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Discovering music through listening
Discovering music through listening

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Glossary


Browse the glossary using this index

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P

Pizzicato

Plucking the strings of an instrument normally played with a bow.


Polyphonic

A texture in which several independent musical lines interweave.


Pulse

The beat underlying a piece of music.


R

Range

The distance between the highest and lowest note of a melody; the highest and lowest note available on a specific instrument or voice.


Register

The different portions of the range of an intrument or voice.


Rhythm

Patterns of short and long notes.


Riff

A short, repeated melodic pattern in popular music.


Rubato

A flexible approach to tempo in which slight increases or decreases in speed are used for expressive purposes.


S

Staccato

A dry, brittle attack separating notes from each other.


Syncopated

A deliberate disturbance of normal metrical stress, e.g. accenting weak beats.



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