| f |
forte, loud |
| F |
the fourth note in the musical scale of C
major; in 'fixed do' solfeggio the note called
fa |
| F |
after Martin Falck the cataloguer of music
by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784); after
Antonio Fanna the cataloguer of music by Antonio
Vivaldi (1676-1741) |
| Fa’atete |
a short Tahitian drum covered with a tight,
single membrane. It is played with two sticks |
| Faburden (Eng.), Fauxbourdon (Fr.),
Falsobordone (It.) |
a part added to a plainsong melody that move
at the same rate, a drone bass (e.g. as on a
bagpipe or hurdy-gurdy), a tenor part in a
metrical psalm tune that carries the tune, a
refrain to the verses of a song, a line added
above the top part (also called a 'descant') |
| Fach |
(German) fold, as in zweifach to mean
'two-fold' |
| Facile, Facilement |
(French) easy, easily |
| Facilmente |
(Italian) easily |
| Facilità |
(Italian) ease, fluency, simplification |
| Fackeltanz |
(German) a 'torch' dance |
| Fading, Fadding |
an Irish dance of the sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century |
| Fadinho, Fado |
a type of Portuguese song and dance to
guitar accompaniment and dating from the
mid-nineteenth-century |
| Fagot (Fr.), Fagott (Ger.), Fagotto (It.) |
bassoon |
| Fähnchen |
(German) the flag attached to the tail of a
note to show its length, for example, one flag
for a quaver (eighth note), two flags for a
semiquaver (sixteenth note), etc. |
| Fahren |
(German) to go |
| Faible |
(French) feeble, weak in tone |
| Faire |
(French) to do, to make |
| Faites |
(French) do, make |
| Fall |
(Old English) cadence |
| Fall, Falle |
(German) case, as in Im Fall meaning
'in case' |
| Fall off |
see 'spill' |
| False cadence |
deceptive cadence |
| False fingering |
see 'alternative fingering' |
| Falsetas |
the melody played on a flamenco
guitar |
| Falsettist, Falsetto |
a singer who uses a method of voice
production called 'falsetto' |
| Family |
instruments with a common characteristic,
for example, violin family (violin, viola, cello
& double bass), saxophone family (soprano, alto,
tenor, baritone and bass saxophones) |
| Fancy |
(English) an alternative to 'Fantasy', a
composition mainly for viols in consort |
| Fandango |
one of the oldest popular dances in Spain,
there are fandangos in virtually every
the regions, but the most popular ones are those
of Almería and Huelva. The dance begins slowly
and tenderly, the rhythm marked by the clack of
castanets, snapping of fingers, and stomping of
feet. The speed gradually increases to a whirl
of exhilaration. There is a sudden pause in the
music toward the end of each figure when the
dancers stand rigid in the attitude caught by
the music. They move again only when the music
is resumed |
| Fandromboa |
two pieces of wood struck together
(Madagascar) |
| Fanfare |
a flourish of trumpets, a word used to
describe a brass band (a band of wood and brass
wind is called a 'Harmonie') |
| Fangsheng |
(Chinese, literally 'square sheng") less
popular, although much older, than the tradition
circular sheng or Chinese mouth-organ,
the fangsheng is mainly found in Hunan
province of China. The pipes are set in three
straight rows or 5 pipes, 4 (inside) and 5
more... |
| Fantasie (It.), Fantasia (It., Eng.),
Fantasy (Eng.) (or Phantasie) |
a piece with an improvisatory feel to it, a
consort piece for viols, recorders, etc. with a
strongly contrapuntal flavour, a 'fancy' |
| Fantasiestück |
(German) a short piece not unlike a
capriccio or intermezzo |
| Fantastico (It.), Fantasque (Fr.),
Fantastisch (Ger.) |
fantastic, whimsical, capricious |
| Farandole |
a lively dance in compound duple time,
accompanied by pipe and tabor, from southern
France and northern Spain |
| Farruca |
a Spanish gypsy dance for men, in 2/4 time
consisting of heel work, fast double turns and
falls. It is considered one of the most exciting
of all the flamenco dances |
| Farsa |
(Italian) farce |
| Farwoudiar |
a popular Wolof (Senegal) dance rhythm for
women (Senegal), the name referring to a woman's
loves for her fiancé |
| Fasa |
praise song performed by West African
jalis |
| Fassung |
(German) version |
| Fast |
(German) almost |
| Fastoso |
(Italian) pompous |
| Fastosamente |
(Italian) pompously |
| Fausset |
(French) falsetto |
| Fauxbourdon |
(French, literally 'false bass') in
plainsong, simple three-part harmony, the
plainsong being the top voice, and the two other
voices each, respectively, a sixth and a fourth
below the plainsong. This practice may have
evolved from the English faburden, or
vice-versa; simple harmonization of plainsong in
four parts with no polyphonic elaboration; in
hymn singing, a fauxbourdon is a treble descant
superimposed upon the melody sung by the
congregation |
| F clef |
 |
a clef sign that shows the position
of F on the staff, for example, the bass
clef |
|
| Feierlich |
(German) solemn (related to Holy Days),
rejoicing (related to Holidays) |
| Feldmusik |
(German, literally 'field music') music
performed out-of-doors on wind instruments |
| Feldpartita |
(German) a type of partita or divertimento
for wind band |
| Felice |
(Italian) happy |
| Felt |
a cloth of wool or fur, often in combination
with natural or synthetic fibres, used
particularly to cover the hammers and dampers of
pianos |
| Feminine endings |
see
feminine endings |
| Fena |
a traditional rhythm from Mozambique |
| Fere |
one of the oldest Mandinka rhythms used in
songs improvised in praise of friends; also
known as seyuruba |
| Fermamente |
(Italian) firmly |
| Fermata (It.), Fermate (Ger.) |
 |
a musical symbol placed over a note
or rest to be extended beyond its normal
duration |
|
| Fermato |
(Italian) perform a certain passage firmly,
steadily, or resolutely |
| Fermer |
(French) to close, to close off |
| Ferne |
(German) distance |
| Feroce |
(Italian) ferocious |
| Ferocità |
(Italian) ferocity |
| Fertig |
(German) ready, dexterous, fluent |
| Fervente, Fervido, Fervidamente |
(Italian) fervent, fervid, fervidly |
| Fervore |
(Italian) fervour |
| Fes |
(German) the note 'F flat' |
| Feses |
(German) the note 'F double flat' |
| Fest |
(German) festival |
| Festa, Festevole, Festevolmente |
(Italian) festival, merry, merrily |
| Festejo |
a popular festive Afro-Peruvian dance,
originally a competition of men in a circle,
confronting each other with a series of fighting
rhythms. The men carried cajones in this
musical competition reminiscent of Brazilian
capoiera. Today, the festejo
movements are extremely sensual and undulating,
the body talking, dancing exactly with the
rhythm. Every sound triggers a movement. The
dancers follow each strike of the cajón |
| Festivo, Festivamente |
(Italian) festive, festively |
| Festlich (Ger.), Festoso (It.) |
festive |
| Fest noz |
Breton night dance |
| Fetura |
see caesura |
| Feuer, Feurig |
(German) fire, fiery |
| ff |
(Italian) abbreviation for fortissimo |
| fff |
(Italian) abbreviation for fortississimo |
| ffff |
(Italian) abbreviation for
fortissississimo |
| fffff |
(Italian) abbreviation for
fortississississimo |
| Fi |
the raised fourth note in a major or the
seventh note of a chromatic scale; in 'fixed do'
solfeggio fi is always the note F sharp |
| Fiacco |
(Italian) weak, tired out |
| Fiata, Fiate |
(Italian) time, times, (e.g. due fiate
meaning 'twice' or 'two times') |
| Fiato |
(Italian) breath |
| Fibonacci series |
a mathematical sequence in which the next
number in the series is the sum of the previous
two numbers, used by many twentieth-century
composers, especially Béla Bartók (1881-1945),
to determine various elements of composition
more... |
| Ficta |
see musica ficta |
| Fiddle |
colloquial name for a violin |
| Fier, Fière |
(French) proud |
| Fierté |
(French) pride, boldness of touch |
| Fierezza |
(Italian) boldness of touch |
| Fiero |
(Italian) fierce, fiery, haughty |
| Fife |
a small member of the cross-blown flute
family similar in pitch to that of the piccolo |
| Fifteenth |
sometimes abbreviated to 15ma; an
instruction to play two octaves above written
pitch; on an organ, the name given to the 2-foot
rank of pipes on the manual (the 2-foot rank is
two octaves above the standard 8-foot rank on
the manual) or a 4-foot rank of pipes on the
pedal (which is two octaves above the 16-foot
pipe on the pedal) |
| Fifteenth century dance |
also called 'early Renaissance dance'; the
earliest original source of complete
(realisable) choreographies is an Italian
manuscript of c. 1455. The dance descriptions
contained are purely verbal, detailing a
sequence of steps with minimal directional
instruction. From this and a number of later
sources, both Italian and Burgundian, we are
able to reconstruct dances with a reasonable
degree of confidence in their accuracy. The
Italian dances may use up to four distinct
rhythms in a single piece, and some are composed
to illustrate a particular theme or scenario
[taken from
The Early Dance Circle] |
| Fifth |
an interval of five diatonic degrees,
counting the first and last degree, for example,
'G' is a fifth above 'C' |
| Fifth motion |
fifth motion is another way of saying
harmonic motion. Since the fifth is the interval
that defines the triad, it is also the interval
that defines the progression of one chord to
another as opposed to prolonging a single chord.
Contrapuntal progressions move by step and most
often serve to proglong a single harmony. |
| Figura |
in medieval music notation, the shape of a
note or of a ligature |
| Figural or Figured (Eng.), Figuré (Fr.),
Figurato (It.), Figural or Figuriert (Ger.) |
a vocal piece in which the melody is
accompanied or decorated with parts containing
notes quicker than those of the melody although
in solo vocal music these words have a meaning
similar to coloratura |
| Figure |
shorter than a theme, a musical phrase that
repeats in a musical composition |
| Figured bass |
also called basso continuo, see
figured bass |
| Figured melody |
a melody that is highly ornamented |
| Filer la voce, Filar it tuono |
(Italian) messa di voce, a note sung and
sustained with no change in volume |
| Filer la voix, Filer le son |
(French) messa di voce, a note sung and
sustained with no change in volume |
| Fill |
in jazz and related popular music forms,
'fills' close-in or cover bare beats during solo
portions in the music, also called 'fill-ins' or
'fillers' |
| Fin |
(French) end |
| Fin, Fino |
(Italian) as far as |
| Final |
the central pitch of a piece of music, often
the note on which a musical work ends; if the
melody ends on the tonic of a church mode, the
mode is said to be authentic, however, if the
melody ends on the fourth degree of a church
mode, the mode is said to be plagal |
| Final cadence |
see 'perfect cadence' |
| Finale |
(Italian) the final section of an extended
work with several sections or movements |
| Fine |
(Italian) end |
| Fingerboard |
the part of a stringed instrument where the
player places his or her fingers to change the
length of the vibrating string, in some cases
these points will coincide with horizontal
strips of metal or gut called frets (as on the
guitar, the lute or the members of the viol
family), in other cases the instrument will be
'unfretted' (as on the members of the violin
family) |
| Finger cymbals |
an early Asian percussion instrument, often
used by female dancers, that are small and
non-pitched, commonly attached to the thumb and
middle finger of one or both hands and struck
together in a specific rhythmic pattern |
| Finger holes |
also called 'tone holes', holes through the
wall of a wind instrument which the player can
cover with his or her finger or leave uncovered
to effect changes in pitch, or, when difficult
to reach, a mechanical key may be used for the
same purpose |
| Fingering |
the arrangement of fingers required to play
a particular note or sequences of notes on a
musical instrument |
| Fingersatz |
(German) fingering |
| Fino al segno |
(Italian) as far as the sign |
| Fiol |
Swedish fiddle |
| Fioritura |
(Italian, literally 'a flowering') the
extemporised decoration of melodies by singers
and instrumentalists, particularly associated
with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italian
opera |
| Fipple, Fipple flute |
most commonly, the block or plug fitted into
the top end of a wind instrument of the recorder
family; fipple flutes include the recorder, the
flageolet, the tin whistle and the penny whistle |
| Firikyiwa |
thumb bell, a round hollow iron shell worn
on the finger. It is struck by a heavy ring worn
on the thumb (Ghana) |
| Firmo |
(Italian) firm |
| First chair |
see 'principal' |
| First ending |
where a section is repeated, the composer
may wish to vary the sectional ending, whether
first ending or second ending, as a way of
creating symmetry between antecedent and
consequent phrases or simply in order to extend
the composition |
| First movement form |
see 'sonata-allegro form' |
| Fis |
(German) the note 'F sharp' |
| Fisarmonica |
(Italian) accordian (q.v.) |
| Fisis |
(German) the note 'F double sharp' |
| Five, The |
see Kutchka |
| Fixed do |
do is the first degree of the scale
in solmization (do, re, mi,
etc.). If do is always the note 'C'
whatever the tonal centre of the composition
then this is called 'fixed do'. If
however do is set by the tonal centre and
is the first degree in the relevent scale on
that note, it is called 'moveable do' |
| Flag |
see 'note' |
| Flageolett or Flageolettöne (Ger.),
Flageolet (Eng.) |
a small six-holed whistle rather like a
recorder but with two thumbholes played with
both thumbs |
| Flam |
two strokes on the side drum, the first
short and second long |
| Flamenco |
flamenco culture evolved over
centuries, carried across Asia, the Middle East,
Africa and the European continent by nomad
gypsies. At its purest it is a form of song
accompanied with one or two guitars and
palmas (rhythmic clapping). Dance was later
introduced and is now at the heart of
flamenco. The movement settled in Southern
Spain's gypsy communities, where it has been
popular for over 400 years. The Andalusian
Granada gypsy calls himself gitano
(gypsy) while the Sevillian gypsy calls himself
a flamenco. Flamenco has strict
rhythmic rules essential to achieving the
correct look. These include alegrias,
soleares, bulerias, farruca,
Zapateado, tango and Zambra.
The dancer beats his foot and heel to produce a
perfect zapateado while the heel work in
flamenco is called taconeo.
alegrias is one of the oldest and one
of the purest, most refined and dignified of the
Spanish flamenco repertoire;
bulerias is similar to alegrias;
however it is faster and more lively;
farruca is said to be the most Gypsy
of all the Spanish dances;
soleares is rarely danced today, but
when mixed with the alegrias is the
origin for all flamenco dances;
zambra is a Spanish flamenco
dance with direct Moorish origin, performed
entirely by women
Malagueña shares with the fandango
the rank of the principal dance of Andalusa. It
is sometimes called the flamenco, a term
which in Spain signifies gay and lively when
applied to song or dance. It is said to have
originated with the Spanish occupation of
Flanders (1506-1714). Spanish soldiers who had
been quartered in the Netherlands were styled
flamencos.
|
| Flat |
 |
a sign which lowers the pitch of a
note by one semitone
|
|
| Flat |
to play or sing under the general pitch |
| Flatter |
(French) to caress |
| Flauta |
(Spanish) flute |
| Flauta baja |
(Spanish) alto flute |
| Flauta de millo |
short Colombian flute, with a reed, played
horizontally. It is made out of millet or
sorghum cane |
| Flauta de pico |
(Spanish) recorder |
| Flautando, Flautato |
(Italian) to produce flute-like sounds, i.e.
harmonics, on a stringed instrument |
| Flautas de carrizo |
small flutes made out of bamboo or reed
grass. They come with 3, 4 and up to 5 or 6
finger holes. The three hole version is the most
common and it produces the seven sounds of as
major scale. They are used in Mexican
traditional dances, in the Nahoa region and
other states such as Tabasco, Chiapas o Oaxaca |
| Flauti |
(Italian) flutes |
| Flautist |
performer on the transverse flute; in
America, called a flutist |
| Flauto |
(Italian) flute |
| Flauto diritto, Flauto dolce |
(Italian) recorder |
| Flautone |
(Italian) alto flute |
| Flauto transverso |
(Italian) transverse flute |
| Fleadh |
(Gaelic) Celtic music festival |
| Flebile, Flebilmente |
(Italian) mournful, mournfully |
| Fletcher-Munson curves |
Fletcher and Munson were researchers in the
1930s who first accurately measured and
published a set of curves showing the human's
ear's sensitivity to loudness verses frequency.
They conclusively demonstrated that human
hearing is extremely dependent upon loudness.
The curves show the ear to be most sensitive to
sounds in the 3 kHz to 4 kHz area. This means
sounds above and below 3-4 kHz must be louder in
order to be heard just as loud. For this reason,
the Fletcher-Munson curves are referred to as
"equal loudness contours." They represent a
family of curves from "just heard," (0 dB SPL)
all the way to "harmfully loud" (130 dB SPL),
usually plotted in 10 dB loudness increments
[taken from the
Electronic Music Dictionary] |
| Flehend |
(German) entreating |
| Flessibile, Flessibilità |
(Italian) flexible, flexibility |
| Flexa |
see 'neume notation' |
| Flexa resupina |
see 'neume notation' |
| Flex-a-tone |
a percussion instrument from the 1920's
comprising wooden balls on a spring attached to
a flexible metal sheet, which when shaken
producing a sound similar to a musical saw as
the balls strike the metal sheet |
| Fliessend, Fliessender |
(German) flowing, more flowing |
| Fling |
a vigorous Scottish dance |
| Floghera |
see floyera |
| Flojere |
Kosovar Albanian end-blown flute |
| Flöjter |
(Swedish) flutes |
| Floor tom |
largest of the tom-toms that stands on the
floor on feet made of metal rods |
| Florid |
decorated or embellished with ornamentation |
| Florid organum |
also called 'Aquitainian organum' or
'melismatic organum'; a twelfth-century
polyphonic work based on plainchant (called the
tenor) above which a newly composed line is
added, having faster moving notes than the
tenor, where the cadences fall on unisons,
fourths, fifths and octaves |
| Flöte |
(German) flute |
| Flotter |
(French) to float, referring to the
undulating motion of the violin bow |
| Flourish |
a fanfare; an decorative musical figure |
| Flowerpots |
ordinary flowerpots tuned with water and
played with the hands or with mallets |
| Floyera |
Greek shepherd's flute |
| Flüchtig |
(German) fleet, agile |
| Flue |
channel of air directed at the lip or edge
of certain wind instruments, the recorder for
example, where the air column (or air reed)
divides and sets up a vibration in this way
generating a sound |
| Flue pipe |
the main class of organ pipework in which
sound is produced using the principle of the
flue (q.v.) |
| Flügel |
(German) the grand piano |
| Flügelhorn |
(German) a member of the brass family,
related to the trumpet, originating in Germany
where it was used in military bands
more... |
| Fluidezza, Fluidità |
(Italian) fluidity |
| Fluido |
(Italian) fluid |
| Flute |
any woodwind instrument played without a
reed, particularly now the transverse flute, but
before the eighteenth century, including the
recorder |
| Flute, German |
in the seventeenth- and early
eighteenth-centuries, the transverse flute |
| Flûte |
(French) flute |
| Flûte á bec |
(French) recorder |
| Flûte alto |
(French) alto flute |
| Flûte douce |
(French) recorder |
| Flutist |
the American term for a performer on the
flute, in England called a flautist |
| Flutter tonguing |
extremely rapid, tongued-articulation on a
wind instrument |
| Focoso |
(Italian) fiery |
| Fois |
(French) time, as in première fois
meaning 'first time' |
| Folge |
(German) succession, series, continuation |
| Folgen |
(German) to follow |
| Folgt |
(German) follows |
| Folia, Follia |
originally a Portuguese dance but which was
a popular theme for composers writing 'theme
with variations' over three hundred and fifty
years |
| Foliba |
a typical praise song from Mali |
| Folk elements |
the introduction of folk melodies, rhythms
or characteristic harmonic progressions into
orchestral or chamber music |
| Folk music |
songs and dances transmitted orally through
several generations before being recorded or
notated; Ralph Vaughan Williams, Cecil Sharp,
Béla Bartók and Zoltan Kodaly were all noted
folk song and dance collectors |
| Fonn mall |
(Gaelic) a slow air |
| Foot |
a term used to describe the pitch (but, in
general, not the length) of an organ pipe, i.e.
2-foot, 4-foot, 8-foot, etc. - the term arises
from the natural length of the lowest note on
the normal organ (C, two leger lines below the
bass clef) which is 8 feet. A pipe is raised an
octave by halving its length, so that a rank of
pipes playing an octave above the 8-foot
register is called the 4-foot register, while
the register an octave below, is called the
16-foot register. Intermediate length mixture
stops also feature on the organ to produce, when
in combination with standard stops, unusual tone
colours;
a unit of two or three syllables in classic
Latin and Greek verse. A verse consisted of
anywhere between two and six feet, dimeter,
trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter and hexameter.
The main types of foot are the iamb
(short-long), trochee (long-short),
anapest (short-short-long), dactyl
(long-short-short), spondee (long-long),
and the tribrach (short-short-short). The
verse types were named according to the type of
foot and the number of feet in each line |
| Forefall |
an ascending appoggiatura
(seventeenth-century England) as opposed to a
backfall or a descending appoggiatura |
| Forlana or Forlano (It.), Forlane (Fr.) |
a popular old Italian dance in compound
duple time |
| Form |
the structure a pieces of music may have,
for example, sonata form, rondo, fugue and so
forth |
| Formalism |
the tendency in music to elevate form above
expression, as in neo-classical music |
| Formant |
a resonant peak in a frequency spectrum. For
example, the variable formants produced by the
human vocal tract are what give vowels their
characteristic sound |
| Format de poche |
(French) pocket-sized, as in 'pocket-score' |
| Formes fixes |
(French, literally 'fixed forms') three
standardised musical or poetic forms used in
French secular music from the thirteenth-, to
the mid-fifteenth centuries, the three being
virelai, ballade and rondeau |
| Forró |
a form of dance music that is extremely
popular in the Manaus region of Brazil, usually
involving an accordion |
| Fort |
(German) forwards, continually, away
(silence a stop on the organ) |
| Forte |
(Italian) loud, abbreviated 'f' |
| Fortemente |
(Italian) strongly |
| Fortepiano |
(Italian) early name for the pianoforte |
| Fortissimo, Fortississimo,
Fortissississimo
|
(Italian) increasing degrees of loudness,
abbreviated 'ff', 'fff' and 'ffff' |
| Forza |
(Italian) force, vigour |
| Forzando, Fz. (abbrev.) |
(Italian) forcing |
| Forzato |
(Italian) forced |
| Fotutu |
Conch shells used as horns by the indigenous
tribes in pre-colonial Cuba |
| Fougueux, Forgueuse |
(French) impetuous |
| Four-beat |
in jazz, to play all beats of a four-beat
bass rhythm with equal emphasis |
| Four-hand piano music |
chamber music genre for two performers
playing at one or occasionally two pianos,
particularly to allow home or salon performances
of orchestral arrangements |
| Fours |
when jazz ensemble players exchange leads
every four bars, whether during a verse or a
chorus, they are said to be 'trading fours' |
| Fourth |
interval of four diatonic scale notes,
counting the first and last note, for example,
the interval from 'C' to 'F' |
| Fox-trot |
an American ballroom dance, a cross between
ragtime and a march, which can be slow or quick |
| fp |
fortepiano, 'loud, then immediately soft' |
| Fr |
after E.W. Frisch the cataloguer of music by
Frédéric François Chopin (1810-1849) |
| Fracta modi |
ornamental notes that break into the steady
pattern of rhythmic modes |
| Fractional time signature |
a meter (time signature) in which the top
number includes or is a fraction |
| Fragmentation |
breaking up a subject into small segments,
any one of which may form the basis for further
development |
| Frais, Fraîche |
(French) fresh |
| Fraîcheur |
(French) freshness |
| Franc, Franche |
(French) frank, open-hearted, bluff |
| Français, Française |
(French) French |
| Française |
a round dance in triple or compound duple
time |
| Franchezza (It.), Franchise (Fr.) |
freedom of spirit, boldness |
| Franco Flemish school |
the school of Josquin Desprez (c.1440-1521),
the third of the three 'Netherlands Schools' |
| Franconian motet |
a motet based on the mensural notation
championed by Franco of Cologne (fl.
c.1250-1280), where there is a movement away
from rhythmic modes, the voices are generally
rhythmically stratified, with each voice having
a faster line than the voice below |
| Frapper |
(French) to strike |
| Frappant, Frappé |
(French) striking, struck |
| Frauenchor |
(German) women's choir |
| Freddamente, Freddezza, Freddo |
(Italian) coldly, coolness or indifference,
cold |
| Fredonner |
(French) to hum |
| Free aerophone |
an instrument that produces sound by using
air directly as the primary vibrating means
rather than through the use of a performer's
breath or by constricting the air in a tube, so
for example, the bull-roarer sets the air into
vibration by simply spinning the instrument
through the air |
| Free rhythm |
a fluid line of music with an adjustable
rhythm shaped by text, for example, plainchant |
| Frei, Freie |
(German) free |
| French horn |
a coiled brass instrument developed in
France, derived from simple hunting horns and
originally without valves (the 'natural horn') -
now fitted with valves
more... |
| French overture |
a work for orchestra, originating in the
1650's, that is usually used as an introduction
to a ballet, opera, or suite which is in four
linked sections arranged slow (often
strongly dotted) - quick (lively, often
fugal) - slow (in imitation of the first
section) - quick (lively) |
| French sixth chord |
an augmented sixth chord, which contains a
second from the tonic; see
sixth chords |
| French violin clef |
see
French violin clef |
| Frenetico, Frenetica |
(Italian) frenzied |
| Frequency |
the number of vibrations per second of a
musical pitch, usually measured in Hertz (Hz),
thus one Hertz is one vibration per second |
| Frescamente, Fresco |
(Italian) coolly or freshly, fresh or cool |
| Frets |
horizontal strips fixed in or tied around
the fingerboard of some stringed instruments to
act as guides to where the fingers should be
placed (normally close above the fret) to stop
for different notes |
| Fretta |
(Italian) haste |
| Frettolosamente |
(Italian) hurried |
| Freude |
(German) joy |
| Freudig |
(German) joyful |
| Freygish |
the most important of the Klezmer gust
or modes |
| Frisch |
(German) brisk, lively |
| Frog |
lower part of the violin bow also called the
'nut' |
| Fröhlich |
(German) happy |
| Froid |
(German) cold |
| Froidement |
(French) coldly |
| Frosch |
(German) the nut of a violin bow |
| Frottola |
an unaccompanied madrigal of the late
fifteenth- and early sixteenth-centuries |
| Früher |
(German) earlier, previously |
| Frula |
a large wooden pipe from Serbia, also known
as duduk in other countries |
| FS |
after Dan Fog and Schousboe the cataloguers
of music by Carl August Neilsen (1865-1931) |
| F-Schlussel |
(German) F or bass clef |
| Fturkes |
Klezmer second violins |
| Fuchi |
Japanese term for the rim of the drum, where
the ka note is played |
| Fue |
transverse bamboo flute (Japan) |
| Fuelle |
Argentine synonym for bandoneón |
| Fuga |
(Latin) a fifteenth- or sixteenth-century
canon; (Italian) fugue |
| Fugato |
a passage in a fugal style |
| Fuge |
(German) fugue |
| Fughetta |
a short fugue |
| Fuging tune |
a tune upon which a fugue is built |
| Fugue |
contrapuntal form in which a subject theme
("part" or "voice") is introduced and then
extended and developed through some number of
successive imitations
more... |
| Fujara |
Slovakian handmade shepherd's flute approx.
1.80 metres long (6 feet) |
| Fuji |
Yoruba dance music with apala and
sakara influences (Nigeria) |
| Fula |
Malian one-stringed fiddle |
| Fulía |
a call and response music style from eastern
Venezuela with Spanish musical roots |
| Full anthem |
unaccompanied anthem with four or more
parts, without verses or solo passages, to be
sung throughout by an entire choir |
| Full cadence, Full close |
perfect cadence |
| Full orchestra |
an orchestra with all of its four sections,
strings, woodwind, brass and percussion |
| Führend |
(German) leading |
| Füllstimme |
(German) a middle voice in a polyphonic
composition generally of little musical
importance |
| Function |
the way in which chords, and individual
tones within the chord, tend to imply movement
toward another chord |
| Fundamental |
the lowest note in the harmonic series |
| Funébre (Fr.), Funebre (It.) |
funeral |
| Fünf |
(German) five |
| Fünfstimmig |
(German) in five parts |
| Fuoco |
(Italian) force and speed |
| Für |
(German) for |
| Furia |
(Italian) fury |
| Furiosamente |
(Italian) furiously |
| Furioso, Furibondo |
(Italian) furious |
| Furiant |
a rapid, polyrhythmic dance type in triple
time from Bohemia |
| Furieux, Furieusement |
(French) furious, furiously |
| Furore |
(Italian) fury, enthusiasm |
| Furry Dance |
an ancient processional dance from Cornwall,
also called the 'Floral Dance' or 'Flora'
more ... |
| Fusa |
 |
(Latin) in mensural notation, eighth
note or quaver
|
|
| Fuyant |
(French) fleeing |
| Fyell |
Kosovar Albanian end-blown flute |
| Fz |
forzando or forzato,
synonomous with sforzando (sf or
sfz) |
