HOW TO WRITE YOUR FIRST SONG

THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

GLOSSARY

ACCENT An emphasis applied to a note or beat.

ARPEGGIO Notes of chord played individually, in a pattern.

A unit of time measured by the number of beats. Typically a musical

BAR piece contains several bars each with the same number of beats,
specified by the time signature.

BEAT A main accent or rhythmic unit.

CHORD A simultaneous combination of notes, usually three or more.

CONTOUR The shape of a melody as it rises and falls.

A note a quarter of a whole note, these are also known as quarter

CROCHET
notes.

The mode based on the series of intervals formed by playing from D

DORIAN to D using only natural notes (i.e. the white notes on a piano). In this
example, these notes would be DEFGABCD.

HARMONY The broader name for the way chords are used in a piece.

INTERVAL The distance between any two notes.

The way that notes of a scale are used with some degree of hierarchy,
KEY
centring around the tonic and the dominant notes.

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MEASURE The same as ‘bar’ but this term is more commonly used in the US.

MELODY A series of pitches organised into a recognisable shape.

This occurs where beats are organised into groups, often 3s or 4s in

METRE
Western music.

Also known as a half note, this is a note played for half of the
MINIM
duration of a whole note.

A scale or key that contains a flattened 3rd (in comparison with

MINOR Major), 6th and 7th. There are several versions of the minor scale –
natural, harmonic and melodic.

MODE A type of scale but with less reliance on tonic-dominant relationship.

A musical sound of a particular frequency and length. The word note

NOTES
can also be used as an informal name for ‘pitches’. See PITCH.

OCTAVE An interval of 12 semitones, for example C to C.

PITCH The frequency of a musical sound.

PHRASE An identifiable section of melody, with a sense of beginning and end.

PULSE Synonymous with beat.

A note played for one eighth the value of a whole note. It is also
QUAVER
known as an eighth note.

RHYTHM The organisation of time in music.

A series of notes organised in pitch order most often following a

SCALE
defined pattern of tones and semitones.

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SYNCOPATION The accentuation of off-beat notes.

SCANSION The accents suggested by or chosen to apply to a written text.

SYLLABIC A melody in which there is one note for each syllable.

TIME SIGNATURE A sign at the beginning of a piece, indicating the metre.

TRIAD A three-note chord.

A note that occurs at the end of a bar but which begins the phrase to
UPBEAT
follow.

4-TIME Same as a metre of 4/4 – four beats in a bar.

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