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Musical Terms: GTiD Glossary Page 2
Welcome to our glossary of musical terms. More terms will be added as the site grows. Words in italics are defined within the glossary.
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J
K
L
Locrian mode: See modes.
Lydian mode: See modes.
M
meter: The patterns into which a succesion of beats can be divided, due to their stress patterns. The basic metrical subdivisions all others are based on are duple meter and triple meter.
middle C: In a full-range piano, middle C is the C key closest to its center. Using international ovtave numbers, middle C is C 5. Using American octave numbers, middle C is C4.
Mixolydian mode: See modes.
mode: By changing the start and end-points of a scale, without changing the actual notes played, we get ehat are known as modes. If we use C major (C D E F G A B C) as our starting point, for instance, we have 7 possible modes:
Ionian: C D E F G A B C
Dorian: D E F G A B C D
Phrygian: E F G A B C D E
Lydian: F G A B C D E F
Mixolydian: G A B C D E F G
Aeolian: A B C D E F G A
Locrian: B C D E F G A
This is equivalent to the concept of chord inversions.
Click here for the full article on guitar modes.
N
non-tempered instrument: An instrument where intonation is not preset. Examples include the human voice, the violin, and the trombone.
note: A musical tone in a specific octave. For instance, the more general category of the musical tone B contains all possible occurances of B in a any octave: B4, B7, B1, etc. (each of which is an octave-sepecific note).
O
octave: The interval defined by the ratio 2:1. The first overtone in the harmonic series. The interval of an octave encompasses all possible musical tones.
open string:A string played without stopping (pressing it down with a finger) it.
P
perfect pitch:See absolute pitch.
Phrygian mode: See modes.
Q
R
relative pitch: The ability to calculate the height of a pitch by comparing it to a reference tone (= hearing intervals). As a broader concept, it refers to the ability to understand the structure of a piece of music through the sense of hearing. It is a complementary ability to absolute pitch.
rhythm: Repeated patterns of physical motion.
rhythm changes: A characteristic set of chord changes that is one of the basic elements of the harmonic vocabulary of Jazz. It was made popular and owes its name to the 1928 tune "I got rhythm" by George Gershwin.
S
scale: A cycle of notes, whose starting and end points are usually an octave apart, subdivided into any number of intervals.
semitone (half step): On a guitar, the interval produced by playing a string stopped in two contiguous frets, on the same string. Within the major scale, there are two semitones: between E and F, and B and C.
sight-reading: The ability to read music with no previous knowledge of the specific piece to be played.
staff or stave: The 5 lines that are used as a matrix for writing and reading notes. A staff needs a clef to set the height of the notes written on it.
T
tempered instrument: An instrument in which the player has a set of predefined notes as his/her options. Notes outside of the system cannot be played using standard techniques.
tetrachord: Diatonic scales are divided into two tetrachords: Do Re Mi Fa, and So La Ti Do. (or 1 - 2 - 3 - 4, and 5 - 6 - 7 - 1 or 8).
tenor clef: A clef that looks exactly like the treble clef, with the only exception that it has a small 8 underneath. This means that a G on the second line of a staff with a tenor clef is a G4 (G3 in the U.S.) instead of a G5).
tone: A vibration with a clearly defined wave form (usually a sine wave), and which can therefore be perceived as a clear-cut pitch. Adding more tones that are closely related harmonically results in a chord, while adding farther related tones results in a wave pattern that is no longer clearly defined. This sort of pattern is usually termed "noise".
treble clef: A clef placed on the second line of a staff and that means that any note placed on that line will be a G 5 (4 in the U.S.), and thus setting the height for the remaining notes on lines and spaces on that staff. Many people think that guitar music is written using the treble cleff, but it is actually written using the tenor clef.
U
V
W
Whole tone: The interval that results from the addition of two semitones or half-steps.
X
Y
Z
Coming soon: a glossary of musical terms with commonly used Italian, French and German wordsan etymological glossary of musical termsa glossary of Spanish musical terms related to the guitar
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