Wikipedia:WikiProject Music terminology/Advice

Please remember, this page is for the use of the project in determining a set of advice on how to edit Wikipedia articles so please, keep this page restricted to these intentions as there is already a large amount of material on the subjects themselves in their respective articles which can be researched starting with music theory. Also while there is already an article on Manual of Style (music) we found it useful to include advice on the terminology of music specifically.

Advice for terminology

Description of single notes

• Note vs. pitch vs. frequency: A note is written on a page, or understood in a larger musical context, including a rhythmic value; a tone is a pitch, typically in relation to a scale and without rhythmic specification; a pitch is an auditory frequency; a frequency is an acoustic phenomenon, for example, with respect to harmonics. Sound can be pitched or unpitched (such as a clap).
• Duration describes the absolute time of a note (measure, piece, etc.), note value the relative time as indicated by the written notation, rhythm a pattern of durations or note values.
• Timbre refers to the quality of a sound, in particular, as related its fundamental and overtones.
• Intensity or dynamics is preferred over volume unless referring to electronically amplified music. This is because volume is not referring to the amplitude of the waves the instrument is producing, but the amount of space (volume) the sound fills.

Combinations of notes

• interval consists of two pitches or the distance between those two pitches
  • semitone and whole tone preferred to half step and whole step; only use minor second and major second in contexts where their diatonic meaning is significant
• simultaneity consists of pitches sounded at the same time
  • monad consists of one pitch, dyad consists of two, trichord three, tetrachord four, pentachord five, hexachord six, heptachord seven, octachord eight, nonachord nine, decachord ten, undecachord eleven, and dodecachord or aggregate for twelve. None needs necessarily be a chord.
  • chord consists of three or more pitches that function as a group.
  • triad, seventh chord, etc. appropriate in context
  • quality refers to the nature of a chord or interval, e.g., major, minor, perfect etc.
• scale is a set of related notes placed in ascending or descending order by pitch
• mode is a set of such notes in the context of the conventional patterns for relating them.

Elements of pieces

• riff, break (music), "beat", groove, lick, turnaround, hook (music) -
• melody, theme, motif, leitmotif, figure, gesture

Pieces of music

• Piece includes composition and improvisation.
• piece vs song - a song is sung, and a piece is played. However, beyond these simple definitions, 'piece' is more inclusive than 'song' (i.e., a piece can have a strong element of solo vocal writing). 'Song' is an almost universal term for a movement in popular music, but is more specific in non-popular (classical) music.

Musical analysis

Scale degrees

• tonic is first degree of a scale, or, the central or most important pitch in tonal music; tonal center (or pitch center) a more general term incorporating a wider set of styles
• supertonic, mediant, etc. preferred to German system (subdominant parallel etc.). Subtonic is a whole step below the tonic; leading-tone (or leading-note) a half-step below.
• avoid scale degree numbers unless describing a melody where the names above would be awkward
• Roman numerals refer to the triads (or seventh chords, extended chords, etc.) built on scale degrees
• solfege (Do, Re, Mi etc...) is ambiguous because of fixed-do vs moveable-do meanings, and varying use in the minor mode; avoid except in music-education contexts

Harmonic analysis

• Harmony is a general term for the relationships between the roots of chords; chord progression refers to the relationship between two or more successive chords.
• tonal/tonality is a general term for music that is hierarchically organized around a pitch center or in a key. Use common practice period when applicable.
• atonal/atonality refers to musical styles that avoid a tonal center.
• diatonic means organized around a seven-note scale comprising whole tones and semitones, in which the semitones are maximally separated.
• diatonic functionality assigns meanings to the various scale degrees or the triads build on them.
• Roman numerals may be used, singly or in combination with figured bass (e.g., IV⁶), but only when discussing subjects whose readers could be expected to understand them.
• figured bass is a system of inserting Arabic numerals underneath one or more notes in a bass line to indicate the quality of the chord above those notes.
• modulation means a change of key; use 'key change' if you want to be understood by a wider readership.
• Atonal techniques: transformation, permutation; operation is general term including those as well as transposition, inversion.

Form

• musical form preferred to structure, content
  • section, passage, phrase
  • intro, coda (music), fadeout, bridge (music), chorus, verse, refrain
  • musical development vs variation
  • contrast, connection, transition
  • sonata-allegro form for the exposition-development-recapitulation scheme; sonata form is more inclusive, could refer to pattern of movements (e.g. slow-fast-slow), Baroque sonatas, and so on.

Styles of music

• genre, idiom, movement, period, era
• Classical vs classical - "Classical music" is the classical music era or the specific time period beginning the 18th century in European art music while "classical music" is any established musical tradition which uses some form of notation and requires study or training to be an acceptable participant in, other than as an audience or listener, in any culture: List of classical music traditions. Any classical music may be discussed simply as "classical music" if at the beginning of an article it is specified which tradition is under discussion. This distinction may not be recognised by many readers.
• pop music vs popular music - pop music is a more or less specific genre, while popular music is a broader term that includes pop music as well as most folk music and any other music not classical.
• common practice period refers to tonal, non-folk music written from about 1600 to about 1900h here, "common practice" refers to the adherence to a set of widely accepted patterns, including the major and minor scales and their triads.

Tuning

• just intonation is a system of tuning in which the notes have simple, rational frequency ratios or whose pitches and intervals are based on the harmonic series (music).
• equal temperament is a system of tuning in which all notes are equally spaced in pitch (logarithmically).

General usages

• "musical blank" vs "blank (music)" - use the latter unless there is a reason to distinguish, such as musical bow and bow (music)
• When referring to a key, one writes, for instance, C major, but when referring to a chord one writes C-major. Always write out major or minor; never use pop-chord symbols such as Cm except in captions, tables, formulas, etc.
• crotchet, minim, quaver, etc. vs quarter note, half note, etc. - both the English "crotchet, quaver, minim" and the American "quarter note, eighth note, half note" are acceptable in articles, as noted in the Manual of Style, though the American forms are more common in practice. Whichever form is used, place the other in parentheses the first time it comes up for clarity, e.g.: "There is a minim (half note) followed by two crotchets (quarter notes)"
• harmonic vs partial vs overtone - While the articles about each of these subjects should indicate that they are often used interchangeably, overtone should refer to both harmonics and partials, harmonics being the whole number or integer multiples and partials being all other multiples.
• set, series, sequence - In mathematics a set is an unordered collection of things, a sequence is an ordered collection of things, and a series is the sum of a sequence. In music, specifically musical set theory a set is often used to mean unordered and/or ordered collections, but should be used only for unordered collections. Series is often used to mean an ordered collection of things and a sequence often means an ordered collection of pitches which is then repeated transposed (it is often used this way in tonal theory).