Learn the VOCABULARY of MUSIC

Hello. I'm Gill at engVid, and today we have a lesson especially for people who already

know a bit about music, but would like to know what the English words are for some of

the terminology in music. So, this is just a brief summary of some of the main aspects

of music, and to do with the way it's written, called notation; and things connected with

the theory of music; and all the technical... Well, not all the technical things; some of

the technical things connected with it. So... So that you can talk about music with people

in English. Okay? If you don't know anything about music, I hope it will also be an introduction

to some of the ideas and some of the words connected with music, and you can find other

websites to find out more. So, let's have a look.

So, music vocabulary in English. The names of the notes are: A, B, C, D, E, F, G. So,

that would give you an octave. "Octave." Well, up to the next A, that is. A to A would be

an octave. Okay? So, if you're looking at a piano keyboard, for example, those are the

notes on there; the white notes. So, we have, on the piano keyboard, if you're thinking

of music in that way, you've got the white notes and the black notes. Okay. White notes

are these letters; the black notes are the flats and sharps. Okay. So, if you know about

music already, you know what I mean. If you don't know, there are lots of sites on the

internet to find out more, if you want to do that after this lesson. Okay.

So, a flat, that's the symbol for flat, as you know, because the musical notation is

a universal notation, so it's used all over the world. So, you will know the symbols,

I'm sure, but you may not know the English words for them. So, the flat; that's a flat.

The sharp; that's a sharp. And the natural, if you need to cancel out a flat or a sharp

- that's the natural. The symbol is called "natural", there. Okay. Right.

So, then, coming down to the way the music is written, the five lines that it's written

on - that's called a "stave" in English. Okay. So, I've written a couple of examples, here,

with some of the words describing what's... What's there. So, this stave of five lines

has some notes on it, so they're notes. These are the notes. This is called the treble clef-"treble

clef"-which rests on the G, so it shows you that that line is G. Treble clef. And this

one is called the bass clef, which rests on the F. So, you know that line is the F. Okay.

So, what I've done, I've shown a time signature, here, 4:4; four beats in the bar, so the bar...

That's a bar. Up to the bar line. Okay. And with the bass clef stave, I've shown 3:4 time

signature. 3:4. Three beats in the bar. Okay? So, we call it 3:4; 4:4.Okay?

And there's also the key signature, there, for the key. So, that's the key signature,

as you know for G major. Or it could be what's called the relative minor; would be E minor

with the same key signature. E minor. Okay, so that's called a key signature, just like

this is called a time signature. Key signature, one sharp, G major or E minor.

This one, I've given it a key signature for F major with one flat. So, the relative minor

for that, again, would be D... D minor. So, that could be the key signature for something

in D minor or an F major, of course. Okay. Right. So, that's covering the key signatures

and the time signatures, the treble clef, the bass clef, the notes.

Then the spaces between the notes are called intervals in English. So, the interval could

be a small interval, like a tone or a semi-tone, or a larger interval. I haven't written them

down, but a third, a fifth, an octave. We've got octave, there. So, G to F sharp, of course,

is a semi-tone; the smallest you can get. Well, yeah. I know in modern music you can

get even less than that, but that's getting too... Too technical for me. So, the smallest

interval I can recognize is a semi-tone; G to F sharp, back to G again. Semi-tones. And

then G to A, a tone, a whole tone... So, you call that a whole... Whole tone. Okay? And

then you'd say a third, a major third, a minor third, a fifth, etc. Okay?

So, just to explain this one: "Beats in the bar" means the number of beats. Four, four,

one, two, three, four beats in the bar. This is a bar line. Okay? This one has three beats

in the bar; one, two, three. And here's another bar line. Okay.

Now, then, what else have we got here? So then we move on to note values; the lengths

of the notes - short and long. You'll be, I don't know, pleased or not pleased to know

that there are different terms used in America from Britain; we have different words. Possibly

also it's to do with whether the music is popular or classical as well, but I'll give

you both of these so that you've got both.

So, this one without a stick on it, a white note without a stick is called a whole note

in America, but it's called a semibreve in British music. Okay. In the U.K. This one,

the white note with a stick - half... Half the length of that one is a half note. So,

that's a whole note; so this one is half the length, so it's logical that the American

system calls it a half note because it's half the length of the one, there. So, a half note.

But in British music, it's called a minim. So, I can understand these are less obvious,

the British system, than the American one. But if you've learnt it this one... If you've

learnt this one, then it's... It seems normal. But anyway.

So, whole note, half note, semibreve, minim. And then this black note with a stick on - half

the length again of that one, so logically, in the American terminology, it's a quarter

note, and it especially makes sense here, because you have four of them in one bar,

so they are each a quarter of the bar. They add up to the whole bar. So, in that bar you

would either have one whole note or you would have two half notes, or you would have four

quarter notes, which is what I've got there. Okay. So, a quarter note in American is called

a crotchet in the British system. Okay. So, not very obvious.

So, then going... Going on. As these notes are half the value each time as the one that

went before - half of a quarter note is an eighth note, so it's a black note with a stick

and a little tail on it to show that it... What its value is. Very short by this stage.

And in the British system, we call that a quaver. Okay. So... And there are lots of

other notes, but I've just put the main ones here.

So, again, the note which is half the value of that one is a black note with a stick and

two little tails, and in American language, it's called a sixteenth note because it's

half the value of that one; but in the British system, we call it a semiquaver. That's a

quaver. At least there's a bit of logic, here. "Semi" meaning half. Semiquaver is half the

value, half the length of the quaver. So, those are the names for the note values; the

lengths of the notes. Okay.

And then, finally, just to finish with the general terms that are used for the music,

what you might call the elements; different elements. We use the word "tempo", which is

an Italian name, meaning the speed of the music - whether it's fast or slow, or somewhere

in between. There are a lot of Italian terms in music because music from Italy was such

a strong influence in the early days and it's still there now. So, things like allegro,

allegretto, crescendo, diminuendo are all Italian words, which musicians understand,

even though they're not in their own language. So, tempo, meaning speed. How fast or slow

is the music?

Volume or dynamics is to do with how loud or soft it is; the volume - the dynamics.

Is it loud or soft, or average, in between again? Another element, of course very important,

is the melody or tune. The tune... Word "tune" is a more popular word that everybody uses.

They say: "That's a lovely tune. What's that?" But the more technical musical word for it

is "melody". Okay.

And then there's harmony - when all the notes are sounding together. But if... If the notes

are sounding together but they're not very harmonious-meaning they don't sound so good-it

may be deliberate on the part of the composer. It can be called dissonance. "Dissonance"

meaning... Another word for that also is a clash or: "It's clashing. That music, it's

clashing. The instruments are clashing. It doesn't sound right together." Or it may just

be very modern music which has been written that way deliberately. So, there we are. So,

there is harmony but it can be dissonance if the notes being played all at the same

time don't seem to go together to your own ears. Okay.

Timbre. I was talking about Italian words, but this is actually a French word. Timbre

is to do with the sort of sound quality of what you're hearing. Especially when you recognize

a particular instrument, if you recognize an oboe, or you recognize a flute or a violin,

or you recognize just the speaking voice of a friend on a phone - it's because of the

timbre; the sort of sound quality. The characteristic sound of that particular person's voice or

musical instrument, you say: "Ah-ha. I know what that is. That's a saxophone." or "That's

a cello", or whatever; you recognize the sound of the instrument. So, that's timbre.

Rhythm is fairly obvious. These time signatures are the rhythm, but of course also you can

have rhythm that' eithers fairly regular or it may be rhythm that's quite irregular. So,

that's just an overall term for the way the notes are played in time. Okay.

And, finally, texture, it's... It's a word that's associated with cloth. If something's

a thick texture or a thin texture... This cloth is fairly thick; this is a bit thinner.

So, it's to do with what... What sounds are all being played at the same time. If you

have a thin texture, you may only have two instruments playing. If you have a thick texture,

it may be a whole big symphony orchestra who are playing with lots and lots of instruments,

all playing lots and lots of different notes. So, the texture is either thin or thick, and

it will vary probably during the course of a piece of music just for the sake of variety.

Okay, so I hope that's been a useful overview and introduced you... If you are a musician,

introduced you to the English words for things. If you're not a musician, introduced you to

something technical about music, which you can then follow up and find other sites to

tell you more. So, I hope it's been useful. So, if you'd like to go to the website, www.engvid.com,

there's a quiz there to test you on this. And so, thank you for watching and see you

again soon. Bye for now.