Every term the book has used, defined briefly and gathered in one place. Definitions are practical rather than exhaustive; where a term has a whole chapter behind it, the chapter number points you back to the full discussion.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Accent | An articulation marking a note to be played with extra emphasis (>). |
| Accidental | A sharp, flat, or natural sign that raises, lowers, or restores a pitch. |
| Accompaniment | The supporting material beneath a melody — harmony and bass (Ch 21). |
| Alberti bass | A broken-chord accompaniment pattern (low–high–middle–high), common in Classical keyboard music. |
| Alto clef | The C-clef centered on the middle line, read chiefly by the viola (Ch 30). |
| Anacrusis | A pickup — one or more notes before the first downbeat; an upbeat. |
| Antecedent | The opening, question-like phrase of a period, ending on a weak cadence (Ch 18). |
| Antiphony | “Call and response” — one group of instruments answered by another (Ch 39). |
| Arpeggio | The notes of a chord sounded one after another rather than together; a broken chord. |
| Articulation | How a note is attacked and released — staccato, legato, accent, etc. (Ch 10). |
| Augmented triad | A triad of two stacked major thirds (root, major 3rd, raised 5th). |
| Authentic cadence | A close from dominant to tonic (V–I); the strongest ending (Ch 15). |
| Bar / measure | A unit of music between two barlines, containing one group of beats. |
| Bass clef | The F-clef, used for lower pitches — left hand, cello, bassoon, etc. (Ch 5). |
| Beam | A thick line joining the stems of eighth notes and shorter, grouping them to the beat. |
| Beat | The steady pulse of the music; the unit counted in a meter. |
| Binary form | A two-part form, AB, each part usually repeated (Ch 23). |
| Brass | The family of lip-buzzed metal instruments — trumpet, horn, trombone, tuba (Ch 31). |
| Cadence | A harmonic “punctuation” that closes a phrase (Ch 15). |
| Canon | Strict imitation in which a voice is copied exactly by another after a delay (Ch 28). |
| Cantus firmus | A given fixed melody against which counterpoint is written (Ch 28). |
| Chord | Three or more pitches sounding together. |
| Chord symbol | A letter-based label for a chord (C, Am, G7, Cmaj7) (Ch 13). |
| Chromatic | Moving by semitones; using pitches outside the current key. |
| Circle of fifths | The arrangement of keys by ascending fifths, mapping their signatures (Ch 8). |
| Clef | The sign at the start of a staff that fixes which pitches its lines mean (Ch 5). |
| Coda | A closing section rounding off a piece or movement. |
| Compound meter | A meter whose beats divide into three (e.g. 6/8) (Ch 6). |
| Consequent | The answering phrase of a period, ending on a strong cadence (Ch 18). |
| Consonance | An interval or chord that sounds stable and restful. |
| Contour | The rising-and-falling shape of a melody (Ch 17). |
| Counterpoint | The art of combining independent melodic lines (Ch 28). |
| Crescendo | A gradual increase in loudness (＜). |
| Deceptive cadence | A dominant that resolves to an unexpected chord (usually V–vi) (Ch 15). |
| Development | The middle of a sonata form, where themes are fragmented and modulated (Ch 26). |
| Diatonic | Belonging to the notes of the prevailing key (Ch 12). |
| Diminished triad | A triad of two stacked minor thirds (root, minor 3rd, lowered 5th). |
| Diminuendo | A gradual decrease in loudness (＞); also decrescendo. |
| Dissonance | An interval or chord that sounds tense and seeks resolution. |
| Dominant | The fifth scale degree, and the chord (V) built on it; the great tension chord (Ch 12). |
| Dot | A dot after a note that adds half again its duration (Ch 6). |
| Doubling | Two or more instruments (or voices) sounding the same line, in unison or octaves (Ch 34). |
| Downbeat | The first, strongest beat of a measure. |
| Dynamics | The loudness of the music and its markings (p, f, etc.) (Ch 10). |
| Enharmonic | Two spellings of the same pitch (e.g. F♯ and G♭). |
| Exposition | The opening of a sonata form, presenting the themes in two keys (Ch 26). |
| Fermata | A sign holding a note or rest longer than its written value. |
| Fifth | The interval spanning five staff steps; also the fifth note of a chord. |
| Form | The large-scale plan of a piece — how its sections are arranged (Part 4). |
| Forte | Loud (f). |
| Function | A chord’s role — tonic (rest), subdominant (motion), or dominant (tension) (Ch 12). |
| Grand staff | The joined treble and bass staves used for keyboard music (Ch 5). |
| Half cadence | A phrase ending on the dominant, leaving the music open (Ch 15). |
| Half step | The smallest interval in common use; a semitone. |
| Harmony | The combining of pitches into chords and progressions (Part 2). |
| Homophony | Texture of a melody supported by chords moving with it (Ch 21). |
| Imitation | One voice restating a figure just heard in another (Ch 28). |
| Interval | The distance in pitch between two notes (Ch 9). |
| Inversion | A chord with a note other than the root in the bass (Ch 13). |
| Key signature | The sharps or flats at the start of a staff, fixing the key (Ch 8). |
| Leading tone | The seventh scale degree, a semitone below the tonic, pulling up to it. |
| Ledger line | A short line above or below the staff for notes beyond it. |
| Legato | Smooth, connected playing; marked with a slur. |
| Marcato | A strong, marked accent (^). |
| Melodic minor | The minor scale with raised 6th and 7th ascending, natural descending. |
| Melody | A succession of pitches heard as a coherent line or tune (Part 3). |
| Meter | The pattern of strong and weak beats, shown by the time signature (Ch 6). |
| Modulation | Changing from one key to another within a piece (Ch 22). |
| Monophony | Texture of a single unaccompanied line. |
| Motive | A short, memorable musical idea, the germ of development (Ch 17, 19). |
| Natural | An accidental cancelling a sharp or flat (♮). |
| Neighbor tone | A non-chord tone a step above or below, returning to the same note (Ch 16). |
| Non-chord tone | A melody note not belonging to the current chord (Ch 16). |
| Octave | The interval between a pitch and the next of the same name; a doubling of frequency. |
| Orchestration | Composing with timbre — deciding who plays what, in what colour (Part 7). |
| Part | The music for a single player, extracted from the full score. |
| Passing tone | A non-chord tone filling the step between two chord tones (Ch 16). |
| Percussion | The family of struck instruments, pitched (timpani) and unpitched (Ch 31). |
| Period | Two balanced phrases — antecedent and consequent — forming a musical sentence-pair (Ch 18). |
| Phrase | A complete musical thought, closed by a cadence (Ch 18). |
| Piano (dynamic) | Soft (p). |
| Pivot chord | A chord shared by two keys, used to modulate smoothly between them (Ch 22). |
| Plagal cadence | A close from subdominant to tonic (IV–I); the “amen” cadence (Ch 15). |
| Polyphony | Texture of several independent melodic lines at once; counterpoint. |
| Range | The span from the lowest to the highest note an instrument can play (Ch 31, App B). |
| Recapitulation | The return in a sonata form, restating the themes in the home key (Ch 26). |
| Register | A particular region of an instrument’s or voice’s range, with its own colour (Ch 33). |
| Resolution | The move of a dissonance to a consonance. |
| Rest | A notated silence, with the same durations as notes. |
| Rhythm | The pattern of durations in time (Ch 6). |
| Roman numerals | Labels (I, ii, V…) naming chords by their scale degree and quality (Ch 12). |
| Rondo | A form in which a refrain alternates with contrasting episodes: ABACA (Ch 25). |
| Root | The note a chord is built on and named for. |
| Root position | A chord with its root in the bass. |
| Rounded binary | A binary form whose first section’s opening returns at the end of the second (Ch 23). |
| SATB | Four-part writing for soprano, alto, tenor, and bass voices (Ch 14). |
| Scale | An ordered sequence of pitches spanning an octave (Ch 7). |
| Score | The notation showing all the parts of an ensemble aligned together. |
| Semitone | The half step; the smallest common interval. |
| Sentence | A phrase structure of a stated idea, its repetition, and a continuation to a cadence (Ch 18). |
| Sequence | Restating a melodic figure at a higher or lower pitch level (Ch 17). |
| Seventh chord | A triad with an added seventh above the root (Ch 11, 13). |
| Sharp | An accidental raising a pitch a semitone (♯). |
| Simple meter | A meter whose beats divide into two (e.g. 4/4) (Ch 6). |
| Slur | A curved line marking notes to be played legato / in one gesture. |
| Sonata form | A large form of exposition, development, and recapitulation (Ch 26). |
| Spacing | How the notes of a chord are distributed across the range (Ch 14, 34). |
| Staccato | An articulation making a note short and detached (·). |
| Staff | The five lines and four spaces on which notes are written (Ch 5). |
| Stem | The vertical line attached to a notehead. |
| Strings | The family of bowed string instruments — violin, viola, cello, bass (Ch 31). |
| Subdominant | The fourth scale degree, and the chord (IV) built on it (Ch 12). |
| Suspension | A non-chord tone held over from the previous chord, then resolving down (Ch 16). |
| Tempo | The speed of the beat (Ch 10). |
| Tenuto | An articulation marking a note held to its full value (–). |
| Ternary form | A three-part form, ABA, with a return of the opening (Ch 23). |
| Texture | How many musical lines sound at once and how they relate (Ch 21, 36). |
| Theme and variations | A form stating a theme, then repeating it in successive altered versions (Ch 24). |
| Tie | A curved line joining two notes of the same pitch into one sustained sound. |
| Timbre | Tone colour — the quality distinguishing one instrument’s sound from another’s (Ch 35). |
| Time signature | The two numbers fixing the meter — beats per bar over the beat unit (Ch 6). |
| Tonic | The first scale degree and its chord (I); the key’s home and point of rest (Ch 12). |
| Transition | A passage connecting two sections or themes, often modulating. |
| Transposing instrument | One that sounds at a different pitch than written (Ch 32). |
| Treble clef | The G-clef, used for higher pitches (Ch 5). |
| Triad | A three-note chord of stacked thirds — root, third, fifth (Ch 11). |
| Tutti | All instruments playing together. |
| Unison | Two or more instruments sounding the same pitch. |
| Upbeat | A weak beat leading to a downbeat; an anacrusis. |
| Voice leading | The smooth motion of each voice from chord to chord (Ch 14). |
| Voicing | The particular arrangement of a chord’s notes among the voices or instruments (Ch 34). |
| Whole step | An interval of two semitones; a major second. |
| Woodwinds | The family of flutes and reed instruments — flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon (Ch 31). |