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Tablature is an ancient mode of indicating musical sounds by letters and other signs instead of by notes.
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A tabor is a small drum played with sticks, in accompaniment to the pipe, both instruments sometimes being played by the same performer.
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A taborer is someone who plays on the tabor.
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A taboret is a small tabor.
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A taborine is a small, shallow drum like a tabor.
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In music, tacet is a direction for a vocal or instrumental part to be silent during a whole movement.
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In music tact is the stroke in beating time.
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In music, a tail is the part of a note which runs perpendicularly upward or downward from the head; the stem.
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In music, a tailpiece is a piece of ebony or other material attached to the lower end of a violin or similar instrument, to which the strings are fastened.
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The tambourin is an old Provencal dance of a lively character, common on the stage.
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A tambourine is a long narrow drum with a single head stretched over a wooden frame into which metal 'jingles' are inserted. The tambourine is probably of Arab origin, and is used in music accompanying folk dances. It is played by striking the skin with the fingers or knuckles, or by banging it against a knee or elbow and shaking it so that the jingles rattle.
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A tampion is a plug for upper end of an organ pipe.
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The tango is a dance that developed from an old Moorish gypsy dance from central Africa which was taken to Central America by African slaves and from there it became popular in Argentina where it was influenced by European rhythms and developed into a fashionable ballroom dance in around 1910.
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The tarantella is a rapid, whirling Italian dance in six-eight measure (triple time) for two people originating from Naples. The tarantella commences slowly and gradually increases in speed until it becomes very rapid. The violin is usually used as an accompaniment, sometimes a guitar, but tambourine and castanets are frequently played by the dancers. The tarantella was invented as a cure for the bite of the tarantula spider, the cure coming from the perspiration induced by the dance.
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In music tardo is a direction to perform a passage slowly.
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In music a tasto is a key or thing touched to produce a tone.
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In old music, a tasto solo was a direction denoting that the notes in the bass over or under which it is written should be performed alone, or with no other chords than unisons and octaves.
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In music a telltale is a movable piece of ivory, lead, or other material, connected with the bellows of an organ, that gives notice, by its position, when the wind is exhausted.
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In music temper means to adjust, as the mathematical scale to the actual scale, or to that in actual use.
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In music, a temperament is a system of compromises in the tuning of organs, pianofortes, and the like, whereby the tones generated with the vibrations of a ground tone are mutually modified and in part cancelled, until their number reduced to the actual practicable scale of twelve tones to the octave. This scale, although in so far artificial, is yet closely suggestive of its origin in nature, and this system of tuning, although not mathematically true, yet satisfies the ear, while it has the convenience that the same twelve fixed tones answer for every key or scale, C sharp becoming identical with D flat, and so on.
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Temple rubato is a term in music applied to a style of performance in which some tones are held longer than their legitimate time, while others are proportionally curtailed.
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Tempo is the pace at which a piece of music is played.
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Tenor is the name given to the highest natural singing voice of the adult male. It is also applied to instruments which play tenor parts.
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In music a tenth is the interval between any tone and the tone represented on the tenth degree of the staff above it, as between one of the scale and three of the octave above; the octave of the third.
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In ballet, terre a terre are steps in which the feet hardly leave the ground.
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A terzetto is a musical composition in three voice parts forming usually a vocal trio.
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The testudo is a kind of musical instrument. It was a species of lyre so called in allusion to the lyre of Mercury, fabled to have been made of the shell of a tortoise.
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The Fair Maid of Perth is an opera written by Bizet. It was first performed in Manchester in 1912.
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The Sorcerer is a comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan (words by W S Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan). The Sorcerer was first produced on November the 17th 1877, at the Opera Comique, London starring Richard Temple, Rutland Barrington, George Grossmith, Mrs Howard Paul, Alice May, Miss Everard and Guilia Warwick. The opera was later revived in 1884, 1892 and 1921.
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The Two Widows is a comic opera in two acts composed by Bedrich Smetana between 1873 and 1878, various revisions taking place during that period.
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A thematic catalogue is a catalogue of musical works which, besides the title and other particulars, gives in notes the theme, or first few measures, of the whole work or of its several movements.
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In music the theme is the leading subject of a composition or a movement.
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A theorbist is someone who plays on a theorbo.
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A theorbo was a musical instrument of the 17th century made like large lute, but having two necks, with two sets of pegs, the lower set holding the strings governed by frets, while to the upper set were attached the long bass strings used as open notes. A larger form of theorbo was also called the archlute, and was used chiefly, if not only, as an accompaniment to the voice.
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In music the thesis is the accented part of the measure, expressed by the downward beat.
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In music, a third is an interval comprising three letter names. It is of three kinds: Major (four semitones), minor (three), and diminished (two).
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In music a thirteenth is an interval comprising an octave and a sixth.
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A thorough bass is a bass which throughout a piece of music has the harmonies indicated by figures according to the intervals above it. An absence of a figure implied a common chord, 6 a first intervention. The thorough bass was probably invented in the 16th century and composers of the new monodic school found it a convenient kind of shorthand. Accompaniments, instead of being written out were left to the accompanist
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The Three Choirs Festival is an English music festival held annually in the cathedrals of Gloucester, Worcester and Hereford in turn. The festival was started in 1724.
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The tibia was an ancient form of reed-pipe.
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In music a tie is a line, usually straight, drawn across the stems of notes, or a curved line written over or under the notes, signifying that they are to be slurred, or closely united in the performance, or that two notes of the same pitch are to be sounded as one.
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In music, timbre is the quality or tone distinguishing voices or instruments. Timbre designates not only those properties which distinguish different instruments and voices, but also those more subtle properties which distinguish say, one violin from another. Quality is due to the presence and prominence of certain upper partials and to the form of the sound waves.
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A timbrel was a kind of drum, tabor, or tabret, in use from the oldest of times. Similar to a tambourine, timbrels were often square or rectangular, rather than round.
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In music, time is the measurement based on the periodicity of the accents, and classified according to the subdivision of the beats. It is not the same as tempo. The instinctive desire for rhythm and proportion, which is as evident in music as it is in verse, gives rise to regularity of accent. If the accent occurs on every other beat, the time is duple; if one in three, then it is triple; and if once in four, it is quadruple. A bar-line is drawn through the stave or staves immediately before the accented beat, and hence it is commonly said that the accent falls on the first of the bar. If each of the beats is divisible into two lesser values, the time is simple; if divisible into three (the beat being dotted), it is compound.
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In music, a time-table is a table showing the notation, length, or duration of the several notes.
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Tipping is a distinct articulation given in playing quick notes on the flute, by striking the tongue against the roof of the mouth.
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A toccata is a piece for organ or pianoforte in the style of a prelude. It is characterised by numerous short notes, hence its name, signifying that the keyboard is lightly touched. Johann Sebastian Bach's organ and Robert Schumann's pianoforte works of the kind are the most notable.
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Toccata is an old form of piece for the organ or harpsichord, somewhat in the free and brilliant style of the prelude, fantasia, or capriccio.
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The tom-tom (tam-tam) is a kind of drum used in the East Indies and other Oriental countries usually beaten with the hands.
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A tompion is a plug in a flute or an organ pipe, used to modulate the tone.
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In music, tonality is a sense of key orientation in relation to form, for example the step pattern of a dance as expressed by corresponding changes of direction from a tonic or 'home' key to a related key. Most popular and folk music world-wide recognises an underlying tonality or reference pitch against which the movement of a melody can be clearly heard. The opposite of
tonality is atonality.
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In music, tone is the quality of sound. For instance, different strings of a violin may be able to sound the same note (pitch) given certain fingerings, but each string has a different tone. Nearly every musical sound is composite, consisting of several simultaneous tones having different rates of vibration according to fixed laws, which depend upon the nature of the vibrating body and the mode of excitation. The components (of a composite sound) are called partial tones; that one having the lowest rate of vibration is the fundamental tone, and the other partial tones are called harmonics, or overtones. The vibration ratios of the partial tones composing any sound are expressed by all, or by a part, of the numbers in the series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.; and the quality of any sound (the timbre) is due in part to the presence or absence of overtones as represented in this series, and in part to the greater or less intensity of those present as compared with the fundamental tone and with one another. Resultant tones, combination
tones, summation tones, difference tones, Tartini's tones (terms only in part synonymous) are produced by the simultaneous sounding of two or more primary (simple or composite) tones.
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In music, the tonic is the key tone, or first tone of any scale.
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Tonic Sol-fa is a system of musical notation dating back to 1812 when it was developed by a Miss Glover of Norwich to teach music to children who were having difficulty with learning.
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In music, tosto means quick or rapid.
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In an organ, a tracker is a light strip of wood connecting (in path) a key and a pallet, to communicate motion by pulling.
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In music a transcription is an arrangement of a composition for some other instrument or voice than that for which it was originally written, as the translating of a song, a vocal or instrumental quartet, or even an orchestral work, into a piece for the piano. Transcription is a name applied by later composers for the piano to a more or less fanciful and ornate reproduction on their own instrument of a song or other piece not originally intended for it; as, Franz Liszt's transcriptions of songs by Franz Schubert.
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In music, transpose means to change the key of.
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In music, a transposition is a change of a composition into another key.
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In music, treble is the highest of the four principal parts in music and is the part usually sung by boys or women. It is sometimes called the first
treble, to distinguish it from the second treble, or alto, which is sung by lower female voices.
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In music tremando is a direction to perform a passage with a general shaking of the whole chord.
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Tremolo is a musical term indicating that the notes are to be played rapidly and reiterated during their time values, instead of being played as sustained sounds, hence the term applies to an unsteady or wavering voice.
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A tremulant is a mechanical device for simulating in an organ the effect of the tremolo. It consists of a small box, having a weighted valve upon a spring. This is attached in such a way as to interfere with the pressure of the wind supply when the requisite stop handle is drawn, thus producing a pulsating effect, the frequency of which can be regulated. Tremulants are generally confined to use in solo stops.
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In music, a triad is a chord of three notes. The term triad is also applied to the common chord, consisting of a tone with its third and fifth, with or without the octave.
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The triangle is a musical instrument of percussion, usually made of a rod of steel, bent into the form of a triangle, open at one angle, and sounded by being struck with a small metallic rod or spindle, so formed to allow soft or heavy tones to be sounded. The triangle possesses a bright and silvery tone useful for rhythmical effects.
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In music, a trichord is an instrument, such as a lyre or harp, having three strings.
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The trigon was an ancient triangular harp. Probably of Assyrian origin, it was adopted by the Egyptians who frequently represented it in their mural paintings. The wooden frame often had only two sides, the third being formed by the longest string. The instrument was placed under the arm or on the shoulder when played. Trigons were in use as late as the days of Pompeii.
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In music a trill is a shake or quaver of the voice in singing, or of the sound of an instrument, produced by the rapid alternation of two contiguous tones of the scale.
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In music a triple measure is a measure of three beats of which the first only is accented.
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In music triple time is that time in which each measure is divided into three equal parts.
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In music a triplet is a group of three notes sung or played in the three of two, or an abnormal division of a note into three instead of two equal notes of lesser value.
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The tripodian was an ancient stringed musical instrument. It was so called because, in form, it resembled the Delphic tripod.
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In music a tritone is a superfluous or augmented fourth.
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The trombone is a powerful brass musical instrument of the trumpet kind, thought by some to be the ancient sackbut, consisting of a tube in three parts, bent twice upon itself and ending in a bell. The middle part, bent double, slips into the outer parts, as in a telescope, so that by change of the vibrating length any tone within the compass of the instrument (which may be bass or tenor or alto or even, in rare instances, soprano) is commanded. It is the only member of the family of wind instruments whose scale, both diatonic and chromatic, is complete without the aid of keys or pistons, and which can slide from note to note as smoothly as the human voice or a violin. Softly blown, it has a rich and mellow sound, which becomes harsh and blatant when the tones are forced; used with discretion, its effect is often solemn and majestic.
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In music troppo means 'too much' and is used for example as, 'allegro ma non
troppo', meaning brisk but not too much so.
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The trumpet is a musical instrument of the brass family. The trumpet is the earliest known brass wind instrument, and consists of a tube of about 1.5 meters long curved twice to form three lengths for convenience of holding. One end widens into a bell and the other end is mounted with a cupped mouthpiece. The pitch of notes is altered by way of key operated valves.
Originally a trumpet could only produce the notes in the harmonic series of the key in which it was pitched, necessitating the use by the player of different crooks whereby the length of the tube could be altered.
These crooks gave the keys of F, E, E flat, and D, all of which sounded higher than the notation of C in which the part was written. With the C crook, the notation and the crook were in unison; with the B flat crook, the sound was a tone lower. Even with the crooks, however, there were inevitable lacunae in the scale. The first notable attempt to remedy this defect consisted of an adaptation of the slide principle, like a trombone, by which the pitch could be altered for a semi-tine or a tone without change of crook. The modern trumpet, however, is fitted with valves so that any note can be obtained within the compass.
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The trumpet marine is a monochord, having a thick string, sounded with a bow, and stopped with the thumb so as to produce the harmonic tones. It is said to be the oldest bowed instrument known, and in form the archetype of all others. It probably owes its name to its external resemblance to the large speaking trumpet used on board Italian vessels, which is of the same length and tapering shape.
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The tuba is a valved brass musical instrument with a conical tube and low pitch. It was originally derived from the saxhorn and is used in the symphony orchestra as well as the military band.
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A tuning-fork is a small percussion instrument of definite and permanent pitch, which is used to indicate the correct pitch of some particular note in the musical scale. It consists of two vibrating steel prongs, which spring from a tapered base.
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In music a turn is an embellishment or grace commonly consisting of the principal note, or that on which the turn is made, with the note above, and the semitone below, the note above being sounded first, the principal note next, and the semitone below last, the three being performed quickly, as a triplet preceding the marked note.
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In music, tutti is a direction for all the singers or players to perform together.
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In music a twelfth is an interval comprising an octave and a fifth.
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The two-step is an American dance. It forms a modified polka, adapted to American rag-time music, and was introduced into Europe at the end of the 19th century. There are many variations such as the Boston two-step and the Military two-step.
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The tzoura is a Greek six-stringed long-necked lute, similar to, but smaller than a bouzouki, the middle one out of the Baglama, Tzoura, Bouzouki family.
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Abbreviations
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