Type of couple dance in triple meter, popular in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, or a short, stylized work for the PIANO in the style of such a dance.
What is a waltz?
100
Bowed, fretless string instrument tuned in fifths (g-d9-a9-e0).
What is a violin?
100
Sign or numerical proportion, such as , placed at the beginning of a piece, section, or MEASURE to indicated the METER.
What is a time signature?
100
Sign that calls for altering the pitch of a NOTE: a sharp (#) raises the pitch a semitone, a flat (b) lowers it a semitone, and a natural (n) cancels a previous accidental.
What is an accidental?
100
Manner of choral singing without instrumental accompaniment
What is an a cappella?
200
A style of JAZZ originating in the 1930s that was characterized by large ENSEMBLES and hard-driving jazz rhythms
What is the swing?
200
Plucked string instrument popular from the late Middle Ages through the BAROQUE PERIOD, typically pear- or almond-shaped with a rounded back, flat fingerboard, frets, and one single and five double strings.
What is a lute?
200
(1) Line of poetry. (2) Stanza of a HYMN or STROPHIC song. (3) Sentence of a PSALM. (4) In GREGORIAN CHANT, a setting of a psalm verse or similar text, such as the verses that are part of the INTROIT, GRADUAL, and ALLELUIA.
What is a verse?
200
Distance in pitch between two NOTES.
What is an interval?
200
(from BASSUS) (1) The lowest part in an ENSEMBLE work. (2) Low male voice. (3) Low instrument, especially the string bass or bass VIOL.
What is a bass?
300
A type of dance music that emerged in the 1960s combining elements of Cuban dance styles with JAZZ, ROCK, and Puerto Rican music.
What is the salsa?
300
Bowed, fretted string instrument popular from the mid-fifteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, held between the legs.
What is a viola/viol/viola da gamba?
300
Speed of performance, or relative pace of the music.
What is tempo?
300
(1) A musical TONE. (2) A symbol denoting a musical tone.
What is a note?
300
A person who leads a performance, especially for an ORCHESTRA, BAND, CHORUS, or other large ENSEMBLE, by means of gestures.
What is a conductor?
400
type of music developed mostly by African Americans in the early part of the twentieth century that combined elements of African, popular, and European music, and that has evolved into a broad tradition encompassing many styles.
What is Jazz?
400
Plucked string instrument with a resonating soundbox, neck, and strings in roughly triangular shape. The strings rise perpendicularly from the soundboard to the neck.
What is a harp?
400
In TONAL music, the hierarchy of NOTES, CHORDS, and other pitch elements around a central note, the TONIC. There are two kinds of keys, major and minor.
What is a key?
400
The smallest INTERVAL normally used in Western music, equivalent to the interval between any two successive NOTES on the PIANO keyboard; half the size of a WHOLE STEP.
What is a half step/semitone?
400
A leading and successful female OPERA singer. See also PRIMA DONNA.
What is a diva?
500
GENRE of musical theater that features songs and dance numbers in styles drawn from POPULAR MUSIC in the context of a spoken play with a comic or romantic plot.
What is a musical?
500
Plucked string instrument with a resonating sound box, two arms, crossbar, and strings that run parallel to the soundboard and attach to the crossbar.
What is a lyre?
500
(1) System of NOTATION and performance practice, used in the BAROQUE PERIOD, in which an instrumental BASS line is written out and one or more players of keyboard, LUTE, or similar instruments fill in the HARMONY with appropriate CHORDS or IMPROVISED MELODIC lines. (2) The bass line itself.
What is basso continuo?
500
The use of many NOTES from the CHROMATIC SCALE in a passage or piece.
What is chromaticism?
500
(1) A group of singers or instrumentalists who perform together. (2) In an OPERA, a passage or piece for more than one singer.