Some music terms

I am going to cover some music terms that are good to know in this post!
Hope it helps!

Accelerando: Gradually getting faster

Accent: Stressed note, you should highlight this note

(accent)

Adagio: A slow tempo in between andante and largo, about 66-76 BPM

Ad libitum: At the liberty of the performer

Allargando: Broadening, becoming slower

Alla,alle,all': In the style of

Allegretto: Fairly fast, slower than allegro, about 112-120 BMP

Allegro: Fast and bright, about 120-168 BMP

Andante: At a Walking pace, moderately slow, about 76-108 BMP

Animato: Animated

Arco: Resume to bowing after pizzicato

Assai: Very

Attaca: Proceed without a break

A Tempo: Return to original tempo

Ben: Well

Brilliante: Brilliant

Cantabile: In a singing style, lyrical

Col,colla,con,coll',colle': With

Coll 8va: With add octave

Comodo: At a comfortable easy speed

Con: With

Con brio: With vigour

Con expression: With expression

Con fuoco: With fire

Con Grazia: With grace

Con moto: With motion

Con Pedale "ped.": With Pedal

Con Sordino: With the mute

Crescendo"cresc.": Gradually getting louder

Da Capo, D.C.: Repeat from the beginning

Dal Segno, D. S. : Repeat from the sign

Decrescendo"decresc" + Diminuendo "dim": Gradually getting softer

Dolce: Sweet, Gentle

Dolente: Sadly

E,ed: And

Espressivo "espress": Expressively

Fermata: Hold the tone, hold longer then note value + 1/2

(Fermata)

Forte (f): Loud 

Fortissimo (ff): Very loud

Forte Piano (fp): Loud, then suddenly soft

Giocoso: Humorously

Grandioso: Grandly

Grave: Extremely slow & broad

Grazioso: Graceful

Largamente: Broadly

Largo: Very slow, about 40-60 BMP

Legato: Smoothly, bound

Leggiero: Light

Lento: Slow

Lístesso tempo: At the same speed

Loco: In the original place of

Ma: But

Maestoso: Majestic

Marcato: Marked or stressed 

Mano destra M.D.: Right hand

Mano sinistra M.S.: Left hand 

Martellato: Hammered, strong

Meno: Less

Meno mosso: Less quickly

Mesto: Sadly, mournfully

Moderato: At a moderate pace, about 108-120 BMP

Molto: Much, very

Mezzo forte (mf): Moderately loud

Mezzo piano (mp): Moderately soft

M.M.: Malzeló metronome 

Non: Without, not

Non Troppo: Not too much

Ottava, 8va, 8vb: Play one octave higher or lower

Pesante: Weighty, with emphasis

Piano (p): Soft

Pianissimo (pp): Very soft

Piú: More

Piú mosso: Quickly

Poco: Little

Poco a poco: Little by little

Presto: Very fast, about 168-200 BMP

Prestissimo: As fast as possible, about 200-208 BMP

Quasi: In the manner of

Rallentando"rall" + Ritardando"rit" : Gradually slowing down

Repeat sign: Repeat music within the double bars

Rubato: Flexible, giving and taking

Sempre: Always

Senza: Without

Slur: Play notes legato

Sonore: Sonorously

Sostenuto: Sustained

Sotto Voce: Soft Whisper

Staccato ( . ): Sharply detached

Strepitoso: Loud, noisy

Stringendo: Pressing faster

Subito: Suddenly

Sul ponticello: On the bridge

Tacet: Be silent

Tempo: Time, Speed of the music, Speed at which the music is performed

Tempo Primo ( Tempo I ): First Tempo, Return to first tempo

Tempo Rubato: "robbed" time

Tenuto: Hold the note

Tie: Hold for combine the note values

Transquillo: Quietly

Troppo: Too much

Tutti: All performers are to play

Una Corda: One string

Vivace: Lively, quick, about 168-176 BMP

Vivo: Lively

Volta: Time (Prima volta: First time)

Volti Subito ( V.S.): Turn page quickly

Hope this helped you, if you have any questions ask me on Olivia.Walter.Musictheory@gmail.com or just leave a comment.

Have a good time!

/ Olivia :)

 

Lesson two - Note values

Hi everyone! In this lesson am I going to cover Note values, I think this will be a shorter lesson than lesson 1. We are going to cover the 5 most basic note values and their rests we are also going to cover dotted notes!

All notes has a “silence brother” a rest, simply a pause were you stop playing for the amount of note value that the rest represents.

This is a quarter note and its rest, which has the note value: 1 beat   worth:  1

Next we have the half note and its rest, which has the note value: 2 beats worth: 2

Next one is the Whole note and its rest, which has the note value: 4 beats  worth: 4

Next one is the eighth note and its rest, which has the note value: ½ beat worth: 0.5

The last one I take is the sixteenth note and its rest, which has the note value: ¼ beat worth: 0.25

•     The half note is half of the whole note

•     The quarter note is half of the half note and ¼ of the whole note

•   The eighth note is half of the quarter note, ¼ of the half and 1/8 of the Whole note

•     The sixteenth note is half of the eighth note, ¼ of the quarter , 1/8 of the half, and 1/16 of the     whole note

·

Here I made it more clearly with the beats under the note values. Our piece is in 4/4 time signature, which means 4 quarter note values per bar.

DOTTED NOTES:

The length of a dotted note is the main notes value + half of its value.

·         A half note has the note value 2 if we take half of it = 2/2 = 1, means a dotted half note is as long as a half note + a quarter note     Worth: 1+2= 3

·         A quarter note has the note value 1 if we take half of it = 1/2 = 0.5 , which means a dotted quarter note is as long as a quarter note + a eighth note  Worth: 1+0.5= 1.5

·         A eight note has the note value 0.5 if we take half of it = 0.5 /2= 0.25, which means a dotted eighth note is as long as an eighth note + a sixteenth note Worth: 0.5+0.25=0.75

·         A sixteenth note has the note value 0.25 if we take half of it = 0.25/2 = 0.125, which means a dotted sixteenth note is as long as a sixteenth note + a thirty-second note Worth: 0.25 + 0.125 = 0.375

!Note: the thirty-second note is as long as half the sixteenth note!

I hope you understood everything in this lesson and that it helped you, if you have questions ask me on Olivia.Walter.Musictheory@gmail.com or just leave a comment!

Have a nice day! See you in the next lesson!

/ Olivia J

Lesson 1 - the beginning

I am going to start with showing you the beginning of a sheet music and I will explain some basic things.

Lets go J

This is how the beginning of a simple piece can look.

We start with talking about the term TEMPO, Tempo is the speed in which the piece is written and should be performed. Tempo is usually measured in BMP which stands for: Beat Per Minute. It can be written on a piece like: BMP = 118 or q =118 like seen above, sometimes it will even be written as a musical  term as an example here Allegro which means: fast and is between 118 – 168 BMP.

Often is the Quarter note (q ) taken as measuring point, that means if we have a BMP of 118 and the measuring is in Quarter note then it means that you should be able to play 118 quarter notes in a minute, and there you get the speed.

But we all know that music doesn’t have the same pattern the whole time, how boring wouldn’t that be?

Down on the sheet you can read beats followed by some black lines, these are the even beats though the piece,

They are always even and they would do the “boring same pattern music” but we don’t want that!

So there comes the term RHYTHM in: rhythm is the division of note values though a piece.

The NOTEVALUE is simply the length of a note.

In this sheet we have the quarter note (q ) which has a note value of 1 beat

Then we have also the Half note (h) which has a note value of 2 beats

And in the end we have a Whole note (w ) which has a note value of 4 beats

More from this in Lesson 2

This piece is in 4/4 time signature. The upper number stands for the Beats per BAR, a bar is the division

Of the beats. And the lower number stands for what kind of note value the beats are counted in.

4 stands for the quarter note ( think of math on this one ).

So our piece is in 4 quarter beats per bar, that means we should be able to fit 4 beats in 1 bar

The first bar has 1 quarter note(q ) ( 1 beat ) + another 1 quarter note (q ) (1 beat ) + 1 half note (h) ( 2 beats )

If we now use math and just add them together : 1 + 1 + 2 = 4

There you see our first bar fits perfectly in the time signature

Our second bar only contains 1 Whole note  (w ) which has a note value of 4 beats.

And there it fits again.

I hope Lesson 1 helped you! If you have questions ask me on Olivia.Walter.Musictheory@gmail.com or just leave a comment

Have a great day and see you in the next lesson

/ Olivia J

Getting started

Hello!

My name is Olivia Walter and i am a music student of 18 years. One of my favorit subjects in school is music theory and I am quite good at it too. I have many friends who doesn't understand music theory at all, and sometimes not even the teacher can help them understand, i have got a few of these friends to understand the thing were the teacher wasn't able to help them with, and they were very glad that i helped them. So now i feel that i want to help more people who doesn't understand everything or just want to know more about music theory! So yeah, I hope this will help some people.

I will make a sort of for beginners lesson, but also go into more advanced music theory stuff. So don't run away if you are a beginner and the newest post is some advanced stuff :)

:) Olivia