| C |
the first note in the scale of C major; in
'fixed do' solfeggio the note called do;
the third of three sections in ternary form |
| C |
after Richard Charteris the cataloguer of
music by Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612) |
| Cabales |
a special kind of flamenco siguiriyas |
| Cabaletta, Cabbaletta |
(Italian, from cobola meaning
'couplet') in nineteenth century opera, a short
aria in rondo form, the last section of an
operatic duet; earlier, a simple animated
operatic aria, and later the fast concluding
section of an operatic aria that brings an act
to an end |
| Cabalistic numerological symbolism |
a method of embedding hidden messages in
music, by using a code of numbers based on which
notes are used, their durations, arrangement,
subdivision, etc., whereby the composer made
symbolic reference to specific persons, places,
or things and/or events in some way associated
with the music |
| Cabasa |
South American rattle. It’s a stainless
steel cylinder with metal ball chains wrapped
around it, which are scraped against it |
| Cabrette, Cabreta |
bagpipe from Auverne (France) |
| Caccia |
(Italian, literally 'chase' or 'hunt')
usually describing an animated scene, the caccia
flourished in Italy between 1345 and 1370.
Written for two equal voices in canon, the
Italian version added a supportive instrumental
part |
| Cachucha |
a graceful Spanish dance from the southern
region of Andalusia, in triple meter, related to
the fandango and not unlike the bolero |
| Cacophony |
discordant or dissonant sound |
| Cadenas |
Spanish iron chains used as a percussion
instrument |
| Cadence |
see
music theory lesson 22 |
| Cadential extension |
the prolongation (post-cadential extension)
or delay (pre-cadential extension) of a cadence
by the addition of material beyond (i.e. before
or after) the point at which the cadence is
expected. |
| Cadential 6/4 |
often at cadences, the root position
dominant is preceded by a chord that has the
same bass note as the dominant, but contains the
notes of the tonic triad. Since the chord
contains the notes of the tonic, it seems
logical to label the chord I6/4. However, this
label implies that the chord is somehow
functioning as a tonic. Unfortunately, while the
label may appear to classify the chord, it
obscures the actual harmony and the function of
the sixth and fourth above the dominant bass.
The purpose of the sixth and fourth above the
bass is to embellish and therefore intensify the
dominant harmony. The fourth is a suspension
that delays the entrance of the leading tone
over the dominant bass. The fifth can also be
delayed by suspending the sixth above the bass.
The double suspension produces an apparent tonic
chord in second inversion, but the underlying
harmony is still V. Consequently, the apparent
tonic triad is simply the product of voice
leading motions, and therefore does not serve
any tonic function. In fact, the cadential 6/4
produces an interesting reversal. Since scale
degree 1 produces the interval of a perfect
fourth above the dominant bass, scale degree 1
is a dissonance requiring resolution rather than
a stable goal of motion. The leading tone, scale
degree 7, becomes the note of resolution and the
goal of motion. The notation V6/4-5/3 captures
the double suspension function over a dominant
harmony |
| Cadenza |
originally a vocal flourish, extemporized at
a cadence by the performer, later also featured
in instrumental performance, nowadays a cadenza
is that part of a concerto shortly before the
end when the soloist plays alone to demonstrate
their virtuosity. At the close of the cadenza,
the soloist falls silent and the orchestra
completes the movement. Cadenzas may have be
written out by the composer or they might have
been written by a noted performer as with
Joachim's cadenza for the Brahms Violin
Concerto. Nowadays, few performers improvise
their own cadenza nor these days is room left in
the score where a cadenza might be inserted.
Operatic cadenzas generally began from a second
inversion, tonic chord and finished on the
dominant followed by the tonic. |
| Cadenzato |
(Italian) cadenced, rhythmic |
| Caesura (sing.), Caesurae (pl.) |
(Latin) a term derived from poetry, caesura
is a pause somewhere in the middle of a verse.
Some lines have strong (easily recognizable)
caesurae, which usually coincide with
punctuation in the line, while others have weak
ones.
In music, the term is applied to a double line
// placed on the top line of the staff,
where the music may pause a little. Also called
fetura, 'tramlines', or 'railroad tracks' |
| Cafurna |
a rhythm of the Fulni-o Indians of Brazil,
with which they tell stories about their
ancestors |
| Cahier |
(French) part or section of a book |
| Ca hue |
(Vietnam) Hue-style song from Vietnam |
| Caisse |
(French) drum |
| Caisse chinoise |
(French) wood block |
| Caisse claire |
(French) snare drum |
| Caisse, Grosse |
(French) bass drum |
| Caisse roulante |
(French) tenor drum |
| Caisse sourde |
(French) tenor drum |
| Caixeta |
Portuguese or Brazilian wood block |
| Caja |
snare drum of Spain and Spanish America |
| Caja china |
(Spanish) wood block |
| Cajita |
a small trapezoidal box from Peru. The lid
is opened and closed with one hand, while the
other hand hits the box with a wooden stick |
| Cakewalk |
a strutting duple meter (2/4) dance
including high steps and lively movement, which
originated in the nineteenth-century with the
slaves on the plantations of the southern states
of America, in imitation of the mannerisms of
the plantation owners. The name is said to
derive from a prize cake offered to the most
innovative dancers |
| Calabash |
dried hollow shell of a gourd, used as a
rattle; large dried hollow shell of a gourd,
used as a bass drum (West Africa) |
| Calando |
(Italian) diminuendo |
| Calcando |
(Italian) accelerando |
| Calebasse |
(French) calabash |
| Calesera |
Andalusian style with flamenco
influences developed by the caleseros to
entertain themselves during long treks |
| Call and response |
see 'respond' |
| Calliope |
steam-blown mechanical organ |
| Calmato |
(Italian) calmed, calming |
| Calme |
(French) calm |
| Calore, caloroso |
(Italian) passion, warmth or animation |
| Calvarios |
Spanish Easter songs |
| Calypso |
a Caribbean popular musical form often
humorous or satyrical traditionally sung by a
single guitarist or by bands some consisting of
a drummer, bass player, guitar player, keyboards
and horns |
| Cambiare |
(Italian) to change, as for example,
changing one's instrument or, for a stringed
instrument, retuning |
| Cambiata |
in counterpoint, a nonharmonic tone inserted
between a dissonance and its resolution |
| Camera |
(Italian) chamber, as in 'chamber music',
the term normally indicating the inclusion of
dance movements, as opposed to the chiesa
or 'church' style |
| Camerata |
small art or music school dating from the
sixteenth-century |
| Camminando |
(Italian from camminare, to walk) a
flowing style, a walking pace |
| Campana, Campane, Campanella |
(Italian) bell, bells, little bell |
| Campanetta |
(Italian) glockenspiel |
| Campanile |
(Italian) a bell tower, a building generally
associated with a church in which bells were
hung |
| Campanology |
the study of bell-ringing |
| Caña |
a melancholic kind of flamenco
singing, closely related to soleares |
| Caña rajada |
slit reed used in popular Andalusian folk
music |
| Canarie(s) |
a very fast gigue-like dance, in triple or
duple-compound meter, with a 'skipping' feel to
it |
| Canaveira |
a cane with a slit in the middle. It is held
tightly and the lower half is struck
rhythmically to obtain a certain kind of
clapping sound (Galicia, Spain) |
| Cancel |
 |
natural sign, used to remove a
previously applied accidental
|
|
| Can-can, Chahut |
boisterous Parisian quadrille-like dance,
originating in Paris in the 1830s, involving a
line of high-kicking women |
| Canción |
(Spanish, literally 'song') a refrain song
of the period between c.1450-1530; a
sixteenth-century song set to Italianate poems
in Castilian; a sixteenth-century arrangement of
French chansons |
| Cancioncica, Cancioncilla, Cancioncita |
(Spanish) diminutive of canción |
| Canción de cuna |
(Spanish) lullaby |
| Canciones infantiles |
(Spanish) children's songs |
| Cancrizans |
(Latin, literally 'crab-wise') a tune
repeated so that the original order of notes is
reversed, i.e. the last note become the first,
the penultimate note becomes the second, and so
on until the first becomes the last |
| Candombe |
both a rhythm and a dance of African origin
from Uruguay, the name deriving from the Bantu
words ka and ndonge which together
means a 'meeting of blacks' |
| Cannada |
a Sardinian metallic container used by
shepherds to replace the guitar |
| Canon |
(literally, 'rule') a musical form in which
a (second, third, fourth, etc.) line starting
later than the one before it matches it note for
note but such that the parts overlap; the Greek
name for the monochord |
| Canonical hours |
see 'divine office' |
| Canso |
a strophic two-part troubadour song in which
the first part is repeated and second played
only once for each stanza (the form is pes
- meaning 'foot', pes, cauda -
meaning 'tail'), where each pes is formed
of two phrases, the first inconclusive or
'open', the second conclusive or 'closed'
(termed clos) - the cauda is
musically free although it ends with a
conclusive cadance; at the end of the final
stanza, the composer may add a partial stanza
called the envoy; the term canso
is also used to describe any troubadour song |
| Cantabile, Cantando |
(Italian) in a singing style |
| Cantaor (masc.), Cantaora (femin.) |
(Spanish) a flamenco singer |
| Cántaras |
Spanish drum made from a clay pitcher |
| Cantare |
(Latin) to sing, praise or celebrate |
| Cántaro |
Spanish drum made from a clay pitcher |
| Cantata (It.), Cantate (Ger.) |
generally a seventeenth- or
eighteenth-century sacred or secular
non-theatrical work which might include sung,
recitative and instrumental sections
more... |
| Cantatrice |
(Italian) female singer |
| Cant de la sibila |
traditional Christmas song from Majorca
(Spain) about the second coming of Christ |
| Cante chico |
light or frivolous flamenco song |
| Cante grande |
profound Flamenco song style |
| Cante hondo, Cante jondo |
(Spanish) a type of serious Spanish
flamenco song frequently making use of the
Phrygian cadence and the word ole |
| Cantes de las minas |
flamenco style that has as theme the
mines, its men and their difficulties |
| Cantes extremeños |
flamenco songs from the Extremadura
region |
| Canti carnascialeschi |
(Italian) fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
Florentine carnival songs |
| Canticle |
a Biblical hymn |
| Cantiga(s) |
a Spanish or Portuguese folk song; also a
thirteenth-century monophonic Spanish vernacular
song, often dedicated to the Virgin Mary |
| Cantilena |
(Latin) smooth, melodious vocal style,
although the term can be applied also to
instrumental music; originally a medieval term
meaning 'song' which was applied to both
religious and secular songs |
| Cantillation |
unaccompanied chanting in free rhythm as in
Jewish liturgical chant |
| Cantio |
(Latin) a religious, monophonic, Latin song
of the later Middle Ages |
| Canto (Italian), Cantus (Latin) |
song, melody |
| Canto de velada |
Spanish evening song |
| Canto fermo |
(Italian) see cantus firmus |
| Canto hondo |
see cante hono |
| Cantor, Cantrix |
the director of music in a Lutheran church
(in German, Kantor); the leading singer
in a synagogue; a singer or chanter who in the
Mass, is the one who calls out the first part of
the song or hymn, to which others respond |
| Cantoris |
a term applied in Anglican church music that
refers to the half of the choir sitting on the
cantor's side of the church, that which sits on
the left side of the congregation, i.e. the
north side. The other half of the choir is
referred to as the decani which is to the
right of the congregation, i.e. the south side,
nearest the dean |
| Cantos de vaquería |
Colombian cowboy songs |
| Cantus |
the melody at the top of a polyphonic piece,
often set over a tenor line, popular in the
sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries |
| Cantus firmus |
a borrowed melody, generally from Gregorian
chant, used as the slow moving basis for a new
work in which upper faster moving melodies are
set in counterpoint against it, particularly
common during the period from the fourteenth- to
seventeenth-centuries |
| Canzona, Canzone (plural form) |
(Italian) (1) sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century instrumental genre in the
manner of a French polyphonic chanson,
characterized by the juxtaposition of short
contrasting sections; (2) term applied to any of
several types of secular vocal music |
| Canzonet, Canzonetta |
(Italian) diminutive of canzona |
| Caoine |
Irish funeral song |
| Capachos |
Colombian maracas |
| Capelle |
(French) chapel |
| Capellmeister |
see Kapellmeister |
| Capoeira |
a Brazilian martial arts/dance style,
developed by the slaves to teach one another how
to defend him or herself, in which the music is
as unusual as the instruments used to perform it |
| Capotasto (It.), Capo d'astro (It.),
Capodastro (It.), Capodastère (Fr.), Capodaster
(Ger.) |
a barre; a device that clamps to the
neck of a plucked string instrument (e.g. a
guitar) and which change its tuning by
shortening the sounding length of every string |
| Cappella (sometimes incorrectly Capella) |
chapel |
| Capriccio (It.) Caprice (Fr., Eng.) |
a quick, light, sometimes fanciful
composition; madrigal |
| Capriccioso (It.), Capricieux (Fr.) |
capricious |
| Capricciosamente |
(Italian) capriciously |
| Cará |
South American maracas |
| Carabalèn |
see laras |
| Caracachás |
South American scraper |
| Caracoles |
a flamenco style from Cadiz that
belongs to the cantiñas group |
| Carajillo |
small clapper (Spain) |
| Carcelera |
(Spanish) prisoner's song |
| Caressant |
(French) caressing |
| Carezzando, Carezzevole |
(Italian) caressing, caressingly |
| Carillon |
an organ stop, a bell or set of bells |
| Carmagnole |
a French revolutionary round dance named
after a short coat from Carmagnola in northern
Italy |
| Carmen |
(Latin) vocal line in a Middle Ages or
Renaissance composition; an opera in four acts
by Georges Bizet (1838-1875) produced in Paris
in 1875 |
| Carol |
English medieval strophic song, dramatic,
lyrical or narrative formed of verses coupled
with a refrain, called a 'burden'; a term
applied today to any Christmas song |
| Carole |
a social dance of the twelfth- and
thirteenth-centuries of which there is no
surviving example, which was replaced in the
mid-fourteenth-century by the basse dance (q.v.) |
| Carolingian era |
c.742-814, the time of
Charlemagne, a period when the Roman liturgy
spread through the Frankish empire |
| Carrée |
 |
(French) a breve (double whole note)
equal to two semibreves (whole notes)
|
|
| Cáscara |
the shell or sides of the timbales |
| Cassa, Cassa grande, (sometimes Gran
cassa) |
(Italian) any large drum |
| Cassa rullante |
(Italian) tenor drum |
| Cassation |
an instrumental work resembling the serenade
(q.v.) or divertimento (q.v.) |
| Cassettina |
(Italian) wood block |
| Castagnette (It.), Castagnettes (It.),
Castanets (Eng.) |
(from the Spanish casstano, meaning
'chestnut') a pair of shell-like pieces of wood
linked with a cord and worked with the fingers
to produce a 'clicking' sound particular in
Spanish flamenco dance
more... |
| Castañetas |
Galician castanets |
| Castanhetas |
Portuguese castanets |
| Castanholas |
Portuguese castanets |
| Castañuelas |
Spanish castanets |
| Castillane |
(Spanish) a dance from Castille |
| Castrato |
a male emasculated before puberty, whose
voice was then trained to produce a powerful
soprano or contralto voice, popular in the
seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries in Italian
churches, because women were not permitted to
sing there, and opera; the role originally
intended for castrati are performed today by
women. The castrato's vocal range was from
middle C to the A above the treble clef
more... |
| Catacá |
Brazilian wooden blocks |
| Catalán (Sp.), Catalane (Fr.) |
a dance from Catalonia |
| Catch |
a round for unaccompanied voices often with
humorous or bawdy lyrics |
| Catgut |
see 'gut' |
| Ca tru |
(Vietnamese) also called hat a dao or
hat noi (literally, 'song of the women
singers'); associated with a geisha type of
entertainment, attractive young singers
entertained men in a relaxed environment,
sometimes serving drinks and snacks. Men might
have visited a hat a dao inn with friends
to celebrate a successful business deal or the
birth of a son. Ca tru flourished in the
fifteenth-century in northern Vietnam when it
was popular with the royal palace and a favorite
hobby of aristocrats and scholars. Later it was
performed in communal houses, inns and private
homes. These performances were mostly for men.
When men entered a ca tru inn, they
purchased bamboo tally cards. In Chinese, tru
means card. Ca means song in Vietnamese.
Hence the name, ca tru which means 'tally
card songs'. The tallies were given to the
singers in appreciation for the performance.
After the performance, each singer received
payment in proportion to the number of cards
received
[taken from:
The Exotic Sounds of Ca Tru by Barbara Cohen
|
| Caval |
Bulgarian wind instrument. Its size varies
from 50 to 80cm long, with different tunings |
| Cavaquinho |
a small 4-stringed instrument from Portugal
and the Portuguese-speaking countries, widely
used in samba music. It was the
inspiration for the Hawaiian ukulele |
| Cavata, Cavatina (It.) |
in the seventeenth- and early
eighteenth-century, a cavata was a
setting in aria style of the last line or
couplet of a recitative text. By the first half
of the eighteenth-century the diminutive of
cavata, cavatina, described a
specially composed aria, with instrumental
accompaniment, set to blank or rhymed verse and
not in da capo form. By 1750 the words
cavata and cavatina were used without
distinction |
| Cavatine |
(French) cavatina |
| Cauchie |
after Maurice Cauchie the cataloguer of
music by François Couperin (1668-1733) |
| Cauda |
(Latin, literally 'tail') stem of a note in
medieval notation |
| Caxambú |
Brazilian conga drum |
| C clef |
 |
a clef sign which marks the position
of the note C on the staff, for example,
the alto clef |
|
| Cebell |
a quicker gavotte-like dance |
| Cecilia, St. |
the patroness of music, Cecilian festivals
were held and odes by composers such as Purcell
and Boyce were performed in celebration of her
and of music; in the ninteenth century, the
movement to a simpler style of church music was
named after her |
| Cédez |
(French, literally 'give way') slow down
generally just before a return to an earlier
tempo |
| Ceilidh |
communal Celtic dances with a live band |
| Cejilla |
a device that can be moved to adapt the
pitch of the flamenco guitar |
| Celempung |
large plucked zither used in the Javanese
gamelans |
| Celere |
(Italian) quick, speedy |
| Celerità |
(Italian) speed |
| Celeramente |
speedily |
| Celesta, Celeste |
a percussion instrument invented in 1886 by
Auguste Mustel of Paris and further developed by
the Schiedmayer family in Stuttgart, consisting
of a set of steel bars, fastened over wooden
resonators, struck by hammers operated by a
keyboard; the instrument's range is c' on the
bass clef staff to c''''' above the treble clef
staff. The celesta sounds one octave higher than
written |
| Celeste |
an organ stop with two ranks of pipes
important in ninteenth century French organs |
| 'Cello |
abbreviation of 'violoncello' |
| Celtic harp |
a small harp 24 to 34 strings, around 1
metre tall, with curved neck and pillar but
without pedals, that can be played resting on
the knee; sometimes called the 'minstrel harp'
or the 'troubadour harp'
|
| Cembali |
Italian harpsichord; small Italian cymbals |
| Cembalist |
harpsichordist |
| Cembalo |
(Italian) harpsichord |
| Cembalom |
see cimbalom |
| Cencerro |
a Spanish and Spanish American cowbell (with
the clapper removed), struck with a wooden stick |
| Cent |
a logarithmic unit used when measuring the
difference between two pitches in an
equal-tempered scale; one cent is one
one-hundredth of an equal-tempered semitone
(half step) |
| Centa |
a two-headed cylindrical stick drum from
Indonesia |
| Cent-vingt-huitième |
(French) a semihemidemisemiquaver; a one
hundred and twenty-eighth note or a note having
the time duration of one hundred twenty-eighth
of the time duration of a semibreve (whole note) |
| Centoventottavo (nota) |
(Italian) a semihemidemisemiquaver |
| Ceol |
(Gaelic) music |
| Ceol beag |
(Gaelic, literally 'small music') the jigs,
reels, and strathspeys of traditional Scottish
pipe music |
| Ceol mór |
(Gaelic, literally 'big music') the pibroch
or classical Highland bagpipe repertoire |
| Cervalat à musique |
(French) a racket |
| Ces |
(German) the note 'C flat' |
| Ceses |
(German) the note 'C double flat' |
| Cesura |
(Italian, Spanish) alternative form of
'caesura' |
| Césure |
(French) caesura |
| Cetera |
Romanian term for violin |
| Ceterone |
a sixteenth- and seventeenth-century large
cittern with anything from nine, twelve or even
fourteen courses of metal strings, used
primarily in the playing of continuo parts |
| Cetvorka |
Croatian quadruple flute, with four pipes |
| cf. |
(Latin) abbreviated form of conferatur
meaning 'compare' |
| Chaabi |
popular Arabic music, also known as
shaabi |
| Chabreta |
bagpipe from Lemosin (France) |
| Chácaras |
castanets from the Canary Islands (Spain) |
| Chacarrá |
fandango dance from Tarifa, in southern
Spain, performed by two women and one man |
| Chace |
(French) a fourteenth-century French term
for 'canon', particularly two- and three-voice
canons that imitated bird calls or the sounds of
instruments, etc. |
| Cha cha cha |
a popular ballroom dance that developed in
Cuba around 1953, it derives from the rumba
and the mambo. It is in 4/4 time and
follows a rhythmic pattern two crotchets
(quarter-notes), three quavers (eighth-notes)
and a quaver rest (eightth-rest) |
| Chaconne, Chacony (Old Eng.), Ciacona
(It.) |
a slow stately dance with variations,
popular during the seventeenth- and
eighteenth-centuries, generally in triple time,
played over a ground bass, also called
'passacaglia' or 'passecaille' |
| Chakacha |
traditional rhythm from Kenya |
| Chaleur, Chaleureusement |
(French) warmth, with warmth |
| Chalameau |
an early seventeenth-century single-reed
precursor of the clarinet; the lowest register
playable by instruments of the clarinet family |
| Chamber |
a prefix used to describe small-scale
musical activities, for example, chamber
orchestra (a small orchestra), chamber opera (an
opera of intimate character), chamber symphony
(a symphony for a small ensemble of players),
chamber music (music generally written to be
played one-to-a-part) |
| Chamber sonata |
also called, in Italian, sonata da camera;
a suite from the seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century composed mainly of dance
movements, generally for two or more soloists
with accompaniment
more... |
| Champara |
Kosovar Albanian small metallic finger
cymbals |
| Champeta criolla |
Afro-Colombian music style and dance from
Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast, it is a
combination of indigenous rhythms, Caribbean
beats and African influences, with lyrics that
are usually satirical; also known as terapia
criolla |
| Champêtre |
(French) rustic |
| Chamrieng |
Cambodian vocals |
| Chan-chiki |
see atarigane |
| Change-ringing |
the ringing of a peal of church bells by a
team of ringers, developed in England around 300
years ago. It is a method of ringing tower bells
or handbells for producing changes in the note
sequences in sets of bells of various sizes.
With four bells there are 24 possible changes;
with eight, 40,320; and with twelve,
479,001,600. It is estimated that it would take
nearly 36 years to ring, sequentially, the full
number possible on a set of 12 bells; each bell
rope is pulled by one member of the team; the
term is also used to describe a peal performed
by a team of hand-bell ringers |
| Changed note |
also called nota cambiata, a device
in strict counterpoint where a non-harmonic note
is used on an accented beat |
| Changes |
the set of chord changes, or harmonies,
contained in the central theme or melody around
which a piece has been built. In jazz, for
example, changes refers to the set of harmonies
around which an improvisational performance of
that piece will be based |
| Changez |
(French) change (imperative) |
| Changing notes |
non-harmonic notes; two notes, one that
leaves the chord note by a tone or semitone,
then leaps to the next non-harmonic note by
skipping over the chord note, before resolving
to the same chord note by a tone or semitone |
| Changüí |
an early form of Cuban music, featuring an
instrumentation which includes the tres, bongos,
güiro, maracas, and the marímbula |
| Channel |
see 'release' |
| Chanson |
(French) song; a style of 14th-16th century
French song for voice or voices, often with
backing instrumental accompaniment; the
structure could be like the troubadour canso
(see above), through-composed (i.e. free form)
or by the fourteenth century, normally following
one of the formes fixes
more...
|
| Chant |
(from Plainchant, Plainsong) - Plainchant
manuscripts began to survive in some quantity in
Western Europe from about 890. There were some
isolated and intriguing examples prior to this
period, but they pose many difficulties of
interpretation. Generally speaking, as chant
evolved from the medieval era into modern times,
its rhythm became more regular and less varied.
This fact is partly conjectural, as early chant
notation did not include rhythm. The medieval
era saw the creation of many varieties of
plainchant, especially if one includes those of
Byzantine provenance. Even restricted to Western
Europe there was Roman chant, Ambrosian
(Milanese) chant, Mozarabic (Spanish) chant,
Sarum (English) chant, and even Cistercian (a
monastic order) chant. The type of chant mainly
identified with "Gregorian" today is what might
be called Carolingian chant, the style installed
in France under Charlemagne, with the help of
advisors from Rome
[taken from:
Medieval and Renaissance Music - A Brief Survey] |
| Chantant |
(French) cantabile |
| Chanter |
one who chants; the fingered melody pipe on
a bagpipe, as opposed to the drones |
| Chanterelle |
(French) the highest string of the violin |
| Chants des marins |
Breton sailor songs |
| Chanty |
alternative spelling of 'shanty' |
| Chanz |
Mongolian long-necked spiked lute with an
oval wooden frame and snakeskin covering
stretched over both faces. The three strings are
fixed to a bar, which is inserted in the body.
The instrument is struck or plucked with a
plectrum made of horn or with the fingers. As
the tones do not echo, every note is struck
several times |
| Chanzy |
three-stringed Tuvan bowed string instrument |
| Chapel master |
English form of kapelle meister, the
director of music in a church |
| Chaque |
(French) each, every |
| Character piece |
a musical piece representing a mood,
location or personality |
| Charanga |
a popular Cuban musical style featuring
violins, flute and rhythm section |
| Charango |
small, 5-course, double strung guitar from
South America, traditionally made with the shell
of an armadillo
more... |
| Charger, Se |
(French) to undertake |
| Charivari, Chiasso (It.), Calthumpian
Concert (U.S.) |
(French) to extemporise music of a violent
nature, also 'rough music' (Eng.), Scampanata
(It.), Katzenmusik (Ger.), Shivaree (U.S.) |
| Charkula |
every aspect of the culture of the Braj
region of Uttar Pradesh is associated with Lord
Krishna, so it would have been impossible for
any dance form or song, story or legend of Braj
to have remained untouched by the Krishna
legend! So with the charkula dance, a
folk dance of the Braj area, which has also
finds its origin in this legend. It is believed
that the charkula dance celebrates the
happy victory over Indra by Krishna and the
cowherd community of Braj. This dance,
therefore, became a symbol of happiness as well
as joyful rapture. Krishna raised the mount
Gobardhan and as if to re-enact the Gobardhan,
Leela the dancing damsel of Braj, raises the 60
kg charkula on her head while performing
the charkula dance. Wearing long skirts
that reach her toes and a blouse, the dancing
damsel covers her body and face with the
odhani and with its lighted lamps on her
head and lighted lamps in both the hands, she
dances, synchronizing her steps with the beat of
the drum. Her movements are limited because of
the heavy load on her head. She cannot bend her
body, nor can she move her neck. In spite of
these limitations the slim, sturdy and
courageous dancer dances, gliding, bending,
pirouetting to the tune of the song. The climax
is reached when enraptured by the collective
merriment of the occasion, the singers also
starts dancing and, with the swift beat of music
and movement, the onlookers find themselves
carried away by the rejoicings |
| Charleston |
a social dance characterized by a lively
syncopated rhythm, cut-time with rhythmic
pattern repeating over two bars (measures)
quaver (quarter note), quaver rest (eighth note
rest), followed by a quaver tied to a minim
(eighth note tied to an half note) |
| Chart |
colloquial or jazz term for a score or
arrangement |
| Chase |
chases are most often associated with blues
and jazz performances, occurring during
improvisations where one player performs a
melodic riff and other members in the band take
up the theme, often adding additional phrases,
each trying to outplay the others |
| Chasse |
(French) in a hunting style |
| Chasse, Cor de |
(French) hunting horn |
| Chassé |
(French) in ballet, to 'chase' away one foot
with a touch from the other |
| Chassidic |
related to a Jewish sect (Chassidism) that
developed in the eighteenth- and
nineteenth-centuries in Poland and the Ukraine.
The theoretical structures and conceptual
framework for music are found in the Zohar
which includes angelic harmonies, secret
melodies, a disregard for art music and inspired
melodies and rhythms as music is spontaneously
sung while participants revel in a state of
ecstasy |
| Chau van |
(Vietnam) mediums' trance songs, an ancient
form of goddess worship |
| Che |
(Italian) who, which |
| Chef d'attaque (Fr.), Concert master
(U.S.) |
orchestral leader |
| Chef d'orchestre |
(French) conductor |
| Chékere |
a beaded gourd instrument of African origin
used in Cuban music |
| Chelys lyra |
(ancient Greek) using a tortoise shell
covered by leather and the instrument used at
weddings (epithalamia), symposia,
and komoi (activities where men danced),
it was played by women (hetairai or
courtesans who entertained at the symposia)
or by respectable women who played at weddings
or for their own entertainment. It was believed
to have been discovered by Hermes when, at the
age of one day, he climbed out of his cradle and
he found the shield of a turtle. He stretched
the skin of a cow around it, fixed two horns
through the holes were once the paws of the
animal stood and he tied strings at the
horizontal connection between the arms |
| Cheng |
smallest and highest-pitched of Chinese
zithers, related to the ch'in and the
Japanese koto; Chinese gong |
| Chengi |
Turkish female dancer |
| Chest of viols |
a set of six viols of various sizes - used
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for
consort playing |
| Chest voice |
the lowest register of a particular voice,
where the singer feels the voice coming from the
chest as opposed to the head |
| Chevalet |
(French) bridge of a stringed instrument |
| Cheville |
(French) peg of a stringed instrument |
| Chhing |
Cambodian finger cymbals |
| Chiaro, Chiara |
(Italian) clear, unconfused |
| Chiaramente, Chiarezza |
(Italian) clearly, clarity |
| Chiave |
(Italian) clef |
| Chiave di basso |
(Italian) bass clef |
| Chiave di tenore |
(Italian) C clef |
| Chiave di violino |
(Italian) treble clef |
| Chica |
early form of fandango |
| Chicahuaztli |
Mexican rain stick of Nahuatl origin |
| Chicha |
an Afro-Peruvian music style with African
and Andean elements |
| Chichas |
Colombian maracas |
| Chico |
Afro-Uruguayan candombe drum |
| Chiesa |
(Italian, literally 'church') baroque
chamber music, usually implying a four movement
style of composition, alternately a slow, a
fast, a slow and a fast movement, that contrasts
with camera or chamber style (q.v.) |
| Chieuve |
bagpipe from Berry (France) |
| Chiflo |
Spanish three hole flute from Aragon |
| Chiftelia |
a Kosovar Albanian three-stringed instrument
from the same family as the saz |
| Chifonie |
hurdy-gurdy |
| Chigovia |
wind instrument similar to the ocarina
(Mozambique) |
| Chikara |
a simple spike fiddle played with a bow in a
fashion somewhat like a sarangi or
saringda. There is also a smaller version
known as chikari |
| Chililihtli |
large pre-Hispanic Mexican flute |
| Chimes |
suspended from a frame, a set of tubular
bells arranged like a keyboard, each tuned to a
definite pitch (from c' to f'' on the treble
clef), sounded by means of a hammer |
| Chimta |
a percussion instrument from India. It
consists of a long strip with jingles |
| Chimurenga |
popular style of music from the Shona people
of Zimbabwe, based on the sound of the mbira |
| Ch'in |
long narrow Chinese zither with very smooth
top surface. Traditionally the most honored of
Chinese instruments |
| Chin chin |
Chinese 4 string banjo with aluminum body |
| Chinese block |
wood block |
| Chinese mouth organ, Chinese panpipe(s) |
see sheng |
| Ching |
Cambodian finger cymbals |
| Ching-hu |
smallest of Chinese bowed lutes |
| Chirimía |
Spanish reed instrument; Guatemalan wind
instrument |
| Chitarra |
(Italian) guitar |
| Chitarra batente |
guitar from Calabria (southern Italy), also
known as 'Renaissance guitar'. The body is made
from walnut or chestnut wood. It has four or
five metal strings |
| Chitarrone |
(literally, 'big guitar') also called the
arch-lute; a long-necked member of the lute
family fitted with extra bass strings, used to
accompany solo singers, which was popular in the
sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries |
| Chiuso, Chiusa |
(Italian, literally 'closed') stopped (as
when a horn player places his hand in the
instrument's bell), see also clos |
| Chö |
a contemplative system of Tibetan Buddhism
meaning 'cutting', it involves the yogi or
yogini mentally offering his or her own body as
a means of severing attachment, literally
'cutting through ego-clinging and the
traditional four demons'. The training is based
on the tradition of Prajnaparamita
(transcendent knowledge), in which the
practitioner sees through the illusion of a
solid reality by recognizing the insubstantial
nature of all things. The religious songs that
accompany this tradition have been passed from
accomplished masters to worthy students for
hundreds of years. Tibetans do not regard this
music as folk music, but rather perceive the
depth of meaning in these songs as capable of
enhancing understanding and transforming
ordinary experience |
| Chocalho |
an Angolan shaker made of either many small
cymbal like metal pieces or large metal cans
filled with rocks, sand or other materials. |
| Chocolate, el |
Chilean dance from the Quellón region that
combines Spanish music and dance forms with
aboriginal Chilean music and dance |
| Choeur |
(French) chorus, choir |
| Choir |
an ensemble especially of singers, although
in sixteenth-century polychoral music any group
of performers can be so termed, viz. choir 1,
choir 2, and so forth; the part of the church
where the choir sings |
| Ch'ojok |
Korean grass flute, made from blades of
grass |
| Cholaho |
a large tube shaker from Brazil, filled with
small pellets. Most are made out of metal and
some are multiple tubes attached together |
| Chongouri |
see chonguri |
| Chonguri |
long four-stringed fretted lute from Georgia |
| Cho'or |
Kyrgyz end blown flute |
| Chops |
the cheeks and lips of a particular wind
instrumentalist and his or her embouchure, but
also any part of an instrumentalist's body
required to play that instrument and, in a more
general context, to include the performer's
technique when playing riffs, improvisations and
melodic lines |
| Choragus |
the leader of the chorus in ancient Greek
drama |
| Choral |
pertaining to a choir, thus, choral music
meaning the music sung by a choir |
| Choral symphony |
a symphony that includes a chorus, for
example, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony |
| Chorale |
(German, meaning 'choral') a traditional
German hymn, with rhymed metrical verses and a
simple melody, sung by the congregation during
Protestant church services
more... |
| Chorale prelude |
an instrumental piece, normally for the
organ, based around a German hymn tune |
| Chorale variations |
baroque organ piece in which a chorale is
the basis for a set of variations |
| Chord |
a group of notes, normally two or more,
played simultaneously |
| Chordal |
a form of music in which a single melody is
accompanied by sets of chords, rather than a
competing counter melody |
| Chord diagrams |
a schematic form of musical notation using
vertical and horizontal lines to represent the
strings and frets on plucked string-instruments
like the guitar that includes the use of
numbered dots to show the position of the
fingers. Chord diagrams for guitar employ six
vertical lines, while those for ukulele or tenor
banjo use four |
| Chordophone |
a generic term used to describe instruments
where the sound is produced by a vibrating
string, for example, lute, guitar, violin, harp |
| Chord symbols |
alpha-numeric abbreviations for chord names
used by players of the guitar, ukulele, tenor
banjo, etc. |
| Choreographer |
a person who arranges the sequence of steps
and movements that make up a ballet or dance |
| Choreography |
the art of arranging the steps and movements
for a dance or ballet |
| Choro |
an early form of popular urban instrumental
music from Brazil |
| Choro novo |
a combination of choro, jazz and
Afro-Brazilian music |
| Chorus |
a fairly large choir; a refrain of a song; a
composition for chorus; a bagpipe; a crwth |
| Chromatic |
(from the Greek, chroma meaning
'colour') a scale in which all the intervals
between succeeding notes is a semitone
(half-note) |
| Chromatic interval |
a note that does not form part of the major
or natural, melodic or harmonic minor scales,
for example, the note C sharp in the scales of C
major and minor
more... |
| Chromatic mediant |
two chords or keys, a third apart that have
the same quality, i.e. both major or both minor |
| Chromatic scale |
|
| Chromatic signs |
accidentals |
| Chromatique |
(French) chromatic |
| Chrotta |
crwth |
| Chruti |
Indian bagpipe |
| Chu |
Burmese jingle |
| Chu-daiko |
general term for a medium sized Japanese
drum |
| Chüeh-hu |
Chinese bowed lute with a fingerboard |
| Chulluchullos |
Bolivian percussion instrument made from
dozens of flattened tin can covers |
| Chum nhac |
a small Vietnamese modern bell tree used to
produce percussion effects |
| Chunggum |
medium-sized Korean bamboo flute |
| Church cadence |
see 'plagal cadence' |
| Church modes |
see
modes |
| Church sonata |
sonata da chiesa; see chiesa |
| Ciaramella |
an Italian double-reed instrument, similar
to an oboe, that comes with 7 to 8 holes. It is
usually played along with the Neapolitan
zampogna (bagpipe) |
| Cifte |
Turkish double reed pipe |
| Cifte nagara |
Turkish kettle drums |
| Cigány |
Hungarian gipsy music played by bands formed
of strings, clarinet and dulcimer |
| Cimbal, Cimbalom, Cimbelom |
Hungarian box zither with forty-eight
strings, which are stretched over a large
sounding board and sounded with small hammers
more... |
| Cimbasso |
a term used to describe the lowest brass
instrument in an operatic score; most commonly,
this is the tuba |
| Cinelli |
(Italian) cymbals |
| Cinq (Fr.), Cinque (It.) |
five |
| Cinq pas |
(French, literally 'five steps') a basic
step pattern in Elizabethan dances such as the
galliard (with which it was most commonly
synonymous), the tourdion and the saltarello |
| Cinquième |
(French) fifth |
| Cioà |
(Italian) that is |
| Ciranda |
slow Afro-Brazilian rhythm and dance from
Pernambuco, inspired by the sea, and performed
by hundreds of people under a full moon sat the
beaches in Recife |
| Circle of fifths |
sometimes called 'cycle of fifths', a chain
of intervals. each interval a fifth. that after
passing through every note of the scale returns
to a note, several octaves different, from that
on which the chain began, at least if equal
temperament is used - if the fifths are pure,
i.e. the ratio of succeeding frequencies is 3:2,
the final note is never exactly the original
note displaced by several octaves because no
power of 3/2 can equal a power of 2 |
| Circular breathing |
a technique used to produce a continuous
sound on a woodwind or brass instrument, where
the player breathes in through the nose while
the cheeks push air out into the instrument. In
this way, the musician is able to produce an
unbroken stream of air, and hold a note
indefinitely, since there is no need to pause
and breathe |
| Cirrampala |
a wooden stick with a rope tied to it. The
mouth is used as the resonance box, vibrating
the rope with fingers (Colombia) |
| Cis |
(German) the note 'C sharp' |
| Cisis |
(German) the note 'C double sharp' |
| Cistro |
Spanish cittern |
| Citara |
Spanish and Latvian zither |
| Cithara |
see kithara |
| Cither, Cithern, Citole, Cittern |
wire-strung plucked stringed instrument,
like a lute, but with a pear-shaped body flat
back, commonly used during the sixteenth-,
seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries |
| Civetteria |
(Italian) coquetry, flirtatiousness |
| Civettando, Civettescamente |
(Italian) coquetting, coquettishly |
| Claire, Caisse |
(French) side drum |
| Clairon |
(French) bugle |
| Cláirseach, Clársach |
a popular instrument for many hundreds of
years, and still in use today in Ireland,
Scotland, Wales and England, this small Celtic
folk harp encompasses several octaves but is not
chromatic like its orchestral equivalent |
| Clapper |
the beater inside a bell; orchestral
instruments where two objects are brought
together percussively, for example, claves and
cymbals |
| Claque |
(French) members of an audience, hired by a
performer or the management of the opera house,
usually to respond rapturously and loudly during
the performance including calling for frequent
encores, although occasionally by rivals to
ensure a negative audience response |
| Claquebois |
(French) xylophone |
| Clarabella, Claribel |
an organ stop producing a flute-like sound |
| Clarinet, Clarinete (Sp.), Clarinette
(Fr.), Clarinetto (It.) |
a single reed, woodwind-instrument, in use
since the eighteenth century, in symphony
orchestras, military bands and, more recently,
in dance bands and jazz bands, also in solo and
chamber music, for example, in the opening of
Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue'
more... |
| Clarino |
small, or piccolo trumpet; a virtuoso style
of trumpet playing involving the higher
harmonics on a baroque (valveless) trumpet; the
highest register of the trumpet; (Greek) a
clarinet |
| Clarion |
a medieval trumpet with a clear shrill sound |
| Clarsach |
Scottish folk harp, with 25 to 34 strings |
| Classical, Classical music |
a period in music generally taken to be
between 1750 and 1820; music that is has an
enduring quality |
| Clausula |
(Latin, literally 'conclusion') cadence;
short medieval composition in descant
style, the text consisting of one or two words
or a single syllable based on a fragment of
Gregorian chant |
| Clavecin |
(French) harpsichord |
| Claves |
round sticks of hard wood beaten together
and used in Cuban music |
| Clavicembalo |
(Italian, literally 'keyed dulcimer')
cembalo, harpsichord
more... |
| Clavichord |
a soft-sounding rectangular keyboard
instrument in which the depression of a key
brings a tangent into contact with the string
(or, if double-strung, pairs of strings tuned to
the same note) initiating standing waves between
the tangent and the bridge which continue until
the key is released |
| Clavicytherium |
an upright spinet or harpsichord |
| Clavier |
(French) a general term for an keyboard
instrument, although more usually the clavichord |
| Clef |
symbol placed on the left of the stave which
establishes the relationship between notes and
their position on the staff lines and spaces.
The treble clef shows the position of G, the
bass clef the position of F and the alto clef
the position of C. The percussion clef does not
indicate pitch - rather each line and space on
the staff indicates a different percussion
instrument
 |
| Clef de fa |
 |
(French) a clef sign that shows the
position of F on the staff, for example,
the bass clef |
|
| Clef de sol |
 |
(French) a clef sign that shows the
position of G on the staff, for example,
the treble clef |
|
| Clef d'ut |
| |
(French) a clef sign that shows the
position of C on the staff, for example,
the alto clef |
|
| Clempung |
a large floor-standing plucked zither of the
gamelan orchestra, each tuning,
slendro and pelog, needing its own
clempung |
| Climacus |
(Latin, ladder) a neume, one of the category
of compound neumes, representing three pitches |
| Clivis |
(Latin, bend) a neume, one of the category
of simple neumes, representing up to two pitches |
| Cloches |
(French) orchestral bells |
| Clochette |
(French) small bell |
| Clogging |
