Pitch
The act of performing music spontaneously and without planning — that is, playing freely rather than following a composed score.
Improvisation
The speed or pace of the music.
Tempo
Stresses placed on particular notes to shape a musical phrase.
Accents
Reiteration of a pattern, either immediately after its first statement or throughout the piece of music, as a unifying feature.
Repetition
Relates to the extend of the notes used in a melody.
Pitch Range
The pitch arrangement chosen by the composer, usually based on a scale or mode.
Tonality
The grouping of beats in a piece of music and the basis for measuring musical time.
Metre
Italian term for very very soft (ppp).
Pianississimo
Two or more independent rhythms played simultaneously in different parts.
Polyrhythm.
A melodic ______ is a repeated melodic or chordal pattern heard throughout the melody, most commonly in jazz or rock music.
Riff
Literally a 'small tone', is an interval smaller than a semitone.
Microtone
The strong beat or emphasis on the two and four beat, mostly heard in mainstream or popular music.
Backbeat
Permit loud and soft elements in a piece of music, but no gradations in between.
Terraced dynamics
A pattern that is restated by the same or a different instrument as a unifying feature.
Imitation
The decoration of a melody with special features to add interest, such as a trill or glissando.
Ornamentation
Refers to the major and minor scales used in western music.
Diatonic
The patterns of long and short sounds and silences in music.
Rhythm
Italian term for 'gradually getting softer'.
Decrescendo/Diminuendo
A pattern that is repeated with the notes double their previous duration.
Augmentation
Refers to the singing of several notes to one syllable of text.
Melisma
The shape of the melody.
Melodic contour
A rhythm that is often improvised for expression. May be heard at the beginning of a piece of music as an introduction to a composition.
Irregular rhythm or 'free' rhythm
Italian term for 'with sudden emphasis'.
Sforzando
A feel or ‘groove’ heard in types of jazz music, based on two emphasised subdivisions of the beat.
Swing Rhythm
Sound is created by a clash of discordant notes and is less pleasing to the Western ear.
Dissonance