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Music Terms Glossary - M
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

madrigal A vocal form that arose in Italy during the sixteenth century and developed into the most ambitious secular form of the Renaissance.

madrigalism An alternate term for wordpainting, reflecting the frequent use of word painting in the Renaissance madrigal.

major mode One of two colorings applied to a key, characterized by the major scale and the resulting predominance of major triads. Generally sounds bright and stable.

major scale A pattern of seven (ascending) notes, five separated by whole steps, with half steps between the third and fourth and the seventh and eighth degrees.

major seventh A highly dissonant interval a half step smaller than an octave.

major third An interval consisting of four half steps-, a major third forms the bottom interval of a major triad.

major triad A triad consisting of a major third plus a minor third bounded by a perfect fifth.

march A military style (or piece) characterized by strongly accented duple meter and clear sectional structures.

Mass (1) The central worship service of the Roman Catholic Church; (2) the music written for that service.

mazurka Polish folk dance in rapid triple meter with strong offbeat accents.

measure (bar) The single recurrence of each regular pattern in a meter, consisting of a strong first beat and weaker subsidiary beats and set off in musical notation by vertical lines known as bar lines. melisma;melismatic (muh-liz-muh;mel-iz-mat-ic) Technique of singing in which a single syllable receives many notes.

melody (1) The aspect of music having to do with the succession of single notes in a coherent arrangement; (2) a particular succession of such notes (also referred to as tune, theme, or voice).

meter The organization of strong and weak beats into a regular, recurring pattern.

metronome Mechanical (or, today, electrical) device that ticks (or blinks) out regular tempos from about 40 to 208 beats per minute.

metronome marking A number, usually placed at the top of a piece, that indicates tempo by telling how many beats of a certain note value will be heard per minute, for example, J = 60.

mezzo (met-zoh) Medium, as in mezzopiano (medium soft).

microtones Intervals smaller than a half step.

MIDI Acronym for "musical instrument digital interface," the industry-wide standard adopted in 1982 that permits personal computers and synthesizers to talk to one another.

miniature A descriptive term for a short Romantic piece, usually for piano.

minimalism A contemporary style marked by steady pulse, simple triadic harmonies, and insistent repetition of short melodic patterns.

minor mode One of two colorings, generally dark and unstable, applied to a key, characterized by the minor scale and the resulting predominance of minor triads.

minor scale The scale in which the third and sixth degrees are the lower of two options. The melodic minor scale raises the sixth and seventh degrees in ascending passages and lowers them in descending passages.

minor third An interval consisting of three half steps; a minor third forms the bottom interval of a minor triad.

minor triad A triad consisting of a minor third plus a major third bounded by a perfect fifth.

minuet A seventeenth-century court dance in moderate triple meter that later served as the model for the third movement of Classical instrumental works. mode (1) In the Middle Ages, a means of organizing plainchant according to orientations around the seven-note diatonic scale (corresponding to the white notes on a keyboard); (2) in the tonal system, one of the two colorings, called major and minor, that may be applied to any of twelve keys.

modulation The process of changing keys in a tonal work, as in "the modulation from C major to F minor."

molto allegro Very fast tempo.

monody A style of accompanied solo singing that evolved in the early Baroque in which the meaning of the text was expressed in a flexible vocal line.

monophony;monophonic (mo-nof-ony;mo-no-fonick) A musical texture consisting of a single voice, as in plainchant.

Moog Robert, American inventor of early synthesizers. During the 1970s his most popular synthesizer was itself known as "the Moog." morality play In the Middle Ages, a monophonic drama set to music to illustrate a moral point, such as the struggle between good and evil. An example is Hildegarde of Bingen's Play of the Virtues (pages 7982).

motet A descriptive term for the several varieties of polyphonic vocal music, mostly sacred, from the Middle Ages to the present.

motive The smallest coherent unit of a larger musical idea.

movement A self-contained, largely independent portion of a larger piece, such as a symphony or concerto.

multimedia Rapidly developing technology that enables information of all kinds-text, still images, moving pictures, sound-to be stored and retrieved on a single digital medium, such as CD-ROM or videodisc.

multi-timbral A descriptive term for the ability of a synthesizer to record different timbres simultaneously.

music Broadly speaking, sounds organized to express a wide variety of human emotions.

musical theater (musical) A hybrid form of twentieth-century American musical entertainment that incorporates elements of vaudeville, operetta, jazz, and popular song.

music drama Wagner's designation for his operas. musicology The scholarly study of music and its historical contexts.

musique concrete Natural sounds that have been recorded electronically.

mute A mechanical device used with string and brass instruments to muffle the tone.

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