed in letters and therefore it never won a more general recognition |
| Musical bow | an instrument formed of a curved wooden staff and a gourd shaped resonator with a single string
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| Musical box | a mechanical device, powered by clockwork, invented at the end of the eighteenth century, in which a rotating cylinder fitted with suitably placed protruding pins, pluck the teeth of a chromatically tuned metal comb |
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| Musical clock | the combination of mechanical operated clock with a mechanically driven barrel-organ was produced in the nineteenth century in Southern Germany and Austria |
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| Musical comedy | a play with songs and music, catchy, comic and romantic |
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| Musical composition | an original piece of music |
| the structure of a musical piece |
| the process of creating a new piece of music |
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| Musical development | in European classical music, musical development is a process by which a musical idea is communicated in the course of a composition. It refers to the transformation and restatement of initial material, and is often contrasted with musical variation, which is a slightly different means to the same end |
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| Musical drums | drums that have a definite pitch which, on some drums such as the kettledrum, can be changed |
| Musical duel | a competition between musicians to determine which is the finer player, for example Johann Jakob Froberger vs Matthias Weckmann (1650), Georg Friedrich Händel vs Domenico Scarlatti (1707), Johann Sebastian Bach vs Louis Marchand (1717), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart vs Muzio Clementi (1781), Ludwig van Beethoven vs Daniel Steibelt (1800), Franz Liszt vs Sigismund Thalberg (1837) |
| Musicale | (French) a musical party, particularly one held in the afternoon (thus, a shortening of matinée musicale) or evening (thus, a shortening of soirée musicale) |
| musicale | (Italian) musical |
| Musica leggera | (Italian f.) light music, music for entertainment |
| musicalement | (French) musically |
| Musical ensemble | a group of three or more musicians who gather to perform music |
| Musical form |
| the term musical form is used in two related ways: |
| a generic type of composition such as the symphony or concerto |
| the structure of a particular piece, how its parts are put together to make the whole; this too can be generic, such as binary form or sonata form |
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| musical form (the whole or structure) is contrasted with content (the parts) or with surface (the detail), but there is no clear line between the two. In most cases, the form of a piece should produce a balance between statement and restatement, unity and variety, contrast and connection |
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| Musical game | see Musikalische Würfelspiele |
| Musical genius | "Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is." James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)
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| Musical genre | there is some overlap between musical form and musical genre. The latter term is more likely to be used when referring to particular styles of music (such as classical music or rock music) as determined by things such as harmonic language, typical rhythms, types of musical instrument used and geographical origin. Such categories are not strictly genre and a single geographical category will often include a wide variety of sub-genres. Categorizing music, especially into finer genres or subgenres, can be difficult for newly emerging styles or for pieces of music that incorporate features of multiple genres. Attempts to pigeonhole particular musicians in a single genre are sometimes ill-founded as they may produce music in a variety of genres over time or even within a single piece |
- Musical Form from which part of this extract has been taken
- Music Genre from which part of this extract has been taken
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| Musical glasses | a wine glass filled with water or sand which is set to produce a musical sound when a dampened finger is rubbed at an appropriate speed, and with an appropriate pressure, around the lip |
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| Musical grammar | music theorists usually refer to musical grammars as systems. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Western Europe, a particular musical grammar we call the modal system gradually evolved into the musical grammar we call functional tonality or, more simply (and arrogantly), the tonal system. This new grammar for governing the relationships of pitches and rhythms characterized most of the Western European music of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, what we now know as the common practice period. By the end of the nineteenth century, this common tonal system underwent another period of dramatic evolution which for many modernist composers lead to the adoption of radically new grammars. Now, at the end of the twentieth century, common-practice tonality - to the extent that it survives at all - is the provenance of some post-modern musicians of the "classical," jazz, and popular music styles |
| taken from Common-Practice Tonality by E. W. Williams Jr. |
| Musical hook | the 'intro' (introduction) to and sometimes the most remembered part of a song |
| Musical humour | "How can music be funny?" a bemused friend once asked me. If you don't believe music can have meaning, it's a fair question: telephone numbers, for example, are short on subtext and so rarely raise a laugh. Yet even numbers can be humorous to some people. Mathematicians say that numbers take on meanings, and some combinations can be genuinely funny. For most of us, though, such humour will seem arbitrary and personal - and isn't looking for humour in music an equally subjective pursuit? Of course not; it just takes a little understanding of the language of music, and Shostakovich was surely the great master at communicating through that language, with all the associations, nuances and references that music has |
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| Musicalidad | (Spanish f.) musicality, musicalité (French) |
| Musical illusions | Diana Deutsch's musical illusions and paradoxes show that people can differ strikingly in the way they hear very simple musical patterns. These disagreements do not reflect variations in musical ability or training. Even the finest musicians, on listening to Deutsch's stereo illusions, may disagree completely as to whether a high tone is being played to their right ear or to their left. And the most expert musicians, on listening to the tritone paradox, can engage in long arguments as to whether a pattern of only two tones is moving up or down in pitch. How do we explain these striking perceptual discrepancies? In the case of the stereo illusions, disagreements tend to arise between righthanders and lefthanders, indicating that they reflect variations in brain organization. In contrast, the way the tritone paradox is perceived varies with the geographical region in which listener grew up, so differences here are related to the languages or dialects to which people are exposed |
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| Musical imagery | imagery that comes to mind when listening to certain musical genres |
| musical imagery can be defined as our mental capacity for imagining musical sound in the absence of a directly audible sound source, meaning that we can recall and re-experience or even invent new musical sound through our "inner ear." Although perception and cognition in music has received much attention in recent years, little has been said about our images of musical sound. The field of visual imagery has attracted much research effort, partly out of the recognition that imagery is integral to all cognition, perhaps even being the very content of thought |
| Musical improvisation | singing or playing a musical instrument extemporaneously - in an "offhand" manner. This contrasts with the more conventional approach to performing musical works, which involves playing music that is read from notation, or that has been previously memorized |
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| Musical Instrument Digital Interface | or MIDI, an industry-standard electronic communications protocol that defines each musical note in an electronic musical instrument such as a synthesizer, precisely and concisely, allowing electronic musical instruments and computers to exchange data in real time. MIDI does not transmit audio - it simply transmits digital information about a music performance |
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| Musical instrument, history of | |
| Musical instrument names (abbreviated) | |
| Musical instrument names (in foreign languages) | |
| Musical instrument ranges | a large number of musical instruments are notated so that what is read is what is played. Where instruments have a large range, different regions will be notated using alternative clefs, in order to keep notes on, or close to, the five line staff. Other instruments use a convention where what is written is not what is played. For example, instruments that would play well below, or well above the musical staff, have their parts shifted by one or more octaves. Thus, a string bass part is notated one octave higher than it sounds, while a piccolo part is notated one octave lower than it sounds. Another situation occurs when writing for so-called 'transposing instruments'. These generally fall into groups and a good example is the saxophone family. All saxophonists are prompted not for a 'sounding' note but for a 'particular fingering associated with a certain written note'. So, even though different sizes of saxophone sound different notes when a particular fingering is used, on each one 'transposing parts' have been adjusted, or transposed, to ensure that the notes that sound is the ones that are required. The player can then use a common set of fingerings as he or she moves between the various sizes without having to worry about the different keys in which the instrument can be manufactured. However, this benefit is not enjoyed by recorder players who, apart from meeting parts that may have been shifted by one octave, still have to learn two 'reading-fingering' conventions, one for instruments in F and the other for instruments in C |
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| Musical instruments in church services | |
| Musica lirica | (Italian f.) operatic music |
| Musicalità | (Italian f.) musicality |
| Musicalité | (French f.) musicality |
| musicaliteit | (Dutch) musicality |
| Musica liturgica | (Italian f.) church music |
| Musicality | in dance, a term for making the dance fit the music. The goal is relating the dance to the music, to its rhythm, melody, mood |
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| Música llanera | (Spanish, literally 'plains music') the various types of music from the Orinoco River basin plains of southwestern Venezuela and southeastern Colombia, traditionally played with an arpa, cuatro, and capachos (small maracas) |
| Musically gifted | see 'gifted' musically' |
| Musical markings | written instructions about changes in dynamics, changes in tempo, etc., found in a musical score |
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| musicalmente | (Italian) musically |
| Musical montage | a technique where sound objects or compositions are created from collage. One example is Christian Marclay's playable sound collages produced by glueing together sectors of different vinyl records |
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| Musical notation | see 'notation' |
| Musical Offering | The Musical Offering (1747) provides numerous examples of Johann Sebastian Bach's interest in pervasively imitative forms: there are two keyboard ricercares (for three and six voices respectively), and ten canons of various types. The collection also contains a four-movement trio sonata, for flute, violin, and continuo. All pieces make use of a single theme, which was given to Bach by Frederick the Great. Bach is said to have improvised the three-voice ricercare before the King, and then written out the entire Musical Offering after his return to Leipzig |
| Musical periods | the simplest and one of the oldest methods of periodization is the division by calendar centuries, decades, or years in annalistic fashion. 'Period' is treated implicitly as merely a linguistic label, as a convenience in the delimitation of a topic or the subdivision of a book. This view, though frequently unintended, underlies many studies even today which religiously respect datelines of centuries or which set exact limitations of years (e.g. 1700-50) unjustified by any reason other than the practical need of some time limits. An extreme nominalism is implied in such practice. 'Period' is, in this view, an arbitrary imposition on material which in reality is nothing but a continuous directionless flux |
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the periods when Western music was written are arranged according to the following convention: |
| period | Italian | Spanish | French | German | approximate dates |
| Ancient (music) | musica antica | música de la antiguedad | musique ancienne | Musik der Antike | pre-500 |
| Medieval (music) | musica medioevale | música medieval | musique médiévale | Musik des Mittelalters | 500-1450 |
| Renaissance (music) | musica rinascimentale | música renacentista | musique de la Renaissance | Renaissancemusik | 1450-1600 |
| Baroque (music) | musica barocca | música barroca | musique baroque | Barockmusik | 1600-1750 |
| Baroque period - 3 subdivisions: |
| (1) Early Baroque | | barroco temprano | baroque ancien | Frühbarock | 1600-1650 |
| (2) Middle Baroque | | barroco medio | baroque moyen | Hochbarock | 1650-1700 |
| (3) Late Baroque | | barroco tardío | baroque tardif | Spätbarock | 1700-1750 |
| Rococo (music) | musica del rococo | música del rococó | musique rococo | Rokokomusik | 1725-1775 |
| Galant style | stile galante | estilo galante | style galante | Stil Galant
Empfindsamer Stil | 1740-1770 |
| Classical (music) | musica classica | música clásica | musique de la période classique | Klassikmusik | 1750-1820 |
| Classical period - 2 subdivisions: |
| (1) Early Classical | | | classique moyen | Frühklassik | 1740-1780 |
| (2) First Viennese School | prima scuola di Vienna | primera escuela de Vienne | première école de Vienne | Wiener Klassik | 1780-1830 |
| Romantic (music) | musica romantica | música romántica | musique romantique | Musik der Romantik | 1810-1910 |
| Twentieth-century (music) | musica del dodicesimo secolo | música del siglo XX | musique du XXe siècle | Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts | 1900-1999 |
| Modern (music) | musica moderna | música moderna | musique moderne | Neue Musik | 1945-to about 25 years ago |
| Contemporary (music) | musica contemporanea | música contemporánea | musique contemporaine | Neue Musik | last 25 years |
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| these dates should be taken only as a guide because different styles became fashionable in different countries at different times |
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| Música popular | (Spanish f.) popular music |
| Musical play | light stage entertainment that has become the 'musical' |
| Musical saw | scie musicale (French), Musiksäge (German), sega musicale (Italian), sierra musical (Spanish), serrucho musical (Spanish) |
| a wood saw with a blade of fine steel, similar to a carpenter's saw but without the teeth, that is gripped between the knees and played with a bass or cello bow, the metal saw being bent into an S-shape by the left hand so that varying the amount of pressure on the saw blade provides a means of adjusting the pitch of the note emitted |
| Musical semiology | the study of musical semiotics |
| Musical semiotics | the French author Roland Barthes (1915-1980) wrote: "semiology aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all of these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification". Music is important to a general semiotics because it is a particularly hybrid sign system. Musical sound engages a wide variety of resources for signification, from indexes of bodily states, through to the most abstract of cultural symbols. Aesthetic valuation seems to rest fundamentally both upon rule-governed stylistic norms, and upon radical individuation both in works and in their reception. Musical practice is embedded in multiple contexts and frames of reference (histories, performances, acts of composition, reception practices, and others). And finally, of all significant forms, music has perhaps the most subtle and complex relationship to verbal language and the sorts of referentiality with which it is (traditionally) associated. It is this richness that makes music an important source-case for a general semiotics |
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| Musical set theory | a post-tonal method of analysis and composition which is based on explaining and proving musical phenomena, taken as "sets" and subsets, using mathematical rules and notation |
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| Musical signs | |
| Musical switch | a medley of popular tunes |
| Musical symbols | |
| Musical symbols (encoding of) |
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| Musical theatre | a form of theatre combining music, songs, dance, and spoken dialogue |
| Musical timelines | |
| Musical training (medieval & renaissance) | |
| Musica meccanica | (Italian f.) mechanical music |
| Música medieval | (Spanish f.) medieval music, music of the Medieval period |
| Musica medioevale | (Italian f.) medieval music, music of the Medieval period |
| Música mexicana-tejana | (Spanish f.) 'Tex-Mex' music |
| Musica militaire | (Italian f.) military music |
| Musica moderna | (Italian f.) music of the 'modern era', usually taken to be from 1905 to about 25 years ago |
| Música moderna | (Spanish f.) music of the 'modern era', usually taken to be from 1905 to about 25 years ago |
| Musica mundana |
| the Pythagorean theory of 'The Music of the Spheres', as elucidated by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480-524) in his De Instituzione Musica, classifies music as follows: |
| musica mundana | the music of the universe | the orderly numerical relations seen in the movements of the spheres, the changing of the seasons, and the elements |
| musica humana | human music | which controls the union of the body and the soul and their parts |
| musica instrumentis constituta | music produced by instruments | music created by certain melodic instruments, such as the human voice, the kithara [lyre], or the tibia [flute], which exemplifies the same principles of order, especially in the numerical ratios of musical intervals |
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| Music and movement | the topic of music and movement in the curriculum is an area that has long been neglected up until recently. Educators are now becoming more aware of the benefits of a quality music and movement program because of increased studies. Researchers have found that music and movement programs have a positive impact on child development for children between birth and their primary school years in many of the developmental domains. Singing songs to children and with them will teach them about beat, tones, and lyrics which are all important in developing auditory discrimination. The use of instruments will promote fine motor development and encourage creative development. Creative movement helps children learn many concepts such as balance, coordination, rhythm, and is also an important tool for developing self-esteem and body awareness and the own development of the child itself. Music and movement has been added to the curriculum in a larger effort to bring and keep Arts Enrichment courses in the schools. Many organizations and businesses have been developed to bring programs to schools and the rest of the community |
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| Music and politics | there is a long history of the connection between music and politics, particularly political expression in music. This expression has most often used anti-establishment or protest themes, although pro-establishment ideas are also used, for example in national anthems |
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| Music and the Art of the Theatre | written by Adolphe Appia (1862-1928), and published in 1899, Die Musik und die Inszenierung this book set out his views on the staging of Wagner's operas. Appia thought Wagner both to have been limited in his concepts of staging and to have been naive in his expectation that nature could be represented on stage with realistic effect. Appia advocated an expressive rather than a naturalistic staging of Wagner's dramas. He proposed an hierarchy of scenic elements, with the actor at the top of this hierarchy. All inessentials were to be removed from the staging and, since the actor was a three-dimensional creature, also the elements of the staging should be three-dimensional with the possible exception of the backdrop. Appia was one of the first designers to understand the potential of stage lighting to do more than merely illuminate actors and painted scenery |
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| Music and the Deaf | Paul Whittaker has been profoundly deaf since the age of 8, and yet he in a professional pianist, organist and sign interpreter for major musical productions. Profoundly deaf since the age of 12, Evelyn Glennie refused to accept rejection of her desire to become a solo percussionist. She continued to follow her dream; and today she is recognized as the first classically trained solo percussionist, one of the finest in the world. While attending Kansas School for the Deaf, Shawn Dale Barnett (1963-2003), born profoundly deaf, was told that being deaf would keep him from success in the music business. There he was beaten regularly by older classmates who didn't believe his claim that he was able to play the drums. He eventually proved them wrong and won $20 in the bargain. After he graduated from K.S.D., he pursued his dream, was one of the first professional deaf drummers, and eventually became the first deaf man to have a top hit on MTV. He has also done much to communicate his sounds directly to hearing-impaired fans. His one-man show presents his "deaf music" that features a new type of rhythm, drum vibrations, speeds of time and visual effects like flashing lights, fog machines, and balloons. A lot of listeners, including other deaf people, find it hard to believe he plays and writes so well. The way he puts it is: "I go by just feeling the vibrations in one way or another."
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- Music and The Deaf - for learning about music and deafness. Music and the Deaf was founded to enable deaf people of all ages and all degrees of hearing loss to access music and the Performing Arts
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| Música negra | (Spanish f.) a type of Latin American music initially developed by black slaves in South America, in particular Peru, where it is known as musica criolla. Musica negra's influences are largely West African music and Spanish music |
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| Musica nella (della) strada | (Italian f.) street music |
| Música nordestina | (Spanish f.) a generic term for any popular music from the large region of Northeastern Brazil, including both coastal and inland areas. Rhythms are slow and plodding, and are derived from accordions and guitars instead of percussion instruments like in the rest of Brazil. In this region, African rhythms and Portuguese melodies combined to form maracatu and dance music called baião |
| Música norteña | (Spanish f.) northern Mexican popular music |
| Musica orchestrale | (Italian f.) orchestral music |
| Música orquestal | (Spanish f.) orchestral music |
| Música para cine | (Portuguese f.) film music |
| Música para gaita | (Spanish f.) music for bagpipes |
| Musica parlante | (Italian f.) recitative |
| Musica per balletto | (Italian f.) ballet music |
| Musica per banda | (Italian f.) wind music, band music |
| Musica per coro | (Italian f.) choral music |
| Musica per film | (Italian f.) film music |
| Musica per la scuola | (Italian f.) school music |
| Musica per stumenti a corda | (Italian f.) music for strings |
| Musica per stumenti a fiato | (Italian f.) wind music |
| Musica poetica | (English, German f., Latin) a term commonly applied to the art of composing music in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century German schools and universities. Its first known use was in the Rudimenta Musicae Planae (Wittenberg: 1533) of Nicolaus Listenius. Previously, music had been divided into musica theoretica and musica practica, which were categorised with the quadrivium and trivium, respectively. Since music of the time primarily meant vocal music, it was natural for theorists to make analogies between the composition of music and the composition of oratory or poetry. Hence, the term musica poetica |
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| Música polifónica | (Spanish f.) polyphonic music |
| Musica popolare | (Italian f.) folk music, popular music |
| Música popular | (Spanish f.) popular music |
| Música popular brasileira | (Portuguese f., literally 'Brazilian Popular Music') in mid-1960s Brazil, the addition of electric guitars and elements of rock music resulted in the creation of música popular brasileira, associated with Chico Buarque and others, that focused on urban protest against the military regime that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985 |
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| Musica practica | (English, German f., Latin) an element of the trivium, one half of the medieval system of eduction |
| Musica profana | (Italian f.) secular music |
| Música profana | (Spanish f.) secular music |
| Musica puntillistica | (Italian f.) pointillist music |
| Musica pura | (Italian f.) absolute music |
| musicare | (Italian) to play or sing music |
| Musica recta | see musica ficta |
| Musica religiosa | (Italian f.) religious music, sacred music |
| Música religiosa | (Portuguese f., Spanish f.) religious music, sacred music |
| Música religiosa cristiana | (Spanish f.) sacred or religious music of the Christian rite |
| Música renacentista | (Spanish f.) Renaissance music, music of the Renaissance |
| Musica reservata | a mid-sixteenth- to early seventeenth-century term applied to music of intense expressiveness, careful text setting, and elaborate contrapuntal techniques, most likely intended for an audience of connoisseurs |
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| Musica rinascimentale | (Italian f.) Renaissance music, music of the Renaissance |
| Música ritual | (Spanish f.) ritual music (for example, music written to be performed during a religious service) |
| Musica romantica | (Italian f.) Romantic music, music of the Romantic era |
| Música romántica | (Spanish f.) Romantic music, music of the Romantic era |
| Música rumana | (Spanish f.) music of Romania |
| Musica sacra | (Italian f.) sacred music, musique sacrée (French) |
| Música sacra | (Spanish f.) sacred music, musique sacrée (French) |
| Musica scenica | (Italian f.) incidental music |
| Musica secreta | (Italian f.) or musica reservata, the most intimate chamber music at court |
| see concerto delle donne |
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| Música seglar | (Spanish f.) secular music |
| Música seria | (Spanish f.) serial music |
| Musica seriale | (Italian f.) serial music |
| Música sertaneja | (Portuguese f.) or sertanejo, a term for Brazilian country music. It originally referred to music from originating among Sertão and musica caipira, but has since gained more influences from outside Brazil, in particular, American country music, Mexican mariachi, and the music of Paraguay |
| Musica sinfonica | (Italian f.) symphonic music |
| Música sinfônica | (Portuguese) symphonic music |
| Musica speculativa | (English, German f., Latin) synonymous with musica theoretica |
| Musica sperimentale | (Italian f.) experimental music |
| Musica strumentali | (Italian f.) instrumental music |
| Musica theoretica | (English, German f., Latin) an element of the quadrivium, one half of the medieval system of eduction |
| Música típica | (Spanish f.) folk music |
| Música tradicional occidental | (Spanish f.) music from the Western traditional |
| Musica transalpina | the English singer, Nicholas Yonge (c. 1560-1619) published Musica transalpina, a collection of Italian madrigals with their words translated into English in 1588. This proved to be explosively popular, beginning (or fueling) a vogue for madrigal composing and singing in England which lasted into the first two decades of the seventeenth century. Indeed, William Heather, founder of the music chair at Oxford University, included the book in his portrait, painted c.1627, confirming the longevity of Musica transalpina's influence and popularity. In 1597 Yonge published a second book (Musica transalpina: the Second Booke of Madrigalles, ... translated out of Sundrie Italian Authors). Composers such as John Wilbye and Thomas Weelkes used the pieces in both collections as models for their work |
| Musica turca | (Italian f.) Turkish music |
| Musica tzigana | (Italian f.) gipsy music |
| Musica underground | see reggaeton |
| musicaux | (French) musical |
| Música vocal | (Spanish f.) vocal music |
| Musica vocale | (Italian f.) vocal music |
| Music awards | |
| Music box | see 'musical box' |
| Music-cafés | (Greece) by the beginning of the twentieth century, music-cafés were popular in Istanbul and Izmir, owned primarily by Greeks, as well as Jews and Armenians. The bands were usually led by a female vocalist and included a violin and a sandoúri. The improvised songs typically exclaimed aman aman, which led to them being called amanédhes or café-aman |
| Music centre | (in the US 'music center') a type of integrated audio system for home use, used to play from a variety of media. The term is usually used for lower end or sub-high fidelity equipment |
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| Music cognition | an interdisciplinary field involving such disparate areas as cognitive science, music theory, psychology, musicology, neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, etc. The field aspires to account for the underlying mental processes that occur when people listen to music or perform music |
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| Music drama | when opera evolved in Florence in the early seventeenth century, it was originally termed dramma per musica, music drama |
| a term, Gesamtkunstwerke, used by Richard Wagner (1813-83) for opera that includes leitmotif and the melding of scenery, costume, libretti, music and drama, a kind of 'total opera' |
| Music education | music education comprises the application of education methods in teaching music. Music education encompasses many areas of teaching, including music history, music theory, proficiency in a musical instrument, singing skills, and general music skills |
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| Music education for young children | music education for young children is an educational program introducing children in a playful manner to singing, speech, music, motion and organology. It is a subarea of music education. There are classes for diverse age brackets, starting with children as young as three months |
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| Music engraving | the art of drawing music notation at high quality. The term music copying is almost equivalent, though music engraving implies a higher degree of skill and quality. Plate engraving, the process engraving derives from, became obsolete around 1990. The term engraving is now used to refer to any high-quality method of drawing music notation, particularly on a computer ("computer engraving" or "computer setting") or by hand ("hand engraving") |
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| Music file format |
| music file formats are used to store musical scores, instrument sound information, song and track titles, lyrics and other text and all of the events required to accurately play back a song |
| MIDI formats | the standard MIDI file format is the most popular and well supported music file format. It stores information about music in a format similar to sheet music and contains the musical notes, timing information and song text (title, author, track names, lyrics, etc.) needed to describe and play an entire composition. This format is different from other music file formats in that it doesn't store the actual sounds used to recreate the music. The sounds are defined by the hardware instruments used for playback. To overcome this audio limitation, MIDI files can be used in conjunction with files that define instrument sounds, such as the Sound Fonts (SBK, SF2) and Downloadable Sounds (DLS) files. Many MIDI file format variations have been created to combine the information found in MIDI files, instrument definition files and digital audio files. MIDI/Digital Audio sequencers are the main contributers to the large number of MIDI formats including Cakewalk's WRK, Cubase's ARR and Logic's LSO formats |
| tracker formats | tracker file formats contain both the musical score information as well as the actual instrument sound samples that are used to play a tracker song. This type of format originated with the MOD file format on the Amiga computer which had hardware that was capable of playing 4 channels of digital audio simultaneously. This capability was ahead of its time and had a great influence on the original structure and four track limitation of the MOD format. At that time, the average PC's audio device, the PC speaker, couldn't produce quality audio output beyond simple tones and beeps. As PC audio technology advanced with the introduction of the first popular sound cards, this file format began getting used in the PC world which slowly became the most popular platform for this file format (also greatly due to the discontinued production of the Amiga computer). As technology on the PC advanced further, the MOD file format grew to accomidate higher sampling rates, increased sample sizes and more channels/tracks. Before some of its earlier limitations were overcome, a huge number of "MOD-like" file formats were created to accomodate new programs that offered features beyond the scope of the MOD format. These include Scream Tracker's STM and S3M, Fast Tracker 2's IT and Composer 669's 669 formats |
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| Music for Solo Performer | in a performance of 'Music for Solo Performer', composed by Alvin Lucier in 1965, Lucier attaches electrodes to his head to detect his alpha brain waves. His alpha brain waves are then transmitted by amplifiers to loudspeakers that are used to resonate percussion instruments placed around a concert hall |
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| Music genre | see 'musical genre' |
| Music Hall | originally a reference to the building in which it was presented, an entertainment formed of a series of self-contained acts, performed by comedians, singers, acrobats, etc, that was popular from the mid-nineteenth century to the First World War. In America, 'Music Hall' was known as 'variety' or 'vaudeville' |
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| Musichetto | (Italian m.) a little musician |
| musichevole | (Italian) musical |
| Musichino | (Italian f.) a little musician |
| Music history | in musicology, music history is the study of how music has developed over time, and may include manuscript studies, textual criticism, iconography, studies of the relationship between words and music, and the relationship between music and society. Ethnomusicology and music archeology are also fields of study within music history. However, music history often means the study of the history of music theory |
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| Musician | a person who plays or composes music. A musician can be named according to his or her instrument (a violinist, for example, is one who plays violin.) The "-ist" suffix is most common, though not universal (e.g. "trumpeter," not "trumpetist.") |
- Musician from which this extract has been taken
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| Musician's brains | see 'brains of musicians' |
| Musicien (m.), Musicienne (f.) | (French) musician |
| Musicien d'orchestre (m.), Musicienne d'orchestre (f.) | (French) member of an orchestra |
| Musicienne | (Dutch) musician |
| Musicien professionel | (French m./f.) professional musician |
| Musiciens Routiniers, les | (French, literally 'the routine musicians') a movement organized in the 1980s mainly devoted to collecting and broadcasting the traditional music of Central France. The movement started in Lyon, expanded and became a federation. It was later responsible for a detailed study of traditions revolving around bagpipes and violins and for the creation of the Modal magazine |
| Musicista | (Portuguese) musician |
| Musicista | (Italian m./f.) musician |
| Musicista di professione | (Italian m./f.) professional musician |
| Musicisti | (Italian m./f. pl.) musicians |
| Music, Language of | see 'Language of Music' |
| Music lesson | while many individuals are content to play a musical instrument "by ear" or by practicing individual pieces until a reasonable proficiency is achieved, others wish to develop mastery of one or more instruments, and commonly seek formal instruction in the form of music lessons |
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| Music librarianship | the area of librarianship that pertains to music collections and their development, cataloging, preservation and maintenance, as well as reference issues connected with musical works and music literature. Music librarians usually have degrees in both music and librarianship (typically, a Master of Library and Information Science and at least a college-level music degree). Music librarians deal with standard librarianship duties such as cataloging and reference, but the addition of music scores and recordings to collections complicates these tasks. Therefore, music librarians generally read music and have at least a basic understanding of both music theory and music history to aid in their duties. |
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| Music Mouse | software written by Laurie Spiegel in 1985, that turns a computer into a musical instrument that anyone could play. As a user moved the mouse through an onscreen grid to choose notes, the computer automatically generated accompaniments and ornaments for the notes, based on the context of the user's previous choices and keys pressed on the computer keyboard |
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| Music notation | see 'notation' |
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| Musico | (Italian m., Portuguese) musician, a professor or practitioner of music |
| (Italian m.) a castrato |
| Músico (m.), Música (f.) | (Portuguese, Spanish) musician, a professor or practitioner of music |
| músico (m.), música (f.) | (Spanish) musical |
| Músico de banda | (Spanish m.) bandsman |
| Music of Albania | Albania is a Southeast European nation that was ruled by Enver Hoxha's communist government for much of the later part of the twentieth century, though it is now an independent country. Even before Hoxha's reign began, Albania was long controlled by the Ottoman Empire and other conquering powers, leading to a diversity of influences that is common in the much-fragmented Balkan region and resulting in a diverse and unique musical sound. Albanians (and the ethnic-Albanian Kosovars of nearby Serbia) are commonly divided into three groupings: the northern Ghegs and southern Labs and Tosks. Turkish influence is strongest around the capital city, Tirana, while Shkodër has been long considered the centre for musical development in Albania |
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| Music of Algeria | Algeria holds a singular place for Arab culture as a region in which the musical traditions of Islamic Spain, the Ottoman Empire, the eastern Arab countries (the Mashriq), Saharan and West Africa, Berbers, Bedouin and Europe have all interacted to various degrees. Algerian music has come to include suites called nuubaat (singular nuuba) as well as derivatives including rabaab and hawzii. Sha-bii is, in most Arab countries, folk music; in Algeria, however, it refers to a style of recent urban popular music. True styles of folk music include hofii, a form of female vocal music, and zindalii, from Constantine |
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| Music of Angola | in the twentieth century, Angola has been wracked by violence and political instability. Its musicians have been oppressed by government forces, both during the period of Portuguese colonization and after independence. The capital and largest city of Angola is Luanda, home to a diverse group of styles including Angolan merengue (based on Dominican merengue), kilapanda and semba, the last being a genre with roots intertwined with that of Brazilian samba music. Just off the coast of Luanda is Ilha do Cabo, home to an accordion and harmonica-based style of music called rebita |
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| Music of Anguilla | Anguilla is best known as part of a wave of Caribbean islands that began producing calypso and related Trinidadian genres, in many cases becoming more popular than artists from the genres' homeland |
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