Musical terminology

The term appassionato (from Italian) tells the performer to play (or sing) passionately.

In Italian, arpeggio literally means like a harp. It is used to indicate that the consecutive notes of a certain chord are to be played quickly one after another, instead of at the same moment.

In piano music this is sometimes a solution used to play a wide-ranged chord which, technically speaking, cannot be played simultaneously with one hand. Music played on the limited hardware of video game computers uses a similar technique to create a chord from one tone generator.

Augmentation is the prolongation of notes in a melody or part of a melody. It is often used in counterpoint, to the effect that several (for instance bass- and soprano) melodies are woven together, or that the augmentation makes room for another melody to temporarily raise to the surface. The music of Johann Sebastian Bach is an excellent aid to study this application.

Common time is the time signature 4/4: four beats per measure, each beat a quarter note.

4/4 is often written on the musical staff as C. The symbol is not a "C" as an abbreviation for "common time", but a broken circle: the full circle

Cut time is synonymous to the meter 2/2: two half-note beats per measure. This is notated and played like common time (4/4), except with the note lengths halved. Cut time is denoted by 3/4 a circle with a vertical line through it, which resembles the cent symbol ¢. This comes from a literal "cut" of the C symbol of common time. Thus, a quarter note in cut time is only half a beat long. A measure has only two beats. The other common meter with two-beat measures is fast 6/8, in which note lengths are 2/3 their normal values.

Dolce is Italian for sweet, and tells the performer to sing (or play) sweetly.

Glissando is a continuous sliding from one pitch to another (a "true" glissando), or an incidental scale played while moving from one melodic note to another (an "effective" glissando). See glissando for further information.

A mezzo-soprano is a female singer with a range usually extending from the A below middle C to the F an eleventh above middle C. Mezzo-sopranos generally have a daker vocal tone than sopranos, and their vocal range is between that of a soprano and that of an alto. See mezzo-soprano for further information.

A partial is a non-integer multiple of a fundamental frequency, as opposed to harmonics, which are integer multiples of the fundamental. An overtone is either a partial or a harmonic, and partial thus refers to the inharmonic overtones.

Tremolo can mean a rapid repetition of the same note, or an alternation between two or more notes. It can also mean a rapid and repetitive variation in pitch for the duration of a note. See tremolo for further information.