Musical Lingo for Those Not in the Know
Well, if it’s Greek to you, the music may not be as enjoyable, so let’s look at some basics.
It’s not really Greek. Music, in it’s own way, is a langauge all it’s own, developed over the centuries by scholars and poor men alike. Most musical terms have their root in Italian words, so it helps to know some of the common ones.
Crescendo means to increase the volume of the music, or in certain instances, for things to climax dramatically.
Decrescendo means just the opposite, to decrease the volume, and pull away from the music.
Forte` you’ve probably heard the word before, it’s Italian for ‘loud,’ or ‘boisterous’. If you’ve heard someone say ‘that’s not my forte`.’ he means, of course, that he’s not good at it. He’s literally saying ‘That’s not my loud and strong.’
Piano aside from being a musical instrument, is also a volume mark. ‘piano’ in Italian, means soft.
-issimo after a word is the Italian prefix for ‘very’ so, pianissimo means ‘very soft’ and fortissimo means ‘very loud’
Andante is a dynamic mark, meaning to play the piece at a bright, springy pace.
Retard means, literally, that is, to slow the music for a certain part of the song.
A tempo means to continue at the previously specified pace.
D.C. el fine. or Del Cappo el Finito means to play again from the beginning of the piece to the fine, or the finito.
Legatto means play the piece smoothly, without breaking the melody of the song.
Staccatto means to play very shortly, like a trot, or to separate each of the notes into individual notes.
Understanding the jargon. You may hear a musician talking about such things as ‘sixteenth notes’ or ‘fermata’ or ‘measure. Again, it’s almost like another language.
Whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, and thirty-second notes are the ones you hear mostly. They all stand for certain amounts of the beat; whole notes for a whole beat, half notes for a half beat, and so on.
A dot at the side of the note means that note gets it’s self, and another half of itself.
Measures are how music is written, usually a measure equals four beats.
Time Signature appears at the beginning of every piece of music ever written, in the form of a fraction. 4/4, 3/4 and 2/4 are common time measures. They each mean how many beats each measure gets, 4, 3, and 2, respectively.
Fermata looks kind of like a curved dash over a dot. It means to hold the note for about twice what you normally would.
A staccatto mark looks like a dot right over the note. It means play that note staccatto, or very short.
A Tie is a long swaying line between the same note in two measures, or more. It means hold that note down for the length of the entire tie.
A Slur is a long line over a lot of notes, it means to slur the notes together.
Another common term is a scale a scale is a group of eight notes, starting on the root and ending one octive in tone upwards. The notes in the scale, as you probably know are ‘Do Ray Me La So Ta Di Do’ if you’ve ever watched the movie The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Music you probably remember it.
Arpeggios are another common term, often associated with scales, [as in the movie Aristocats, copyrighted by Disney] It means to play each notes of the scale in succession.
Keys mean what key in which the music is played; or what note the scale is started on. A key can start on any note, the most popular keys are C, G, F, and a minor and d minor.
Sharps. A sharp is the note directly above a named note, a black key or a white key, on a piano. it’s the sign that looks kind of like this #.
Flats. A flat is the opposite of a sharp, one note down from the named note. It looks kind of like a b.
Naturals. A natural sign, which looks like a carelessly drawn square, cancels a sharp or a flat.
So, Now You Know. So, after reading that, you now know the basics. At least enough where you won’t feel completely ignorant.
