Musical terms
Wenn das Wetter ungemütlich und regnerisch ist, wenn die Tage noch kurz sind und die Abende lang, dann kann man den Winterschlaf ruhig noch ein bisschen verlängern und sich zu Hause einigeln, am liebsten bei Kerzenschein und guter Musik. Vielleicht kommen die Lieblingslieder von der Platte, vielleicht spielen Sie aber auch selbst ein Instrument? Sowohl für Spielerprobte als auch für angehende Musikkenner haben wir in unserem Beitrag das passende musikalische Vokabular.
By Moya Irvine
1 Newspaper articles cover a great many topics and help you to learn new vocabulary, but there are some word fields of general interest that simply aren’t dealt with in the press. Music is one of them. So this editor’s corner fills the gap with some terms that every amateur musician should know.
2 The pages music is printed on are known as sheet music. The written representation of a composition – an opera, a symphony or film music, for example – is a score.
3 If the music you are listening to sounds sad, it is most likely in a minor key. Jollier music is usually written in a major key. If you are talking about a piece of music you would, for example, say “Mozart’s piano concerto No. 9 in E flat major.”
4 Why flat? A flat, a symbol a bit like a “b”, lowers the note it is written before by a semitone. A sharp, a symbol that looks like a hashtag, makes a note half a tone higher. A double flat, indicated by two “b”s, lowers a note by a whole tone, while the double sharp, which looks like a cross, raises the pitch by a whole tone. A natural before a note cancels out a sharp or flat.
5 If you play the piano, you will be used to seeing a bass clef on the staff lines for the left hand, and all the notes below middle C. The treble clef is for the staff with notes above middle C.
6 The music is divided into bars and the number of beats per bar and their length gives you the time e.g. 4/4 time, also known as common time, or ¾ time (say “three-four time”).
7 The notes all have values. A semibreve or whole note looks a bit like an egg and lasts for four beats. A minim or half note has half the value of a semibreve, and a crotchet or quarter note has half the value of a minim. A quaver or eighth note is half a crotchet and a semiquaver or sixteenth note is half a quaver. This gets more and more complicated until you reach the tongue-twisting semihemidemisemiquaver!
8 All the notes have corresponding rests: the semibreve rest is a little block, for example, and the crotchet rest looks like a hook.
9 Notes with the same pitch can also be tied with a curved line, which means their time values are added together and you play them as a single note. A slur, a curved line between two notes of different pitch, shows that they are to be played without a break or legato.
10 And that’s one of the many words you will not have to learn. Fortunately, musical terms like andante, allegro, presto and many more have Italian origins and are used internationally.
0–2 term Begriff — gap Lücke — sheet music Notenblätter — representation Darstellung — score Partitur
3 minor key Molltonart — jolly fröhlich — major key Durtonart — piano concerto Klavierkonzert — E flat major Es-Dur
4 flat b; s.w.u. double flat Doppel-b — to lower vertiefen — semitone Halbton — sharp Kreuz; s.w.u. double sharp Doppelkreuz — to raise the pitch die Tonlage erhöhen — natural Auflösungszeichen — to cancel out aufheben
5–6 bass clef Bassschlüssel — staff (lines) Notenlinien — treble clef Violinschlüssel — bar Takt — beat Taktschlag — length Länge — 4/4 time; common time Viervierteltakt
7 value Wert — semibreve; whole note ganze Note — minim; half note halbe Note — crotchet; quarter note Viertelnote — quaver; eighth note Achtelnote — semiquaver; sixteenth note Sechzehntelnote — tongue-twisting zungenbrecherisch — semihemidemisemiquaver Hundertachtundzwanzigstelnote
8–10 corresponding entsprechend — rest Pause — hook Haken — to tie verbinden — curved gebogen — slur Bindebogen — break Unterbrechung — origin Herkunft
Photo: Pixabay
