Musical Notation Musical notation is a visual representation of music and how it should be performed. Modern or standard musical notation makes use of many symbols, too many to list here. For more information see this Wikipedia article. Common Time Common time…
Major vs Minor Scales The major and minor scales differ in the 3rd, 6th, and 7th notes of the scale. Major scales are believed to be more bright and happy while minor scales are believed to be more dark and…
12 Tone Music Music which uses a 12 tone chromatic scale and plays each note from the scale an equal number of times. Blue Note A note which is not diatonic to the key such as lowering the third or…
Hurdy Gurdy: An instrument similar to a violin but played by a rosined wheel turned by a crank. Notes are changed by pressing keys that depress the strings. Multiple drone strings make it sound similar to bagpipes. Scale Degree: A…
Vocal Bridge : Also known as Passaggio or sometimes a vocal break, these are pitch ranges where a singer has to shift between registers. Sometimes this will coincide with a noticeable pitch gap, change in tone, temporary jump beyond the…
Canon: A canon in music is a device in counterpoint in which a melody announced by one voice or instrument is imitated by one or more other voices or instruments, entering after the first has started, in the manner of…
Timbre: Anything other than pitch and loudness that distinguishes one sound from another. AKA: color, tone quality, texture It has been subdivided differently by different folks. For example: tone/noise, spectrum (harmonics), ADSR, changes in envelopes, prefix. Formant: “Harmonic augmented by…
Picardy Third: When a minor key song ends on a major chord. Parallel compression (aka New York compression) : Creating two copies of a signal, one heavily compressed, the other either dry or very lightly compressed and mixing them together.…
Synthesizer: A synthesizer is a machine or software program which is used to create “synthetic” sounds, or “synths”. These sounds can mimic “real” sounds (like a trumpet) or can be completely synthetic, as in a lot of electronic music. Sampler: A…
Gain: An adjustment to the input signal amplitude made before sending the signal through to the rest of the component. This helps to establish a strong enough signal for the rest of the component to manipulate properly. For example, the…
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