A Glossary of Musical Terms & Jazz Musicians

Posted on Sep 1, 2024 in Music

Musical Terms and Jazz Musicians

Characteristics of Musical Genres

African Music

  • Call-response
  • Flexible meters
  • Polyrhythms

Jazz Music

  • Syncopation
  • Improvisation
  • Distinct tone color

Chinese Music

  • Oral tradition/notation
  • Pentatonic scale
  • 5 note notation

Notable Jazz Musicians

Piano/Keys

  • Chick Corea

Guitar

  • Pat Metheny

Saxophone

  • Dexter Gordon
  • Joe Henderson

Drums

  • Buddy Rich
  • Elvis Jones

Glossary of Musical Terms

A
  • Atonality: Organized without reference to key or tonal center and using the tones of the chromatic scale impartially.
  • Bebop: A type of jazz originating in the 1940s and characterized by complex harmony and rhythms.
  • Bitonality: The use of only two different keys at the same time.
C
  • Call and Response: A succession of two distinct phrases usually played by different musicians, where the second phrase is heard as a direct commentary on or response to the first.
  • Chromatic Harmony: Harmony (chords) that use notes which do not belong to the key the music is in.
D
  • Diminuendo: Decrease in loudness.
E
  • Exoticism: Rhythms, melodies, or instrumentation are designed to evoke the atmosphere of far-off lands or ancient times.
  • Expressionism: Style of music where the artist or writer seeks to express emotional experience rather than impressions of the external world.
F
  • Film Music: Original music written specifically to accompany a film.
  • Fusion or Jazz Rock: Music that combines elements of both jazz and rock and is usually performed on amplified electric instruments.
H
  • Half Step: A half step is the smallest interval in Western musical scales. There are 12 half steps in an octave.
  • Harmonics: Very high-pitched whistle-like tones, produced in bowed string instruments by lightly touching the string at certain points while bowing.
I
  • Imitation: Presentation of a melodic idea by one voice or instrument that is immediately followed by its restatement by another voice or instrument, as in a round.
  • Impressionism: Musical style that stresses tone color, atmosphere, and fluidity, typical of Debussy (flourished 1890-1920).
  • Improvisation: Creation of music at the same time as it is performed.
  • Incidental Music: Music intended to be performed before and during a play, setting the mood for the drama.
K
  • Keyboard Instrument: Instrument such as the piano, organ, or harpsichord. Played by pressing a series of keys with the fingers.
L
  • Leap: Interval larger than that between two adjacent tones in the scale.
  • Leitmotif: Short musical idea associated with a person, object, or thought, characteristic of the operas of Wagner.
M
  • Minimalist Music: Music characterized by steady pulse, clear tonality, and insistent repetition of short melodic patterns; its dynamic level, texture, and harmony tend to stay constant for fairly long stretches of time, creating a trancelike or hypnotic effect; developed in the 1960s.
  • Musical: Type of American theater created to entertain through the fusion of a dramatic script, acting, and spoken dialogue with music, singing, dancing, scenery, costumes, and spectacle.
N
  • Nationalism: Inclusion of folk songs, dances, legends, and other national material in a composition to associate it with the composer’s homeland; characteristic of Romantic music.
  • Neoclassicism: Musical style marked by emotional restraint, balance, and clarity, inspired by the forms and stylistic features of eighteenth-century music, found in many works from 1920-1950.
  • Nocturne: In French, “night piece”; a composition, usually slow, lyrical, and intimate in character, often for piano solo.
  • Notation: System of writing down music so that specific pitches and rhythms can be communicated.
P
  • Pentatonic Scale: Scale made up of five different tones, used in folk music and music of the Far East.
  • Phrase: Part of a melody.
  • Polychord: Combination of two chords sounded at the same time, used in twentieth-century music.
  • Polyrhythm: Use of two or more contrasting and independent rhythms at the same time, often found in music after 1900.
  • Polytonality: Approach to pitch organization using two or more keys at one time, often found in twentieth-century music.
  • Prepared Piano: A piano whose sound is altered by placing objects such as bolts, screws, rubber bands, or pieces of felt between the strings of some of the keys.
  • Program Music: Instrumental music associated with a story, poem, idea, or scene, often found in the Romantic period.
R
  • Register: Part of the total range of an instrument or voice. The tone color of the instrument or voice may vary with the register in which it is played.
  • Rhythm Section: Instruments in a jazz ensemble that maintain the beat, add rhythmic interest, and provide supporting harmonies. The rhythm section is usually made up of a piano, plucked double bass, percussion, and sometimes banjo or guitar.
  • Rubato: Slight holding back or pressing forward of tempo to intensify the expression of the music, often used in Romantic music.
S
  • Serialism: Method of composing that uses an ordered group of musical elements to organize rhythm, dynamics, and tone color, as well as pitch; developed in the mid-twentieth century.
  • Serenade: Instrumental composition, light in mood, usually meant for evening entertainment.
  • Song Cycle: Group of art songs unified by a storyline that runs through their poems, or by musical ideas linking the songs; often found in Romantic music.
  • Symphonic Poem: Programmatic composition for orchestra in one movement, which may have a traditional form, or an original, irregular form.
T
  • Through-Composed Form: Vocal form in which there is new music for each stanza of a poem.
  • Tone Cluster: Chord made up of tones only a half-step or a whole step apart, used in music after 1900.
  • Trill: Musical ornament consisting of the rapid alternation of two tones that are a whole or half-step apart.
  • Twelve-Tone System: Method of composing in which all pitches of a composition are derived from a special ordering of twelve chromatic tones (tone row or set); developed by Schoenberg in the early 1920s.
W
  • Whole-Tone Scale: Scale made up of six different tones, each a whole step away from the next, which conveys no definite sense of tonality; often found in the music of Debussy and his followers.