GLOSSARY

     

Words or names that appear in SMALL CAPITALS refer to articles in the main part of the encyclopedia. Words that appear in BOLD SMALL CAPITALS refer to other entries within the glossary.

A CAPPELLA — literally: as the church. Choral music with no instrumental accompaniment. In the early church, only voices were used—instruments were regarded as only suitable for secular music. Barbershop quartets, unaccompanied GOSPEL groups, and all unaccompanied close harmony vocal groups perform a cappella singing.

ACCENT — the stressing of a note by the performer, either by playing it more loudly or by lengthening it.

ANTIPHONY — music that employs opposing groups of instruments or voices. These are usually spatially separated, though the contrast can also be achieved through differences in TIMBRE, range, and DYNAMICS.

ARTICULATION — the way successive notes are connected to each other in performance; also the way particular notes are played: e.g., staccato (which means short and detached), or legato (which means that the notes are joined together smoothly). Legato is indicated by a SLUR—a curved line.

ATONAL — music that is not in a KEY and has no tonal centre (that is, it has no particular key chord, or triad, that the composer uses as a point of departure and return). Early atonal music was both a progression from, and a conscious denial of, the tonal harmonic system. An example is SCHOENBERG’S Five Orchestral Pieces.

AVANT-GARDE — vanguard. Music that embraces experimentation and originality of composition with, sometimes, IMPROVISATION, to discover new forms of musical expression. The term is also used to refer to composers or artists working in this field.

BACKBEAT — a term describing the use of the second and fourth beat of a 4/4 (or 12/8) bar. The backbeat came to prominence in the 1950s with the advent of ROCK’N’ROLL.

BALLAD — a traditional song form used in FOLK MUSIC. It usually consists of four-line stanzas, with or without a refrain, and it often tells a story. Many popular songs are in the ballad form, and in JAZZ ballad has come to mean a slow tune in a relaxed tempo.

BEL CANTO — literally: “beautiful song.” A style of singing at its height in 17th-and 18th-century Italian opera, distinguished by a light, rapid, and ornamental melodic line, as opposed to the more dramatic 19th-century style.

BRRONALITY — the simultaneous use of two Keys within the same work, in order to achieve musical tension by having two tonal centres. Examples of this can be found in STRAVINSKY’S The Rite of Spring.

BRASS — tubular instruments made of brass or other metals that are activated by the player blowing a column of air through a mouthpiece, and also by varying the lip pressure against the mouthpiece. Early marching bands were composed entirely of brass instruments. In the orchestra the brass section consists of horns, trumpets, trombones, and tubas.

CADENCE — the chord sequence ending a musical phrase. In tonal music there are four types: Perfect, V–I; Imperfect, I–V; Plagal, IV–I; and Interrupted, V–VI.

CANONIC IMITATION — a type of COUNTERPOINT where the lines are the same but separated in time. This is done so that, at any one time, the listener hears different parts of the “same” line, giving a sense of imitation of one part by another. This can be done with two or more lines. It is a typical device in Renaissance and Baroque music, and was continued into the classical period, especially by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.

CHORUS — the refrain of a song that is repeated after each verse. In JAZZ, this is generally the main theme, since jazz players do not usually play the verse of a song.

CHROMATIC — a type of SCALE or HARMONY based on the division of the octave into 12 semitones, in contrast to DIATONIC.

COMPING — a technique in JAZZ that provides a solid harmonic background to the soloist-dominated (linear) sound of a band. It is usually done by the pianist or guitarist, and is essentially the articulation of the important chords at regular or rhythmically necessary points.

CONCERTO — a (usually) large-scale work for a solo instrument and orchestra, where the musical development is formed by a dialogue between the soloist and orchestra.

COUNTERPOINT — the simultaneous combination of separate lines or parts in a composition. Also known as polyphony, “true” counterpoint is that which has harmonic implications (not necessarily tonal) in the progression of INTERVALS formed by the meeting of the lines. The minimum number of lines required is two, and there is no upper limit. An example of multi-voice counterpoint is the 16th-century composer Thomas Tallis’s motet Spem in alium for 40 separate voices.

COVER — a recording of a song written and already recorded by another artist. The word came into use in the early 1950s, when record sales became financially significant. In the 1950s, white artists started “covering” songs by black RHYTHM AND BLUES artists. In the 1970s and 1980s, covers often revived old songs and made more money for the original composers. A covers band is one that plays only the music of other people, usually in performance.

DEGREES OF THE SCALE — the seven notes that make up the SCALE in the tonal harmonic system and the chords based on each of these notes. The names of the degrees, beginning from the root, or keynote, going up are: Tonic (I), Supertonic (II), Mediant (III), Subdominant (IV), Dominant (V), Submediant (VI), and Leading note (VII).

DEVELOPMENT SECTION — the part of a composition that develops the material after the initial presentation of the themes. This is usually done through the use of MODULATION into different KEYS, SEQUENCES, and the lengthening or modification of parts of the themes.

DIATONIC — a type of SCALE or HARMONY based on the division of an octave into five whole-tones and two semitones, to make the seven-note major scale from which the minor scales can be derived.

DOUBLING — a device for bringing out a line by playing or singing it on more than one instrument or voice, in unison, at the octave, or other interval, above or below.

DRONE — a held note against which other parts are composed to give a combined sense of stasis and activity. It is often used in Eastern Orthodox Church music, Indian music, and many kinds of FOLK MUSIC such as Scottish bagpipe music. It is usually called a pedal point in Western classical music as it was often held by the pedal in Baroque organ music.

DUB — a version of REGGAE music, in which tunes are stripped of all their elements, except the drum and bass rhythm section, which is then bombarded with echo. The original instruments and/or vocals are often held in place, but are mixed in and out by the producer. Dub music was most popular during the late 1970s. Prominent exponents of this music include Lee “Scratch” Perry, Augustus Pablo, and King Tubby.

DYNAMICS — the element of actual volume in music used for expressive purposes: e.g., piano means soft and forte means strong or loud. Dynamics can occur suddenly or gradually: for example, crescendo means gradually get louder.

FEEDBACK — the note(s) produced when a microphone or guitar pickup is pointed at its own speaker. This causes a loop in the signal which begins to pick up itself, thereby increasing its amplitude. At the same time it produces a pitch that is usually a related harmonic (or OVERTONE) of the note last played on the instrument or the natural FREQUENCY of the microphone diaphragm.This note steadily increases in volume. Feedback is often used for expressive purposes in ROCK music.

FIDDLE — a FOLK term for violin.

FINGERING — the pattern of finger movement used by a performer in order to play a work or passage. Particular fingerings are applied for ease of execution and also for expressive purposes, such as playing a theme or even an entire work on the bottom (G) string of a violin. This ensures a unified tone and exploits the rich, sonorous quality of this string.

FLAT — the symbol is and, when it is placed immediately before a note, it is called an accidental and lowers it by a semitone. When flats are placed at the beginning of a line or piece, they form a KEY signature that flattens the notes to which they refer for the entire piece, or until they are neutralised by a natural sign.

FORM — the overall shape or structure of a piece. Popular song form is usually ABA, AABA, or ABACADA, with the letters referring to sections containing about four lines of text. In classical music, form is more complex because works are usually longer. Typical symphonic form of the 18th and 19th centuries consisted of four separate movements, each having their own internal structure. Modern classical pieces employ many different types of form, a common one being the single movement that encapsulates the functions of the different forms in earlier music.

FREQUENCY — the scientific, or precise, measurement of pitch described as Hertz or cycles (vibrations) per second. The concert A, which is used as a standard for tuning, is 440 Hz.

FUGUE — a work using COUNTERPOINT, having a set theme or subject and countersubject from which all the material is derived. It usually has at least three parts or voices and makes use of devices such as INVERSION.

FULL SCORE — a manuscript or printed score that shows the parts for all the players. Usually orchestral.

FUSION — a type of music that combines two or more distinct musical styles, e.g., JAZZ ROCK. It usually occurs when two cultures meet through immigration or increased communication. Another example is BHANGRA BEAT, which combines Indian music with popular DISCO or club music.

GIG — A booking for a band to play for one night only. However, the term is also used simply as another word for a concert.

GLAM ROCK — a British musical movement from the early 1970s that was closely tied to fashion. Featuring artists such as the Sweet, Gary Glitter, T. Rex, Slade, and David BOWIE, bands and fans of the music wore extravagant clothes, glitter, platform shoes, and makeup.

GLEE — a vocal form developed in the 18th century in which unaccompanied (usually male) voices sing in close HARMONY. This was adopted by many U.S. university glee clubs that survived into the 20th century. Close harmony singing groups were the precursors of DOO-WOP.

GLISSANDO — a sliding effect. Sounding a succession of notes rapidly on instruments such as the piano or guitar. The notes are not played individually but are produced by moving the hand quickly across the keyboard or fingerboard. Glissandos can also be produced on bowed string instruments but these, like brass instruments, are more Suited to PORTAMENTOS.

GRACE NOTE — ornament. A decoration of the melodic line with (usually unaccented) extra notes. These are either written as small notes in the score or are improvised by the player.

HARMONICS — see OVERTONE SERIES.

HARMONY — how notes are combinedto produce chords, and how the chords are used to produce chord progressions through a piece of music. Harmony usually consists of concordant and dissonant INTERVALS that are combined according to certain rules to provide a sense of necessity in the progress of the music.

HEAD — the main tune on which JAZZ performers base their IMPROVISATION.

HOUSE MUSIC — a type of dance music that originated in the Warehouse Club in Chicago in the mid-1980s. Produced electronically, typically with 120 beats-per-minute, house music did not need instruments or performers, and boosted the importance of the DJ. Quite influential in the U.S., its importance in Europe was great, with dance music almost entirely produced electronically in the late 1980s and 1990s.

IMPROVISATION — the art of creating music in real time during performance. Improvised music, with few exceptions, obeys musical laws that are either agreed upon beforehand or are intuitively learned from the performer’s cultural background. Examples occur all over the world and include such diverse styles as FLAMENCO, JAZZ, and Indian classical music. From the 17th century to the late 19th century, improvisation was an integral part of the performance skills of classical musicians, who would always be expected to improvise the cadenza in a CONCERTO in order to display their virtuosity.

INTERPRETATION — the way in which a performer or conductor transmits a work to the listener. The choices made by the performer include TEMPOS, DYNAMICS, nuances of RUBATO, and also many things that cannot be written in by the composer—hence the importance of a good interpretation in realising the meaning of a work.

INTERVAL — the distance between the pitch of two notes. There are 12 measured intervals, including the octave: the minor/major second, minor/major third, perfect/augmented fourth (or TRLTONE), perfect fifth, minor/major sixth, minor/major seventh, and the octave. These intervals can be used in various contexts, allowing for a huge diversity in music all based on the same building blocks.

INTONATION — the type of tuning used by singers and performers of instruments with no fixed pitch, such as the violin. The term can also be used to describe a system of preperformance tuning (temperament) used on fixed pitch instruments, in various musical periods and by composers concerned with the modification of the standard intervals.

INVERSION — the modification of a theme by turning it upside down. This is done simply by inverting the INTERVALS of which it is constructed. This was a compositional device used widely in the Baroque period and also in the early 20th century movement known as SERIALISM.

IRRATIONAL RHYTHM — a rhythm, or group of notes, whose value is other than that of the pulse value in the TIME SIGNATURE. The one most commonly used is the triplet, where three notes are played in the time of two. There is no theoretical limit to irrational rhythms, and quintuplets (five) and septuplets (seven) are often used in contemporary classical music to create a fluidity of rhythm. Brian Ferneyhough is a composer who has taken the use of irrational rhythm to its physical limit.

JIG — a lively dance usually associated with Ireland but which is common in the north of England and has antecedents in many European countries.

JUMP MUSIC — a type of JAZZ music that began at the end of the 1930s. The term applied literally to the energy of dance music being made by BIG BANDS of the time. However, during the 1940s, many of the bands playing jump music got smaller, often down to saxophones, piano, bass, and drums. Jump music is often regarded as being an early version of RHYTHM AND BLUES.

KEY — the pervading pitch colour of a work that causes one particular note to be felt as the most important in a hierarchy. The tonic triad (the first, third, and fifth notes of the scale) is felt as the home chord, with related chords having a close relationship with it, and unrelated chords being used less frequently and having a more distant relationship to the key. For example, the key of D major has the A major triad as its Dominant (see DEGREES OF THE SCALE), G major as its Subdominant, and B minor as its Submediant or Relative Minor. Other chords are not related and are therefore further down the ladder of the tonal hierarchy of this key.

LIBRETTO — the text written for an OPERA or MUSICAL.

LLEDER — the German word for “songs.” Usually applied to German art songs of the 19th century, particularly those of Schubert and Hugo Wolf, who set contemporary poetry to illustrative piano accompaniments.

LINE — a part, or a sequence of notes that make up a theme or accompanying “voice.”

LYRIC — usually used to mean the words of a song, but “lyrical” implies an especially graceful melodic style. Can also describe a type of VOICE, e.g., lyric tenor.

MASTER TAPE — the final version of a recording after the final mix that is used to make the compact disc or record for commercial use.

MELISMA — a type of vocal ornament where the singer elaborates a note into a short phrase. Used in Western Baroque music, GOSPEL, and SOUL; and also in Islamic, FLAMENCO, and Indian singing styles.

METALLOPHONE — the group of percussion instruments that consists of tuned metal bars or slabs, such as the vibraphone and the Javanese saron.

METRE — the way in which time is organised in music by the “horizontal” spacing of notes to give a sense of a regular pulse or beat.

METRIC MODULATION — a rhythmical device developed and extensively employed by composers such as the American Elliott CARTER. It is the changing of perspective of an IRRATIONAL RHYTHM, such as a triplet, so that the pulse of the irrational becomes the actual METRE. This causes a TEMPO change to take place, but the pulse is not heard to speed up or slow down until one perceives a new irrational in relation to the old irrational, which is now the metre. The process can also be reversed.

MIXER — a machine used in recording that controls the dynamic, tone, and position in the stereo field of each channel that has been previously recorded separately.

MODAL — refers to music written in a MODE, usually one of the Greek modes or a mode used in FOLK MUSIC. Because the arrangement of intervals is different from those of the major and minor scales, modal music has a distinctive flavour.

MODE — a sequence of notes, usually within the octave, separated by particular INTERVALS. The original modes came from Ancient Greece, and they can be played using only the white notes on the keyboard. For instance, the Dorian mode (D to D) starts on D and is played on white notes only. However, once the pattern of intervals is fixed, the mode can be transposed to start on another note. The major and minor SCALES are derived from two of the Greek modes. Modes are important in JAZZ, and are used in MODAL JAZZ.

MODERNISM — mostly used to refer to a particular movement in the early 20th century that rejected TONALITY. The essential concept of modernism is the idea of going forward to find new means of expression in order to avoid populism and cliché.

MODULATION — the process used to change from one KEY to another, usually to further the development of a piece. Traditionally, a piece is modulated to a more or less closely related key, but composers such as Beethoven greatly increased the range of keys used.

MOTIF — a short phrase or theme used as a basis for a work. Also used as a unifying device to keep a work together. Wagner used leitmotifs, also spelled leitmotivs, meaning “leading motifs,” to represent the central characters in his music dramas, either to mark their entrance onto the stage or to underline a reference to them in the plot.

MULTIPHONICS — the production of INTERVALS or chords on an instrument that usually only plays single lines. It is done by holding a fundamental note and fingering a prominent HARMONIC above. Voice multiphonics are extensively used in the indigenous Mongolian music called Khöömiy chanting.

MUSICIANSHIP — the general skills acquired by a professional musician. They can include taught subjects such as understanding of basic harmonic movement, rapid sight-reading, ability to play in ensemble, and other skills that are more intuitive, such as IMPROVISATION and a subtle sense of rhythm.

MUSIQUE CONCRÈTE — a type of early electronic music that used recorded natural sounds that could then be manipulated in various ways so that the composition uses the actual sounds rather than a score.

MUTE — a device used on many instruments, initially designed to reduce the volume. Because of the difference in tone colour caused by the use of a mute (especially on brass instruments) many players adopted the muted sound as part of their approach—Miles DAVIS, for example. Many different types of mute have been developed to obtain certain tone colours. A popular trumpet mute is the Harmon mute, which has a movable stem to allow different filtering of the required frequencies. Mutes are often used in orchestral music, especially on the strings, where the silvery muted sound can still prevail, even though a considerable volume of sound is being created because of the number of players. In contemporary music, the use of mutes has been extended to include practice mutes (which nearly silence the instrument) and mutes made by stuffing cloth in the end of the instrument (e.g., clarinet) to get a balance of volume and tone.

NOCTURNE — a work, usually for solo piano, suggesting night and subjects associated with night. The earliest examples are those of the Irish 19th-century composer John Field, which Chopin studied before he wrote his own nocturnes. Chopin’s piano nocturnes are now universally regarded as the finest in the genre. DEBUSSY also wrote an orchestral piece in three parts entitled Nocturnes.

NOTATION — the system of writing used to convey the composer’s intentions to the performer. Many cultures do not write down music at all. Western notation has a generally standard base, with many variations according to the type of music.

OPEN TUNING — known in classical music as scordatura.The alteration of the pitch of one or more strings on a string instrument to give a particular intervallic or harmonic colour to the instrument. It is commonly used in FOLK and BLUES SLIDE GUITAR playing. An example of its use in the classical repertoire is KODÁLY’S Sonata for solo cello.

ORCHESTRATION — the craft of combining instruments to clarify the composer’s musical ideas, such as particular themes or harmonic progressions. The term was originally applied only to the use of the orchestra, but it now encompasses all types of ensemble. Classical (18th and 19th century) orchestration uses the strings to carry the main body of the music, with the woodwind used for highlighting important LINES and the brass and percussion often saved for “tutti” climaxes or ACCENTS. Modern orchestration lays more emphasis on the woodwind, brass, and percussion sections, with the strings often used in an accompanying role, as, for example, in Harrison Birtwistle’s Earth Dances.

OSTINATO — a repeated rhythmical and harmonic pattern used as an accompanying device in music.

OVERDUBBING — the superimposition of recorded material on tape in order to make multilayered music or combinations of words and music not actually performed together. This is particularly important in POP MUSIC.

OVERTONE SERIES — also known as the Harmonic series. It is a naturally occurring phenomenon whenever a pitch is produced (excepting the SINE WAVE, which is an artificially created note without any harmonics). The overtone series is an unchanging set of pitches, known as harmonics, that are present above the main note (called the fundamental). It is made up of an octave, a perfect fifth, a perfect fourth, a major third, and so on, with the intervals reducing in size. The tone colour of an instrument is largely defined by which of the harmonics are prominent. The overtone series was first measured and quantified by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, and provided the basis for the major scale and hence the modal and tonal systems of music.

PENTATONIC SCALE — a type of MODE made up only of the intervals of a major second and a minor third. The black notes of a piano make up the pentatonic scale.

PERCUSSION — instruments played by shaking or striking. The main instruments in the percussion section of an orchestra are timpani (kettle drums), bass drums, side drums, tenor drums, cymbals, gong, tambourine, triangle, xylophone, and tubular bells. Other instruments that may be used include castanets, woodblock, claves, wind machine, and many others.

PHRASING — how a line in music is interpreted and divided. Phrases are analogous to sentences in prose. The correct phrasing of a piece is essential to its being clearly understood.

POLYPHONY — see COUNTERPOINT.

POLYRHYTHM — two or more rhythms played simultaneously, producing a complex overall rhythmic pattern.

POLYTONALITY — an extension of BITONALITY where three or more KEYS are used simultaneously, sometimes known as pan-tonality.

PORTAMENTO — in contrast to glissando, portamento or a “slide” can only be done on string instruments, woodwind, trombone, timpani, and more unusual instruments such as the musical saw and slide whistle. This is because these instruments can pass from one note to another without any break. Instruments on which portamento is impossible include the piano and other fixed-pitch instruments.

POST-MODERNISM — a reaction to the extreme MODERNISM of the 1950s and 1960s. The movement originated in architecture and literature. In music it is a style or language that consciously uses devices and harmonies of older music (especially 19th-century music) and mixes them with AVANT-GARDE effects. This was sometimes done for ironic effect by composers such as Schnittke, who took actual themes and harmonic progressions from Baroque music. Other composers have tried to integrate techniques of old and new music into one language with varying degrees of success.This approach can be found in the music of Penderecki.

PSYCHEDELIA — a musical movement associated with San Francisco and the flower-power movement of the mid-1960s. Expounding hippy theories, such as free love and the use of mind-expanding drugs as recreation, the movement was also represented by artwork, clothes, and posters. Bands most associated with psychedelia are the 13th Floor Elevators, the Jefferson Airplane, and the Grateful Dead.

REEL — an ancient and indigenous Scottish dance. Also used in American folk and square dances.

REVERB — reverberation. A reflection of a sound off its surroundings, usually walls, that is heard as a slight lengthening of a note. The length of the sound of the reverb is determined by the type of material the surroundings are made of and the size of the room. Cathedrals can often have a reverb time of close to a minute in length. It is also possible to produce reverb electronically.

rhythm and blues — a genre of African-American music that emerged in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Originally called “race music,” the term applied to up-tempo “popular” pieces, whether jazz, gospel, or blues, that featured humorous lyrics. White musicians, aware of the popularity of this kind of party or JUMP MUSIC, started to adopt its qualities in the late 1940s. Bands got smaller while the beat got stronger, guitars began to dominate the sound, and vocalists became more importanl In 1949, Billboard magazine changed the name of its African-American music chart from Race Records to Rhythm and Blues. In the mid-1950s, white kids started to buy African-American hits, particularly dance music. White musicians, notably Elvi: Presley, started to record the music for themselves, and rock’n’roll was born —a kind of white version of rhythm and blues. In the 1960s, white bands started to COVER R&B tunes from the 1940s and 1950s. Although Billboardchanged the name of its R&B chart to soul in 1969, R&B has remained as a musica genre on its own. British R&B refers specifically to the beat groups of the 1960s, such as John Mayall, Alexis Corner, and the Animals, who played versions of the Chicago style of rhythm and blues.

RHYTHM SECTION — a term applied to the part of a band or group, such as drums and bass guitar, that supplies the rhythm of a piece of music. In jazz, this can be extended to include other instruments, i.e., guitar, piano, banjo, tuba, etc.

RIFF — a term used in jazz and rock music for a shortish solo phrase, usually played on the electric guitar, and usualb repeated many times in the course of the piece. Also known as a “lick.”

RUBATO — literally: “robbed” time, implying that one note or phrase is subtly lengthened at the expense of another in performance. Generally, it means flexibility in time rather than metronomic regularity.

SAMBA — a popular form of music anc dance found in Brazil, which had its roots in Africa.

SAMPLING — a process used in electronic music and TECHNO dance music where a short digital recording of a sound (usually from one to 15 seconds) is used as an instrumental colour for composition. Sampling is often used to fake the sound of a real instrument, which can then be “played” on a keyboard. More adventurous uses include sampling the sound of striking metal or other materials and then altering the sound to make an electronic percussion instrument.

SCALE — a sequence of notes, ascending or descending, that has a set order of INTERVALS separating the notes within the compass of an octave. Essentially the same as a MODE , but in Western art music it is used as a basis for the tonal system of composition, where the basic chords (triads) are derived directly from the major and minor scales. One type of major scale and two types of minor scale are recognised in TONALITY.

SCAT SINGING — a JAZZterm for using the voice as an instrument for IMPROVISATION , using not words, but rather syllables related to the sound of instruments, such as “shulie-a-bop.”

SEQUENCE — a musical phrase that is repeated rhythmically but at a different pitch, or with different harmonic implications or context. An essential part of FUGUE composition.

SHAPE NOTE — a type of notation used in rural American sacred music where the note heads have particular shapes (usually simple geometrical triangles or squares) representing the syllables of the do, re, mi nomenclature of the SCALE.

SHARP — to sharpen a note is to raise it by a semitone or half step. The symbol is # and, when it is placed immediately before a note, it affects that particular note only, and is called an accidental. As with the FLAT sign, when sharp symbols are placed at the beginning of a line or work, they form a key signature and affect all subsequent notes to which they refer.

SHORT SCORE — a reduction or original sketch for an orchestral or large ensemble work. It is written for one or two pianos and is used for rehearsal with soloists, for harmonic analysis, or as a basis for student ORCHESTRATION. It is also known as a piano reduction or, when it is part of an OPERA score, a vocal score.

SHOUT — a term used in JAZZ denoting an energetic delivery, not necessarily vocal. Thus, a STRIDE pianist can play a shout and a BLUESsinger can shout rather than sing. Shout also refers to the last full CHORUS in a BIG BAND performance.

SINE WAVE — an electronically produced pitch, free of all HARMONICS, used as a basis for sound synthesis.

SLIDE GUITAR — a style of BLUESplaying also known as bottleneck playing because the original slides were sometimes made from the necks of bottles. The slide is worn on a finger of the left hand and is held on the strings at the required note to produce the pitch. Its special function is that it can slide between notes producing a very expressive PORTAMENTO. The foremost exponent of slide guitar playing in the 20th century was Ry COODER.

SLUR — a slur is made when two or more notes are played in the same breath or bow, or without a break between them, on instruments such as the piano. It is indicated by a curved line either connecting two notes or, when more than two are to be slurred, reaching over the set of notes to be included, connecting the two outer notes of the group.

SOLO — a work for one performer. Also refers to the part that dominates a work for soloist and ensemble, such as a concerto. In a JAZZ or ROCK context it is the IMPROVISED line played by the soloist. Other terms referring to the number of players include duo, trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, septet, octet, etc. All of these terms can also be used to refer to the actual works played by that number of people. More specific terms are used in classical music, such as piano trio, which is a piece for violin, piano, and cello (or an ensemble of three musicians playing those instruments together).

SPRECHSTIMME — literally: German for speech-voice, also known as Sprechgesang (speech-song). A type of vocal production somewhere between singing and speaking that was used extensively by SCHOENBERG. BERGalso used it, but defined the actual pitches, whereas Schoenberg gives interval size only. It was also used by later composers such as BOULEZ and HENZE.

STRIDE PIANO — a style of piano playing especially used by ragtime musicians and reaching its apogee with Art TATUM.The stride bass typically used widely spaced left-hand chords, alternately at the bottom and middle of the keyboard, creating an urgent, driving bass line.

STRINGS — a term describing instruments that produce sound through the vibration of strings. They include the violin family, piano, harp, and guitar. In the orchestra, “strings” refers specif-ically to the large section of instruments comprising violins, violas, cellos, and double basses.

SYMMETRY — usually refers to phrases or formal sections that are the same in length and that balance each other rhythmically. It can also refer to the two halves of a serial TONE-ROW , which are made up of the same intervals, but with one being the INVERSION or retro-grade of the other. It can also be applied to a type of harmonic construction that has some aspect of mirror image as its basis. Phrase and serial symmetry can be found in the works of WEBERN.

SYNCOPATION — a rhythmic device, essential to JAZZ and ragtime, where there is a secondary pulse occurring between the beats of the main metre. It is also known as cross-rhythm. Syncopation was common in European art music after the Renaissance and was used extensively in the Baroque period by composers such as J. S. Bach and Domenico Scarlatti.

TECHNO — a form of HOUSE MUSIC. Originating in Detroit in 1990, it developed into a kind of hard, mainly instrumental, dance music. It was very popular in Northern Europe.

TEMPO — the “speed” of the music: for example, = 92 means 92 crotchets in one minute. In contemporary music, the tempo is usually indicated using the above notation because of the proliferation of musical styles and concepts. In older music, especially the mainstream classical repertoire Italian terms such as presto (quick) and andante (at a walking pace) were used either in conjunction with, or instead of, exact tempo markings.

TIE — a curved line connecting two notes with the same pitch. It is usually used to make one note with the combined time value of the two notes together, and is therefore used across a bar line where the one long note could not be written. The tie is also used to combine two notes of differing value that could not be written as one note, even within a measure, because of the irregularity of their values: for example, a minim and a dotted quaver.

TIMBRE — tone colour, the actual sound of an instrument or instrumental combination. The timbre is determined by the type of attack and by which notes of the HARMONIC SERIES are prominent. These are initially determined by the type of sound production; for example, a bowed string, a strike on a stretched membrane, or a vibrating column of air. Other factors include the size of the instrument, the material it is made from, and especially the performer who is playing it.

TIME SIGNATURE — the number of certain metric values in each measure. The one most often used, also known as common time, is 4/4. This indicates that there are four crotchets in each bar. Time signatures fall into two main categories of simple and compound time. Common 4/4 time is simple, while 6/8 is an example of compound time (it is divisible by more than two). Other types of time are used in the more complex languages of contemporary music, such as 11/8, which may also be written as 5/8 + 6/8. Time signatures such as this are also used in Greek and Bulgarian FOLK MUSIC. Time signatures such as 7/8 + 1/16 are common in the works of Peter Maxwell Davies, giving a flowing, unmetred sense of rhythm.

TONALITY — the main system of harmony in Western music used from the end of the Renaissance up to the mid-20th century. It is still widely used in popular music. Its basis is that of the major and minor KEYS and the tensions created by the travelling to and away from a tonic or home key. Tonality to a large extent also determined the form of music by using other keys as reference points in the flow of the music.

TONE CLUSTER — a very densely packed chord made up mainly of semitones. Tone clusters were used by many AVANT-GARDE composers, especially in piano music, in order to achieve a percussive effect without having to be committed to a particular pitch, interval, or harmony.

TONE-ROW — or note-row. The sequences of notes used in 12-note (or dodecaphonic) composition, developed especially by SCHOENBERG. The tone-row is made up of all 12 semitones of the CHROMATIC scale, used in an arbitrary order decided on by the composer, where no note is more important in the composition than any other (as opposed to the tonic and dominant of the ordinary KEY).

TRIPTYCH — a work in three parts. The name is taken from the three-part construction of a painting, engraving, or sculpture for a church altar in which the two outer parts form doors that can close onto and obscure the central portion.

TRITONE — the INTERVAL of an augmented fourth, or diminished fifth. It is made up of three whole tones, hence the name. Its dissonant nature, the fact that it exactly divides the perfect interval of the octave, and its implication of numerical perfection caused its use to be banned in early church music.

12-BAR BLUES — the harmonic and formal basis for the BLUES and much of early JAZZ. It is a simple cycle of 12 bars and three chords with strict rules of composition. It consists of four bars of the tonic chord (for example, A major), followed by two bars of the sub-dominant (D major), then two bars of the tonic. This is followed by one bar of the dominant (E major), one bar of the subdominant, then two bars of the tonic. The sequence is therefore I, I, I, I, IV, IV, I, I, V, IV, I, I. In jazz, this chord sequence is often modified by using substitute chords, but with reference to the same underlying harmonic structure.

VIBRATO — a rapid but small fluctuation of pitch above and below a note produced by a singer or instrumental performer. The vibrato in singing occurs naturally in a trained voice and is consciously reproduced on instruments, particularly string instruments such as violins, in order to mimic the voice and add expression to music.

VOICE TYPES — types of voices fall into the main categories of soprano, mezzo-soprano, and contralto for women and countertenor, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass for men. In opera, the particular voice type is usually chosen for the kind of dramatic role required. For example, the role of hero or lead is usually given to the tenor, with the baritone playing the father or uncle figure, that is, a man of wisdom or age. The leading roles for women are usually soprano, and the secondary roles are usually sung by contraltos. The other voices are used mainly in concert works and in choirs. In some choirs, particularly church choirs, boys’ voices are used instead of women sopranos because of their purity of tone and ability to sing very high notes effortlessly.

VOICING — the way in which the notes of a chord are distributed. A chord can be said to be in an open or closed position, depending on the size of the INTERVALS between the notes, and this gives either a sense of clarity or density. Voicing is extremely important when the chord is part of a progression, because the movement from any one note in one chord to a note in the next chord makes a discernible LINE, which is called voice leading.

WOODWIND — tubular instruments originally made of wood, but the group now includes metal instruments such as the flute and saxophone. They are played by blowing a column of air through the mouthpiece, either through a reed, or over an edge. Different notes are produced by covering or uncovering fingerholes along the length of the tube. The woodwind section of an orchestra consists of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. Other woodwind instruments are the recorder, the saxophone, and the piccolo.