Musical Terms You Should Know(Piano/Music Vocabulary)

Photo by Dayne Topkin on Unsplash

Sometime ago i was hanging out with some musicians. Mark was a Pianist Jude was a Bass player And Philip was a saxophonist. we were having a conversation and they started talking about some interesting ways to spice up playing music on their respective instrument.. It was at first, a wonderful evening as the feeling of sitting and talking with really talented individuals coupled with the thought of getting all my unanswered musical questions answered, really made the moment worth a while..Until the musical terms happen!  i listened and thought as hard as i could to really put my self on track with the concept that was been discussed in the conversation but they were unavoidably using a lot of unfamiliar terms that i couldn't understand almost every sentences.. It turned out to be a "not so good" evening mostly because i couldn't learn much from them been a less experienced musician.. So i decided find out what this mystery languages were and i discovered they were all just simple terms used to describe basic and simple things in music.. After learning a few of this terms, i also began to fully understand some previous concepts i was also trying to learn earlier. And ever since it has help me pick ideas from A lot of musical professionals and teachers...

So just in case you got frustrated by some musical terms you didn't really understand while trying to learn from that material, musician or perhaps you just don't want to be left behind  in a conversation with other musicians like i was..😄 Well here is a list the most popular musical terms used by pianist/musicians along-side their meaning.

Musical Terminologies

 1) NOTE 

    This is the sound or Notation of a musical pitch 

2) SCALE 

      This is any set of notes arranged according to a given Pitch Differences

3) CHORD 

      This is a combination of Two or More Notes 

  4) DYAD CHORD  

This is often used to describe chord made up of Two(2) notes only

 5) TRIAD CHORD 

 Triad chords are any chords or group of chord made up of three(3) notes

6) TETRAD CHORD  

Tetrad chord is a musical term that is often used to describe a chord or group of chords made up of four(4) notes

7) QUINTAL CHORD  

quintal chord is simply any chord or group of chords made up of five(5) notes

8) SEXTAL CHORD 

 Usually used to describe as a Chord with six(6) notes

9) ACCIDENTAL NOTES 

 Is used to describes a note/pitch that is raised or dropped by a semi-tone

10) ENHARMONIC EQUIVALENT 

 Simply means a note with the same pitch but Different names(e.g C♯ and D♭)

11) DIATONIC SCALE 

 This is an arrangement of specific notes belonging to a given key without any altered note.

12) CHROMATIC SCALE 

This is an order of notes without any given key. It is sometimes described as repeated accidental notes(outside a the given key)

13) DOMINANT  

This is one of the 7 theoretical names given to the notes on a diatonic scale, it is the fifth scale degree on a diatonic scale

14) MINOR THIRD 

 This is a musical interval spaced by a wholes step/tone and a half step or 3 semitones.

15) MAJOR THIRD  

This can also be described as an interval of 2 whole tones/steps or 4 Semi-tones

16) TRITONE  

 Basically means '3' 'tones'.. it is known as musical interval encompassing 3 whole tone/steps or 6 semi-tones 

 17) LEADING TONE 

 This is the one of theoretically names used to describe seventh scale degree of a major scale

18) MUSICAL MODE 

 This is an alternative pattern of scale formed solely beginning from notes besides the Tonic or Root.  

19) RELATIVE MINOR 

This is a minor key or scale formed from the 6th scale degree of a major scale.

20) MUSICAL CADENCE

 This is the final, ending or resolving phase of a melodic or harmonic 

arrangement 

21) MODULATION 

 This Involves altering the tonality from one tonal center to another. It is also the 

22) ATONAL MUSIC 

 This is a musical piece without a diatonic structure 

23) MUSICAL IMPROVISATION  

This involve the use of creativity to build and add extra nuisances. it can also be described as making music on the spot without prior preparation.

24) MEDIANT 

 A term often used to describe the third scale degree of a major diatonic scale.

25) PENTATONIC SCALE 

Simply any scale that is form by an arrangement of five(5) notes 

26) MUSICAL TRANSPOSITION

This describes the act of altering a musical structure by moving it pitch.

27) PERFECT FOURTH 

This is a musical interval spaced by 5 semi-tones or 2 whole tone and 1 semi-tone 

28) PERFECT FIFTH  

This term is also used to describe an interval with 7 semi-tones 

29) CIRCLE OF FOURTH/FIFTH  

This term is often used to describe the relationship between the 12 musical pitch

30) SUSPENDED 2ND 

 This is a Triad chord comprising of the Tonic, Super-tonic and dominant notes that is a 1st 2nd and 5th notes of the scale

31) SUSPENDED 4TH

 This is also used to describe a triad chord made up of a the Tonic, Sub-dominant and the dominant notes.  

32) PASSING CHORD  

simply any chord or set of chords that is played in between other chords solely to fill up empty space and add color to the progression

33)  VAMPING 

This is the act of a repeatedly hitting a particular chord or progression for a given period of time.

34) COMPING This is an improvisation method used in  jazz music. It involves playing chords with unexpected rhythms and is often used to accompany a melody.

35) CHORD VOICING
This refers to the musical concept of spacing notes to form different chord structure. It is often used to add better harmony to a progression.

36) CHORD INVERSION
chord inversion is the act of 'inverting' or re-arranging the chordal positioning of a chord.

37) CHORD EXTENSION
This is the musical concept of extending or enlarging chords by adding notes to it in relation to its Tonic diatonic arrangement or key.

38) MUSICAL STAFF
Staff in western music is a term used to describe a musical representation of pitch or tones by a set of horizontal lines(5) and space(4). Each line and space represent a note or pitch,

39) CLEF
This can be described as musical symbols used to show the pitch/octave of a given note.

40) ARPEGGIOS/BROKEN CHORDS
 This refers to a method or technique used in music which involves breaking up chords and playing each notes in sequence either ascending or descending order.. each notes of the chord is played one after the other.

I hope this article has helped your musical advancement..🙂 Please feel free to leave your questions, your thoughts and your suggestions i will do my very best to attend to them all. 

Thanks and Good luck.