Glossary/Bibliography
Backbeat: Accented beats on two and four in common time. A defining feature of rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and other popular styles.
Ballad: A song form often slower in tempo and narrative in character, traditionally telling a story through its lyrics.
Beat: The basic unit of time in music, often felt as the pulse that listeners clap or tap along with.
Break: An instrumental interlude that interrupts the ongoing development of a piece, often highlighting a solo instrument or rhythm.
Bridge: A contrasting musical passage that usually connects the verse to the chorus, adding variety to the song’s structure.
Compound Meter: A type of meter in which each beat divides naturally into three equal parts (e.g., 6/8, 9/8, 12/8).
Countermelody: A secondary melodic line that complements or contrasts with the main melody..
Coda: An added passage at the end of a piece that serves as its conclusion. Its length and style vary depending on the composition.
Common Time: The most frequently used meter in Western music, represented by the time signature 4/4. It organizes music into four beats per measure, with the quarter note receiving one beat.
Doubling: Recording the same part twice (vocals or instruments) to create a stronger, fuller sound. The performer usually records while listening to the initial track.
Drone: A sustained or continuously repeated pitch, often providing a tonal foundation. Common in Indian classical music and used by the Beatles in songs like “Tomorrow Never Knows.”
Duple Meter: A meter with two beats per measure, often felt as strong-weak.
Flam: A drumming technique where two drumsticks strike almost simultaneously, producing a thick, slightly delayed attack.
Groove: The sense of rhythmic feel or swing in a piece of music, created by the interplay between instruments, especially rhythm section parts.
Merseybeat: A style of British pop/rock music from Liverpool in the early 1960s, characterized by upbeat rhythms, vocal harmonies, and strong backbeat.
Meter: The organization of beats into regular groupings, often notated by time signatures such as 4/4 or 3/4.
Metric Modulation: When the meter shifts within a piece of music, moving from one time signature to another (for example, from 4/4 to 3/4). This alters the organization of beats per measure and can create contrast, surprise, or variety in the rhythmic flow.
Middle Eight: A term commonly used in England, especially by the Beatles, to describe a song’s bridge. The name comes from the idea of a contrasting eight-bar section within the song, though the passage did not always last exactly eight measures.
Reverb: Short for reverberation. An effect created when sound reflects in an enclosed space, producing echoes that gradually decay. Can be recorded naturally or added with studio equipment.
Raga: A framework for melodic improvisation in Indian classical music, defined by specific scales, ornamentations, and rules for ascending and descending patterns.
Riff: A short, repeated musical figure or motif, often central to a song’s identity. Famous examples include the guitar lines in “Day Tripper” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”
Rimshot: A sharp percussive sound produced by striking both the rim and the head of a snare drum simultaneously.
Rhythm: The pattern of sounds and silences in music, organized in relation to time and beat.
Sitar: A plucked fretless string instrument from India, known for its buzzing timbre and sympathetic strings. Popularized in Western pop by George Harrison of the Beatles.
Skiffle: A British musical style influenced by American folk and blues, often played with homemade or improvised instruments. Its popularity in the 1950s influenced early rock musicians, including the Beatles’ beginnings as the Quarrymen.
Stab Chord: A short, accented chord played sharply, often in rhythmic unison with the band, to punctuate a beat.
Swing: A rhythmic feel in which notes are performed with unequal durations, typically lengthening the first note of a pair and shortening the second.
Syncopation: Rhythmic emphasis on weak beats or offbeats.
Tambura: A long-necked Indian string instrument that provides a continuous drone, often tuned to the tonic and fifth.
Tape Loops: A recording technique in which a strip of magnetic tape is spliced into a loop, producing endlessly repeating sounds or patterns.
Triplet: A rhythmic division in which a beat (or note value) is divided into three equal parts instead of the usual two.
Triple Meter: A meter organized into three beats per measure, typically felt as strong-weak-weak.
Twelve-Bar Blues: A common chord progression in blues music, usually spanning 12 measures with a harmonic scheme based on the I, IV, and V chords.
Walking Bass: A bass line that moves stepwise or in steady intervals, typically with one note per beat. Common in jazz, blues, and boogie-woogie piano.