Music Terms (General and Organized by Historical Period) for Matthews & Platt textbook, 5th edition

Please use the glossary in the back of your book to copy out definitions of these terms onto a printout of this list; copying them will help you recognize the meaning in context when you read about music. We will also use some of them in class lectures. I have organized these terms by the period in which they first became important, and most of them were used in later periods as well.

General Terms (found throughout the book)

a cappella

canon

choir, chorus

harmony

[iso]rhythm

key

liturgy [liturgical music]  [sacred music] vs. secular music

melody

microtone

mood

octave

refrain, ritornello

scale

"set to music"

tempo, the relative speed at which a composition should be played (often indicated by a metronome marking)

texture

theme

tone

Ancient World, 3000 B.C.E. - 600 C.E. (350-600 Church Fathers)

aulos

bard

chorus

hymn

lyre

lyric poetry

modes

orchestra

pantomime

Middle Ages, 500 C. E. - 1500 C. E. (500-850 Early Middle Ages, 850-1150 Romanesque architecture (1000 began use of musical staff in notation), 1150-1450 Gothic architecture

ars nova

canzone

consort

Gregorian chant

lay

lute

minstrel

monophony

motet

organum

trope

troubadour

Renaissance, 1300-1650

chanson

fugue

madrigal

oratorio

pavane

polyphony

word painting

Baroque 1600-1750, Rococo 1725-1775,  Classical 1750-1830 (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven)

concerto

libretto

neoclassical style

piano[forte]

scherzo

sonata, an instrumental composition in three or four movements (sections) that vary in key, tempo, and mood

style galant

symphony

Romanticism, 1800-1900

art song (Lied, ie pronounced as in Wieding)

glissando

program music

Opera, 1600-present; a genre, not a style or historical period

aria

bel canto

leitmotif

music drama

recitative

Modernism, 20th Century (1890-1915 Post-Romantic)

atonality

blues

impressionism

jazz

ragtime

serial music

syncopation

synthesizer

twelve-tone scale