The Music Dictionary
Jazz and Popular Music Terms
Every jazz and popular music term in The Music Dictionary, with its meaning in music.
- Altered scale
- A dominant-oriented scale containing multiple altered tensions, frequently used in jazz improvisation.
- Bebop
- A jazz style marked by intricate melodies, rapid harmonic movement, and virtuosic improvisation.
- Blue note
- A pitch inflection associated with blues expression, not always captured by fixed semitone notation.
- Blues form
- A recurring harmonic and phrase framework, often twelve bars but not exclusively.
- Bossa nova
- A Brazilian musical style with characteristic syncopation and understated rhythmic interplay.
- Break
- A brief interruption of accompaniment that highlights a solo gesture.
- Breakbeat
- A drum passage sampled or repeated as the rhythmic basis of a track.
- Call and response
- An exchange in which one musical statement invites or receives an answering phrase.
- Chord changes
- The sequence of harmonies over which musicians accompany or improvise.
- Chord-scale theory
- An improvisational approach relating particular scales to chord sonorities.
- Clave
- A rhythmic organizing pattern foundational to several Afro-Cuban and related traditions.
- Comping
- Rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment, especially on piano, guitar, or drums.
- Contrafact
- A new melody written over the chord progression of an existing tune.
- Cool jazz
- A jazz style of the late 1940s and 1950s marked by relaxed tempos, soft tone, and carefully arranged ensemble textures.
- Drop-two voicing
- A chord voicing created by lowering the second-highest voice by an octave.
- Free jazz
- A diverse jazz movement challenging fixed harmony, meter, and conventional formal constraints.
- Ghost note
- A deliberately quiet or lightly articulated note, adding rhythmic texture.
- Head
- The principal composed melody of a jazz tune, often stated before and after solos.
- Hook
- A memorable musical or lyrical idea designed to capture attention.
- Improvisation
- The creation or shaping of music during performance within chosen constraints.
- Jam session
- An informal gathering where musicians perform and improvise together.
- Jazz standard
- A composition widely known and repeatedly interpreted by jazz musicians.
- Latin jazz
- A broad family combining jazz practices with rhythms and traditions from Latin America.
- Lead sheet
- A compact score showing melody, chord symbols, and often lyrics.
- Loop
- A repeated segment of recorded or generated audio or MIDI.
- Modal jazz
- Jazz emphasizing modes or sustained harmonic areas rather than rapid chord changes.
- Motivic improvisation
- Solo development through recognizable short ideas and their transformations.
- Neo-soul
- A popular-music style drawing on soul, R&B, jazz, and hip-hop influences.
- A strong sense of rhythmic placement and cohesion within a groove.
- Power chord
- A root-and-fifth sonority, often doubled at the octave and common in rock.
- Rhythm changes
- A jazz progression family based on the harmony of “I Got Rhythm.”
- Rhythm section
- The ensemble players supplying harmonic, bass, and rhythmic foundations.
- Sampling
- The reuse of recorded sound as material for a new musical work.
- Scat singing
- Vocal improvisation using nonlexical syllables.
- Shell voicing
- A reduced chord voicing emphasizing structurally important tones, often root, third, and seventh.
- Side-slipping
- An improvisational technique temporarily shifting a phrase by a semitone or other interval.
- Solo chorus
- A single pass through a tune’s complete harmonic or formal cycle during improvisation.
- Standard progression
- A familiar harmonic sequence reused across many tunes or styles.
- Stop-time
- An accompaniment pattern with punctuated hits and intervening space for solo expression.
- Stride piano
- A piano style alternating low bass notes or octaves with midrange chords.
- Substitution
- The replacement of a chord with another that fulfills a related harmonic purpose.
- Swing feel
- A performance approach shaped by subdivision, articulation, and interactive timing.
- Syncopated bass
- A bass line placing emphasis away from expected strong beats.
- Tag ending
- A repeated or extended closing phrase, common in jazz performance.
- Topline
- The principal sung melody and often lyrics developed over an instrumental track.
- Tritone substitution
- Replacing a dominant chord with another whose root lies a tritone away.
- Turnaround
- A short harmonic sequence leading back to the beginning of a form.
- Two-feel
- A bass accompaniment emphasizing two broad pulses per measure.
- Upper structure
- A chordal structure placed over a bass or basic harmony to add extensions.
- Walking line
- A moving bass melody connecting chord tones with passing motion.
More subjects: Theory and Harmony · Rhythm and Tempo · Melody and Form · Performance · Instruments · Voice and Stage · History · Sound and Technology · World Traditions
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