# A new musical dictionary



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

We use a lot of technical terms on this forum, and newcomers may benefit from a brief dictionary. I propose starting one. I'll define some terms and you can continue to define others. If you like, just copy the list from the previous post and add your new definitions at the bottom. I'll sort once in a while.

Magisterial: Played loudly with the nose elevated and the pinky held out.
Postmodern: Of or pertaining to the Jetsons.
Reference, as in "reference recording": The one I like the best today.
Structural clarity: The effect achieved by playing slowly, carefully, and boringly.

Over to you.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Just a couple of general ones...

Right: Me
Wrong: You
Me: SMRT
You: Probably an idiot
Tonality: There are at least 46 definitions, one of which may or may not be "extra pepperoni."
Atonality: There are at least 55 definitions, but no one knows what any of them are.
John Cage: <insert stupid joke here>


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

New Defintions of Avant-Guarde dictionary : 

Tonality: lol We have dismissed that claim! lol
Emotions: They're bad unless they're expressed in music extremely
Avant-Guarde Art: Open-minded future-conquered Super duper art for the higher levels of art elitists

:lol:


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

Overrated: I don't like this music and I want you all to validate my feelings.
Underrated: I'm cooler than all of you because I listen to Helmüt Siegfried von Rosenkavalier-Schmidt.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

So far:

Atonality: There are at least 55 definitions, but no one knows what any of them are.
Avant-Garde art: Open-minded future-conquered super duper art for the higher levels of art elitists.
Emotions: They're bad unless they're expressed in music extremely.
Magisterial: Played loudly with the nose elevated and the pinky held out.
Overrated: I don't like this music and I want you all to validate my feelings.
Postmodern: Of or pertaining to The Jetsons.
Reference, as in "reference recording": The one I like the best today.
Structural clarity: The effect achieved by playing slowly, carefully, and boringly.
Tonality: There are at least 46 definitions, one of which may or may not be "extra pepperoni."
Underrated: I'm cooler than all of you because I listen to Helmüt Siegfried von Rosenkavalier-Schmidt.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Found this intriguing post way out at something like page 81, and was wondering why it died out. So many words left undefined.

For instance:

"*Classical music*" -- any music that is stupid and boring (according to a pop fan)
"*Pop music*" -- any music that is stupid and boring (according to a classical fan)

and

"*nut*" -- (1) a small piece of hard material that supports the strings at the end closest to the headstock or scroll of a stringed instrument, marking one end of the vibrating length of each open string, setting the spacing of the strings across the neck, and usually holding the strings at the proper height from the fingerboard. (2) a music fan with membership on a Classical Music Forum


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Accessible: bad.
Inaccessible: bad.

Baroque: intellectual, mechanical, unemotional, and elitist.
Classical: trivial.
Romantic: self-indulgent.
Modern: see inaccessible.

Neapolitan: mmm...


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

SeptimalTritone said:


> Accessible: bad.
> Neapolitan: mmm...


Music that, to someone with synesthesia, sounds pink, brown and white.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Consonance: only in music I like
Dissonance: only in music I don't like 
Counterpoint: BACH IS GOD (ftw...zelenka?)
Symphony: an orchestral work which starts in sonata form and always tell a story of struggle and victory 
Micropolyphony: aural equivalent of heroin
Klangfarbenmelodie: pretentious German word that somehow related to the second Viennese school
Mozart: a composer from the Byzantine Empire 800 a.d. (alias Tom Hulce)
Tonality: [2] actually doesn't exist*

*see millionrainbows about this


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

12-tone method: in the field of discrete mathematics, the study of the combinatorial aspects of finite sets. *Footnote*: sometimes the term appears in music discussions, but the origin of that is a comical situation in which, as a joke, an orchestra member took a paper by Dr.Webern and amused his colleagues by 'playing' the equations with his violin as if the paper were a musical score.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

A note - something you won't hear in John Cage's 4'33".


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Atonality: [1] There are at least 55 definitions, but no one _except Mahlerian_ knows what any of them are.
[2] Actually doesn't exist*

*explained by _Mahlerian_ (q.v.)


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## Hmmbug (Jun 16, 2014)

String quartet - a good violinist, a bad violinist, an ex-violinist, and someone who hates violinists.
Symphony - a measurer of age (If you've written a ninth, you won't be around much longer).


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

Hmmbug said:


> Symphony - a measurer of age (If you've written a ninth, you won't be around much longer).


Well, in case of Haydn adjust that to a hundred and ninth.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

TurnaboutVox said:


> Atonality: [1] There are at least 55 definitions, but no one _except Mahlerian_ knows what any of them are.
> [2] Actually doesn't exist*
> 
> *explained by _Mahlerian_ (q.v.)


Sir, I laughed. Congratulations.

*The Eras of Classical Music, A Negative Point of View*
Medieval: Music without polyphony
Renaissance: Music without tonality
Baroque: Music without breathing room
Classical: Music without counterpoint
Romantic: Music without structure
Modern: Music without tunes
Postmodern: Music without taste


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

aleazk said:


> 12-tone method: in the field of discrete mathematics, the study of the combinatorial aspects of finite sets. *Footnote*: sometimes the term appears in music discussions, but the origin of that is a comical situation in which, as a joke, an orchestra member took a paper by Dr.Webern and amused his colleagues by 'playing' the equations with his violin as if the paper were a musical score.


Music: the study of the combinatorial aspects of a finite set!!!


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## Trout (Apr 11, 2011)

Subjective: according to one's personal tastes
Objective: according to my personal tastes


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Medieval Music - middle-y music
Baroque - twiddly music
Mozart - fiddly music
modern - tiddly music


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

TurnaboutVox said:


> Atonality: [1] There are at least 55 definitions, but no one _except Mahlerian_ knows what any of them are.
> [2] Actually doesn't exist*
> 
> *explained by _Mahlerian_ (q.v.)


[3] 2 violas attempting to play together in tune - this is also sometimes called aleatory music especially if there are more than 2 violas.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Taggart said:


> [3] 2 *violins* attempting to play together in tune - this is also sometimes called aleatory music especially if there are more than 2 *violins*.


Fixed that for you!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

*Counterpoint: *
-----Counterpoint is two or more independent musical lines playing simultaneously.

-----Johann Sebastian Bach invented counterpoint out of thin air and he was its sole inventor and consummate practitioner.

-----Although no other composer than Bach has ever used counterpoint, any music with counterpoint must and will sound like Bach. 
~~~~~

*Romantic Music:*
-----Any music that makes you feel all emotional.

-----Romantic music is found in all eras and all genres: that favored contemporary pianist's new-age piece, "Happy Valley"; Beethoven; a favored hymn lyric, a Frank Loesser song, etc. The range of Romantic music and the genres it encompasses is so wide there is not a book big enough to fill it with a list of all the examples of romantic music.

-----Though it is men who do all the composing, including all those romantic pieces of the romantic genre, it is women who are the primary and overwhelming majority audience for romantic music. 
~~~~~

*The Romantic Period:*
-----A cyclical time recurring about every 28 days where for several days women may be found to be exceptionally moody and emotional.

-----Men have all that classical music to compose, so just do not have time, any time, to spare in being much emotional. Of course, it is a well-known fact that moods are exclusive to womankind, and that men never have moods.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

*Composition:*

Any music of any genre recorded in or realized via MIDI but not written in any form of musical notation.


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## stevens (Jun 23, 2014)

Jazz = 3 persons listens to 1000 chords
Pop = 1000 persons listens to three chords


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

*Tetrachord:* A set of notes used in the form of early serialism called "chant" in which fixed sets of notes are connected in long strings, to create arbitrary melodic movement without tonality

*Tonality: *A vague term describing a stylistic norm which exemplifies any music that sounds good to anyone, including Debussy and Schoenberg

*Atonality:* A vaguer term describing any non-melodic, dissonant, or otherwise stylistically deviant music which sounds bad. This includes the late Beethoven string quartets, Shostakovich, Hindemith, and Late Mahler, esp. the 10th Symphony.

*Tone Row:* A bad-sounding melody, which nonetheless has profound structural significance to the composition.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

'Klangfarbenmelodie' can of course be linguistically analysed thus:

'Klang' = unpleasant noise, as produced by the clashing of two or more metallic items, in any language

'far' = far (away)

'ben' from its Latin root 'bene', meaning 'good' or 'well'

'melodie' being the analogue of the English 'melody'

Putting them all together you now have:

'Unpleasant noise that is far away from being a good melody', i.e. a standard definition of the music of *Arnold Schoenberg* and *Anton von Webern.*


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> Medieval Music - middle-y music
> Baroque - twiddly music
> Mozart - fiddly music
> modern - tiddly music


Pop music -- s-s-silly-ly-ly music


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

*Isorhythm:* An early Medieval form of drum-loop.

*Late Romanticism:* A form of Romanticism that came about after the beat was lost, and the tonality became obscured, and the general use of morphine and opiates was at its peak.

*Expressionism:* Music that is very jagged, so it will be more expressive.

*Prepared Piano:* A method of altering a piano's sound, by inserting hardware. It was discovered by a plumber who was working on a nearby toilet, and accidentally dropped his toolbox into the piano. Cage, who happened to be sitting on that same toilet, was immediately thunderstruck, almost to the point of soiling himself.

*Anton Webern: The Movie, *starring Gary Burghoff (Radar O'Reilly) as Webern



Whoops! I'm getting this thread mixed up with "Stupid Thread Ideas."


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

*Comic opera:* Opera where they sing funny and dress funny. It started in France, with men in drag.

*Castrati:* a young male singer who has been clipped, in order to sound more like Robert Plant. This effect can also be temporarily accomplished with the use of tight trousers and no underwear.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

stevens said:


> Jazz = 3 persons listens to 1000 chords
> Pop = 1000 persons listens to three chords


Thousand? Make that a million.

About 30 percent of jazz is quite all right though.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

aleazk said:


> 12-tone method: in the field of discrete mathematics, the study of the combinatorial aspects of finite sets. *Footnote*: sometimes the term appears in music discussions, but the origin of that is a comical situation in which, as a joke, an orchestra member took a paper by Dr.Webern and amused his colleagues by 'playing' the equations with his violin as if the paper were a musical score.


Isn't that exactly what Xenakis does? Compose music by translating equations into sound?


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Leitmotif: "I wonder who it is? Oh, it's that guy."
BACH: Bad *** Composer H-is-silent
Opera: A literal spitting contest.
Crotchet: For whatever reason people compare classical music to knitting. I mean, I'm not *that* old.
Talk Classical: Where the remainder of classical music listeners, ahem I mean sociopaths, share their night time exploits out of sight of the common rabble.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SONNET CLV said:


> Isn't that exactly what Xenakis does? Compose music by translating equations into sound?


That's misleading, the way you phrased the question. Yes, Xenakis does translate equations into sound, but he is not concerned with "the combinatorial aspects of finite sets." That's more Milton Babbitt's territory. 
But you brought it up as a matter for serious discussion, so I answered it. Now, back to humor.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

Lukecash12 said:


> Leitmotif: "I wonder who it is? Oh, it's that guy."
> BACH: Bad *** Composer H-is-silent
> Opera: A literal spitting contest.
> Crotchet: For whatever reason people compare classical music to knitting. I mean, I'm not *that* old.
> Talk Classical: Where the remainder of classical music listeners, ahem I mean sociopaths, share their night time exploits out of sight of the common rabble.


Haha, classical music listeners and sociopaths - is there really truth to that?


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