Glossary of music terms
Accent: An unusual manner of pronunciation, e.
g. "Y'all sang that real good!"Accidentals: Wrong notesAd Libitum: A premiere.
Agitato: A string player's state of mind when a peg slips in the middle of a piece.
Agnus dei: A famous female church composer.
Allegro: Leg fertilizer.
Altered Chord: A sonority that has been spayed.
Atonality: Disease that many modern composers suffer from. The most prominent symptom is the patient's lacking ability to make decisions.
Augmented fifth: A 36-ounce bottle.
Bar Line: A gathering of people, usually among which may be found a musician or two.
Beat: What music students to do each other with their musical instruments. The down beat is performed on the top of the head, while the up beat is struck under the chin.
Bravo: Literally, "How bold!" or "What nerve!" This is a spontaneous expression of appreciation on the part of the concertgoer after a particularly trying performance.
Breve: The way a sustained note sounds when a violinist runs out of bow.
Broken consort: When somebody in the ensemble has to leave and go to the restroom.
Cadence: When everybody hopes you're going to stop, but you don't.
Cadenza: The heroine in Monteverdi's opera "Frottola".
Cantus firmus: The part you get when you can only play four notes.
Chansons de geste: Dirty songs.
Chord: Usually spelled with an "s" on the end, means a particular type of pants, e.
g. "He wears chords."Chromatic Scale: An instrument for weighing that indicates half-pounds.
Clausula: Mrs. Santa.
Coloratura Soprano: A singer who has great trouble finding the proper note, but who has a wild time hunting for it.
Compound Meter: A place to park your car that requires two dimes.
Con Brio: Done with scouring pads and washboards.
Conductor: A musician who is adept at following many people at the same time.
Conductus: The process of getting Vire into the cloister.
Counterpoint: A favorite device of many Baroque composers, all of whom are dead, though no direct connection between these two facts has been established. Still taught in many schools, as a form of punishment.
Countertenor: A singing waiter.
Crescendo: A reminder to the performer that he has been playing too loudly.
Crotchet: 1) A tritone with a bent prong. 2) It's like knitting, but it's faster. 3) An unpleasant illness that occurs after the Lai, if prolation is not used.
Cut time: When you're going twice as fast as everybody else in the ensemble.
Da capo al fine: I like your hat!
Detache: An indication that the trombones are to play with the slides removed.
Di lasso: Popular with Italian cowboys.
Discord: Not to be confused with Datcord.
Drone: The sound of a single monk during an attack of Crotchet.
Ductia: 1) A lot of mallards. 2) Vire's organum.
Duration: Can be used to describe how long a music teacher can exercise self-control.
Embouchre: The way you look when you've been playing the Krummhorn.
English horn: A woodwind that got its name because it's neither English nor a horn. Not to be confused with French horn, which is German.
Espressivo: Close eyes and play with a wide vibrato.
Estampie: What they put on letters in QuebecFermata: A brand of girdle made especially for opera singers.
Fermented fifth: What the percussion players keep behind the tympani, which resolves to a 'distilled fifth', which is what the conductor uses backstage.
Fine: That was great!
Flute: A sophisticated pea shooter with a range of up to 500 yards, blown transversely to confuse the enemy.
Garglefinklein: A tiny recorder played by neums.
Glissando: The musical equivalent of slipping on a banana peel. Also, a technique adopted by string players for difficult runs.
Gregorian chant: A way of singing in unison, invented by monks to hide snoring.
Half Step: The pace used by a cellist when carrying his instrument.
Harmonic Minor: A good music student.
Harmony: A corn-like food eaten by people with accents (see above for definition of accent).
Hemiola: A hereditary blood disease caused by chromatics.
Heroic Tenor: A singer who gets by on sheer nerve and tight clothing.
Hocket: The thing that fits into a crochet to produce a rackett.
Hurdy-gurdy: A truss for medieval percussionists who get Organistrum.
Interval: How long it takes you to find the right note. There are three kinds: Major Interval: a long time; Minor Interval: a few bars; Inverted Interval: when you have to back one bar and try again.
Intonation: Singing through one's nose. Considered highly desirable in the Middle AgesIsorhythm: The individual process of relief when Vire is out of town.
Isorhythmic motet: When half of the ensemble got a different photocopy than the other halfLai: What monks give up when they take their vows.
Lamentoso: With handkerchiefs.
Lasso: The 6th and 5th steps of a descending scale.
Lauda: The difference between shawms and krummhornsLonga: The time between visits with Vire.
Major Triad: The name of the head of the Music Department. (Minor Triad: the name of the wife of the head of the Music Department.
)Mean-Tone Temperament: One's state of mind when everybody's trying to tune at the same time.
Messiah: An oratorio by Handel performed every Christmas by choirs that believe they are good enough, in cooperation with musicians who need the money.
etronome: A dwarf who lives in the city.
Minim: The time you spend with Vire when there is a long line. Breve: The time you spend when the line is short.
Minnesinger: A boy soprano or Mickey's girlfriend in the opera.
Modulation: "Nothing is bad in modulation."Motet: Where you meet Vire if the cloister is guraded.
Musica ficta: When you lose your place and have to bluff till you find it again. Also known as 'faking'.
Neums: Renaissance midgetsOpus: A penguin in Kansas.
Orchestral suites: Naughty women who follow touring orchestras.
Ordo: The hero in Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings".
Organistrum: A job-related hazard for careless medieval percussionists, caused by getting one's tapper caught in the clapper.
Organum: You may not participate in the Lai without one.
Paralell organum: Everybody standing in a double line, waiting for Vire.
Pause: A short period in an individual voice in which there should be relative quiet. Useful when turning to the next page in the score, breathing, emptying the horn of salvia, coughing, etc. Is rarely heard in baroque music. Today, the minimum requirements for pauses in individual pieces are those of the Musicians' Union (usually one per bar, or 15 minutes per hour).
Pneumatic melisma: A bronchial disorder caused by hockets.
Prolation: Precautions taken before the Lai.
Quaver: Beginning viol class.
Rackett: Capped reeds class.
Recitative: A disease that Monteverdi had.
Rhythmic drone: The sound of many monks suffering with Crotchet.
Ritornello: An opera by Verdi.
Rota: An early Italian method of teaching music without score or parts.
Rubato: Expression used to describe irregular behaviour in a performer with sensations of angst in the mating period. Especially common amongst tenors.
Sancta: Clausula's husband.
Score: A pile of all the individual orchestral voices, transposed to C so that nobody else can understand anything. This is what conductors follow when they conduct, and it's assumed that they have studied it carefully. Very few conductors can read a score.
Sine proprietate: Cussing in church.
Solesme: The state of mind after a rough case of Crotchet.
Stops: Something Bach did not have on his organ.
Supertonic: Schweppes.
Tempo: This is where a headache begins.
Tempus imperfectum: Vire had to leave early.
Tempus perfectum: A good time was had by all.
Tone Cluster: A chordal orgy first discovered by a well-endowed woman pianist leaning forward for a page turn.
Transposition: An advanced recorder technique where you change from alto to soprano fingering (or vice-versa) in the middle of a piece.
Trill: The musical equivalent of an epileptic seizure.
Trope: A malevolent Neum.
Trotto: An early Italian form of Montezuma's Revenge.
Tutti: A lot of sackbuts.
Vibrato: The singer's equivalent of an epileptic seizure.
Vibrato: Used by singers to hide the fact that they are on the wrong pitch.
Virelai: A local woman known for her expertise in the Lai.
Virtuoso: A musician with very high morals
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