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Music Terms Glossary - A
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Absolute music  Instrumental music with no explicit pictorial or literal associations. As opposed to program music.

a cappella   Music for voices alone, without instrumental accompaniment.

accelerando  Getting faster.

accent  A conspicuous, sudden emphasis given to a particular sound, usually by an increase in volume.

accidental  A notational sign in a score indicating that a specific note is to be played as a flat, sharp, or natural. The most common accidentals (flats and sharps) correspond to the five black notes in each octave of the keyboard.

accompaniment  The subordinate material or voices that support a melody.

acoustics  (1) the science of sound; (2) the art of optimizing sound in an enclosed space.

adagio  Quite slow tempo.

allegro; allegretto  Fast tempo; slightly fast tempo

alto  (1) The lowest adult female voice; (2) the second-highest voice in a four-part texture.

andante; andantino  Moderately slow (walking) tempo; a little faster than andante.

antiphon  Originally, a plainchant that framed the singing of a psalm.  The term derives from the early practice of singing psalms "antiphonally"- that is, with two or more alternating choirs.

appoggiatura  A strong-beat dissonance that resolves to a consonance; used as an expressive device in much tonal music.

aria  In opera or oratorio, a set piece, usually for a single performer, that expresses a character's emotion about a particular situation.

arioso  A singing style between aria and recitative.

arpeggio  A chord whose individual notes are played successively rather than simultaneously.

arrangement  An orchestration of a skeletal score or a reorchestration of a finished composition.

ars nova  The "new art" of fourteenth-century France; refers to the stylistic innovations, especially rhythmic, of composers around 1320.

articulation  The manner in which adjacent notes of a melody are connected or separated.

art song  A song focusing on artistic rather than popular expression.

a tempo  At the original tempo.

atonality; atonal  The absence of any sense of tonality.

augmentation  The restatement of a theme in longer note values, often twice as long (and therefore twice as slow) as the original.

avant garde  In the art, on the leading edge of a change in style.

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