Jazz
Speak (Vocabulary)
| Anticipation | Bringing an 'on the beat' note forward by an eighth note - pumps energy into a solo! |
| Augmentation | Repeating a musical idea slower (i.e. takes up more time - as opposed to e.g. augmented intervals which are increased by half a tone). |
| Blues Scale | Special scale format used throughout jazz (root, B3, 4, B5, 5, B7) |
| Chord Tones | The root, third, fifth and seventh of a chord. |
| Concert Pitch | The pitch of a non transposing instrument such as a flute, violin or trombone. |
| Diminution | Repeating a musical idea faster (i.e. takes up less time). |
| Fifth | Interval of five notes with consecutive letter names. |
| Groove | Term used by musicians to describe the « feel » of the music they are playing. |
| Head | Theme played at the beginning of a tune. |
| Inversion | 'What goes up can also come down' - repeating a musical idea upside down. |
| Middle Eight | Eight-bar bridge section in the middle of a tune. It is in a related key to the first eight bars, and leads back to a repeat of them. |
| Mode | A scale where a certain note is taken as the root. Each scale has many different tones and can therefore have as many different modes. |
| Minor Pentatonic | Five note scale in a minor key Pentatonic Five note scale. |
| Question and Answer | Also known as 'call and response'. A musical figure played by one soloist or group of instruments which is answered by another. |
| Rhythm | The musical pattern produced by varying the length and emphasis of the notes played. |
| Rhythm Changes | 32 bar song format known as AABA with the B section known as the "middle eight" or "bridge". |
| Rock | Combination of African-American rhythms, urban blues, folk and country music of the rural southern USA, always with a heavy emphasis on the beat. |
| Root | Basic pitch of a chord, from which it takes its name. |
| Seventh | An interval of seven diatonic degrees. |
| Swing | A rhythm, particularly found in jazz, that states the beat explicitly; usually with more weight on beats 1 and 3, although written in 4/4 sounds more like 12/8 |
| Swing Quavers | Quavers played with the off-beat quaver slightly accentuated. The feel of swing quavers is different from "straight quavers" because in a swing groove, each beat is subdivided by 3 and not 2, as in "straight' |
| Third | Interval of three consecutive notes. |
| Transposition | Playing or re-writing a tune in another key. Some instruments need to transpose all tunes because of the key they are tuned to, e.g. Bb trumpet. A musical idea can be transposed through a chord sequence by altering the intervals. |
| Turnaround | Chord or idea that gets you on to the next chorus. |
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