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Glossary of music terminology. A variety of musical terms are encountered in printed scores, music reviews, and program notes. Most of the terms are Italian, in accordance with the Italian origins of many European musical conventions. Sometimes, the special musical meanings of these phrases differ from the original or current Italian meanings.
Cliché. A cliché ( UK: / ˈkliːʃeɪ / or US: / kliːˈʃeɪ /; French: [kliʃe]) is a saying, idea, or element of an artistic work that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being weird, irritating, or bland, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel ...
Phonaesthetics (also spelled phonesthetics in North America) is the study of beauty and pleasantness associated with the sounds of certain words or parts of words.The term was first used in this sense, perhaps by J. R. R. Tolkien, during the mid-20th century and derives from Ancient Greek φωνή (phōnḗ) 'voice, sound' and αἰσθητική (aisthētikḗ) 'aesthetics'.
Acousmatic sound is sound that is heard without an originating cause being seen. The word acousmatic, from the French acousmatique, is derived from the Greek word akousmatikoi (ἀκουσματικοί), which referred to probationary pupils of the philosopher Pythagoras who were required to sit in absolute silence while they listened to him deliver his lecture from behind a veil or screen to ...
Malapropism. A malapropism ( / ˈmæləprɒpɪzəm /; also called a malaprop, acyrologia, or Dogberryism) is the incorrect use of a word in place of a word with a similar sound, either unintentionally or for comedic effect, resulting in a nonsensical, often humorous utterance. An example is the statement attributed to baseball player Yogi Berra ...
A heteronym is a homograph that is not a homophone, a word that has a different pronunciation and meaning from another word with the same spelling. Heteronym pronunciation may vary in vowel realisation, in stress pattern, or in other ways. "Heterophone" literally just means "different sound", and this term is sometimes applied to words that are ...
Intonation (linguistics) In linguistics, intonation is the variation in pitch used to indicate the speaker's attitudes and emotions, to highlight or focus an expression, to signal the illocutionary act performed by a sentence, or to regulate the flow of discourse.
Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions, and directionality. In this hierarchy the single pitch or triad with the greatest stability is called the tonic. The root of the tonic triad forms the name given to the key, so in the key of C major the tone C ...