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The rackett was an old musical wind instrument of the double bassoon kind, having ventages but not keys. It was not of an extended compass, being incapable of producing harmonics. It was a double-reed instrument, the reed being at the end of a tube through which the player blew. The tone was nasal and produced with difficulty. The rackett was improved by Denner at the end of the 18th century, but was replaced by the bassoon.
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Ragtime is a style of musical time characterised by syncopation, and common in many Negro melodies.
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In music rallentando is a direction to perform a passage with a gradual decrease in time and force.
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The Rebec is an obsolete form of stringed musical instrument of Middle Eastern origin which was popular during the Middle Ages. It was the precursor of the viol, was shaped somewhat like a mandolin, had three gut strings and was played with a bow. Henry VIII included the instrument in his state band, but later it was rarely used except by street musicians.
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A recital is a musical vocal or instrumental performance by one person as distinguished from a concert.
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A recitative is a species of musical recitation in which the words are delivered in a manner resembling that of ordinary declamation.
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The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument. It is an end-blown flute with a fipple mouth-piece and eight finger holes, producing a soft mellow tone. Recorders are produced in various sizes, the most common being the soprano or descant recorder frequently learned by school children. Recorders were historically produced in a fingering system now known as historical, later in the 20th century a new fingering system known as modern was developed in England which involved making the fifth hole on the recorder somewhat larger and/or higher. From being developed in England this system received its alternative name of the English system, and confusingly was also called the baroque system (the true baroque system was applied to recorders of the 17yth and 18th centuries). At the same time in Germany a rival fingering system, known as the German system was developed. Most modern recorders utilise the Modern (English, pseudo-baroque) fingering system.
Recorders are produced in either wood or plastic. Low cost or student recorders are typically made from plastic, and while fairly resistant to errors in breathing technique, are also prone to squeak. Wooden recorders are more expensive, require firmer blowing by the player and produce a more mellow tone. Harder woods produce recorders more capable of expressing the individuality of the player, with the down side of being less tolerant to breathing errors and more difficult to play.
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The redowa is the national dance of Bohemia.
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In music a reed is a small piece of cane or wood attached to the mouthpiece of certain instruments, and set in vibration by the breath. In the clarinet it is a single fiat reed; in the oboe and bassoon it is double, forming a compressed tube. The term reed also describes one of the thin pieces of metal, the vibration of which produce the tones of a melodeon, accordion, harmonium, or seraphine and are also attached to certain sets or registers of pipes in an organ.
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In music a reed organ is an organ in which the wind acts on a set of free reeds, as the harmonium, melodeon, concertina, etc.
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In music a reed pipe describes a pipe of an organ furnished with a reed.
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In music the term reed stop describes a set of pipes in an organ furnished with reeds.
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Reedwork is a collective name for the reed stops of an organ.
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The regal was a 16th and 17th century small portable organ, played with one hand, the bellows being worked with the other,
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In music the register is the compass of a voice or instrument or a specified portion of the compass of a voice, or a series of vocal tones of a given compass, for example the upper, middle, or lower register; the soprano
register; the tenor register. In respect to the vocal tones, the thick
register properly extends below from the F on the lower space of the treble staff. The thin register extends an octave above this. The small register is above the thin. The voice in the thick register is called the chest voice; in the thin, the head voice. Falsetto is a kind of voice, of a thin, shrill quality, made by using the mechanism of the upper thin register for tones below the proper limit on the scale.
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In ballet, releve is rising up off the heels.
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In music a repeat is a mark, or series of dots, placed before and after, or often only at the end of, a passage to be repeated in performance.
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In music resolution is the passing of a dissonant into a consonant chord by the rising or falling of the note which makes the discord.
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In music retardation is the keeping back of an approaching consonant chord by prolonging one or more tones of a previous chord into the intermediate chord which follows. It differs from suspension by resolving upwards instead of downwards.
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A rhapsody is a musical composition irregular in its form, like an improvisation.
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Rhythm is the movement in musical time, with periodical recurrence of accent; the measured beat or pulse which marks the character and expression of the music; symmetry of movement and accent.
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In music, rinforzando is a direction indicating a sudden increase of force.
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Ripieno is a term applied to those instruments which only swell the mass or tutti of an orchestra, but are not obligatory.
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In music a ritornelle is a short return or repetition; a concluding symphony to an air, often consisting of the burden of the song. The term also describes a short intermediate symphony, or instrumental passage, in the course of a vocal piece; an interlude.
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In music, a ritornello is a short instrumental composition which is sometimes introduced to fill the interval between the scenes of an opera. The name is also given to the instrumental symphonies performed between the verses or phrases of songs or anthems.
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A rondo is an early form of instrumental composition, in which the first and principal subject alternates with other subsidiary subjects. At first they seldom contained more than two subjects, but Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and later composers introduced three, the second and third, when reappearing, being always in new keys, and frequently developed or varied to a considerable extent.
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In music a root is the fundamental tone of any chord; the tone from whose harmonics, or overtones, a chord is composed.
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A rosalia is a form of musical melody in which a phrase or passage is successively repeated, each time a step or half step higher.
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The Rota was a species of zither, played like a guitar, and used in the Middle Ages for church music.
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The rote was a kind of guitar, the notes of which were produced by a small wheel or wheel-like arrangement.
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A roulade is a smoothly running passage of short notes (such as semi-quavers, or sixteenths) uniformly grouped, and sung upon one long syllable, as in George Frideric Handel's oratorios.
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In music a round is a short vocal piece, resembling a catch in which three or four voices follow each other round in a species of canon in the unison.
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In music a roundelay is a tune in which a simple strain is often repeated; a simple rural strain which is short and lively. The term also describes a dance in a circle.
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Abbreviations
Music
