There are a lot of different schools of thought about how to speak about music, see: music theory, musical analysis, musicology, and chord symbols.
Through the course of putting together the Wikipedia, it has become apparent to several contributors that quite often we do not mean the same things when we say the same words, or even worse, we will use different words for (and create different articles about) the same things.
This page has been created, therefore, as a way to standardize the terminology used in the Wikipedia with reference to music. It is understood that this is not an attempt to in any way elevate one usage or system over another, but rather to simply establish a set of standards for talking about these things so that we all know what we mean when we say a certain word, and so that all articles will use a consistent form of symbolic analysis.
Toward this end, the usage of Classical analytical notation for all such purposes within the Wikipedia has been suggested. While the system does have its limitations, particularly with respect to jazz and modern classical music, it is the most widely understood by musicologists and it is something with which most students or former students have at least a passing familiarity. To clarify, this is the notational system in which major chords are indicated with a capitalized Roman numeral, minor chords are indicated with a lower case Roman numeral, and inversions are indicated through the use of figured bass. See: chord symbol.
Hopefully, in time, this page will accumulate a glossary of terms which can serve as a standard for the authorship of articles relating to music and particularly music theory.
- Aspects of music: pitch, duration, timbre, intensity - duration and intensity prefered over rhythm and volume, respectively
- interval consists of any two pitches or the distance between those two pitches
- monad consists of any one pitch, dyad consists of any two, trichord any three , tetrachord four, pentachord five, hexachord six, septachord seven, octachord eight, nonachord nine, decachord ten, undecachord eleven, and dodecachord or aggregate for twelve. None need necessarily be a chord.
- simultaneity consists of any pitches sounded at the same time
- chord consists of any three or more pitches heard as some sort of group or together having some diatonic functionality.
- triad ?
- scale a selection of related notes and chords built upon those notes
- just intonation in which notes have simple rational frequency ratios or whose pitches and intervals are based on the harmonic series (music).
- equal temperament is any scale with all notes equally spaced in pitch (logarithmic)
- solfege (Do, Re, Mi etc...)?
- tonic is first degree of a scale, or, the central or most important pitch, see below
- tonal - musical constructions which indicate or affirm a tonic or central pitch through symmetrical hierarchically organized pitches, or, music written in the manner of the common practice period. Use always instead of tonicality?
- atonal - musical constructions which do not indicate or affirm a tonic through use of symmetrical hierarchically organized organized pitches, or, possibly, any other means
- diatonic - tonal
- diatonic functionality -
- composition vs improvisation -
- transformation vs permutation vs operation -
- 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.
- 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 - tonal non-folk music written from 1600 to 1825, "common practice" referring to the general adherance to strict guidelines or rules including the major scale or minor scale and its triads and their functions
- "musical blank" vs "blank (music)" - why? musical bow and bow (music), that's why
- quality - the nature of a chord or interval. May be major, minor, perfect etc.
- note vs tone vs pitch vs pitch class - note and tone are used to refer to the pitch of individual sounds without using a homonym and to be more or less specific than the term sound
- 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).
- riff, break, "beat", groove, lick, turnaround -
- 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, 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, eg: "There is a minim (half note) followed by two crotchets (quarter notes)"