Bend: a guitar technique in which the guitarist pulls on a string with a finger of his or her fretting hand in order to raise a note by a semitone or more.
Bottleneck: a tube of glass (or metal) that guitarists place on one finger and then slide along the strings to produce a metallic sound. This style of playing originated with the pioneers of the blues, who indeed used the neck of a glass bottle. The bottleneck is generally used in open tuning, in other words when the instrument’s six open strings form a chord (G or D, for example).
Break: an instrumental interlude that interrupts the development of a song. A hiatus, in other words, that eventually reintroduces the main musical material.
Bridge: a musical passage connecting two parts of a song. The bridge generally links the verse to the refrain.
Chicago blues: there are several different types of Chicago blues. Electric Chicago blues, an amplified version of Delta blues, is embodied mainly by the artists of Chess Records, from Willie Dixon to Howlin’ Wolf via Muddy Waters and Sonny Boy Williamson II.
Coda: this Italian term denotes an additional section, of varying length, that concludes a song or track.
Compressor: an electronic circuit that serves to amplify low-volume sounds or, conversely, to reduce high-volume sounds during recording or mixing.
Cover: a recording or performance of a preexisting song or track, usually in an arrangement that differs from the original version.
Cowbell: a percussion instrument used in popular music (such as rhythm ’n’ blues) as well as in classical music (Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss) and avant-garde music (Karlheinz Stockhausen, Olivier Messiaen) in the European tradition.
Delay: an electronically obtained effect that retards a sound signal by feeding it back to the initial signal, repeating it the desired number of times. Similar to the echo.
Effects pedal: a small electronic device whereby the sound of an instrument is subjected to a particular effect. Generally operated by foot, as in the case of the fuzz box, there are also wah-wah, distortion, chorus, delay, and flanger pedals, among others.
Fade-in: the process of gradually increasing the sound (generally at the beginning of a song).
Fade-out: the process of gradually reducing the sound (generally at the end of a song).
Fretless (bass): a (generally electric) bass guitar whose frets have been removed in order to approximate the sound of the upright bass. One of the masters of the fretless bass was Rick Danko of the Band.
Fuzz: a distorted sound effect obtained by saturating the sound signal, mainly by means of a foot pedal known as the fuzz box. The Rolling Stones, along with the Beatles (“Think for Yourself”) and Jimi Hendrix (“Purple Haze”), were pioneers of the fuzz box. This effect is used mainly on guitars.
Groove: the moment when musicians, in total communion with one another, imbue a song or track with its own special atmosphere, an alchemical process that takes in both rhythm and harmony and is felt by all the musicians as one.
Jam: a generally informal and improvised gathering of musicians motivated as a rule by the mere pleasure of playing together.
Kazoo: a device with a membrane that modifies the sound of the voice. Originally from Africa, it was adopted by blues, folk, and subsequently rock musicians.
Larsen: a physical phenomenon that occurs when an amplified output (the speakers of an amp, for example) is located too close to an input device (especially the pickup of an electric guitar or a singer’s mic). This results in a hissing noise or a strong buzz. Since the sixties, this feedback effect has been much used by rock guitarists. The best example can be heard in the guitar intro to the Beatles’ “I Feel Fine,” which is often cited as the very first Larsen effect recorded on disc.
Lead: a term that denotes the principal voice or instrument on a song or track (lead vocal or lead guitar, for example).
Leslie speaker: a cabinet housing a rotating loudspeaker, typically used with Hammond organs. The swirling acoustic effect can be adjusted as required.
Lick: a short musical phrase within a well-defined musical style (blues, rock, country, jazz, etc.), played to complement or accompany the arrangement and/or melodic line of a song.
Mute: a technique to turn off the sound on a channel strip. Alternatively, the term is used to mean deadening a string on a guitar.
Nashville tuning: a branch of country and western music that developed in the Tennessee city in the fifties, characterized by the use of string sections and backing vocalists, and representing a clear break with authentic hillbilly.
Open tuning: an alternative method of tuning a guitar to obtain a chord made up generally of the six open strings. This technique (for example, open G, D, and A tunings) is commonly used in the blues.
Overdubbing/overdub: a procedure by means of which additional sounds (for example, a guitar part or a second voice) are added to a recording. (See also: Rerecording.)
Palm mute: a guitar technique that involves stopping the strings with the right hand (in the case of right-handed guitarists), while simultaneously playing the notes with a pick.
Pattern: a sequence that recurs throughout a track and that can be repeated indefinitely to form a loop.
Phasing: an electronic effect that subjects the audio signal to various filters and oscillators, allowing a more rich and powerful sound to be obtained, especially on distorted guitars.
Playback: the partially or fully formed instrumental part of a song that provides the singer or instrumentalist with an adequate musical basis over which to record his or her performance.
Power chord: this type of guitar chord is made up of two notes, the tonic and the fifth, and is highly effective in rock music, above all when combined with distortion.
Premix: a rough mix or stage in the recording process that consists of mixing the various tracks of a multitrack tape recorder to gain an idea of the progress made so far.
Rerecording: a technique for recording one or more tracks while listening to a previously recorded track or tracks.
Reverb: an effect created in the studio, either electronically or using a natural echo chamber, in order to provide certain sounds (particularly voices) with a sense of space and acoustic relief during the recording or mixing process.
Riff: a short phrase that recurs regularly throughout a song or track.
Rimshot: a drumming technique that involves striking the rim and head of the snare drum (or tom) at the same time. This produces an accented, attacking sound.
Roots: this term, used as both a noun and an adjective, denotes a return to the origins of popular music, from blues to Appalachian music.
Score: a notated musical arrangement.
Shuffle: a musical style that originated in Jamaica in the fifties, a kind of rhythm ’n’ blues that can be seen as a forerunner of ska. Also, a slow rhythm practiced by slaves.
Songwriter: a term used in the United States to denote a single individual who writes both the words and the music of a song.
Strumming: a guitar technique that involves brushing the right hand (in the case of right-handed guitarists) across the strings, with or without a pick. This is one of the most widespread techniques employed on the instrument.
Sustain: the ability of an instrument to maintain a note over time. This is a property not least of electric guitars, on which it is frequently extended by various artificial means, such as distortion, sustainer pedals, and the like.
Topical song: a song prompted by a politically or socially conscious movement and dealing with a specific event.
Track listing: the list of songs on an album.
Walking bass: a style of bass guitar accompaniment (and left hand on the piano) that involves playing a single note on each beat of the bar. Boogie-woogie pianists made this style of playing their own in the honky-tonks of the southern United States during the early years of the twentieth century.