Musical Terms

Here are some common musical terms that you might find in your scores. This is of course not a complete list. There's an excellent music dictionary on the Dolmetsch website. http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheorydefs.htm.

Most of the terms used in music are Italian. Their abbreviations as they are usually seen in music are shown in brackets.

Dynamics – The volume at which you should be singing or playing. Some common terms are given below.

• forte ('f') – Loud. You might also see 'ff' – fortissimo, i.e. 'very loud'. Keep adding 'f's and it gets louder still. You're unlikely to see more than 2 f's in G+S scores though.
• piano ('p') – Quiet or Soft. Similarly to forte, 'pp' – pianissimo – means very soft. More 'p's is quieter still...
• crescendo ('cresc') – Get gradually louder. Also indicated by 'hairpins' in a "<" shape.
• diminuendo ('dim') – Get gradually softer. 'Hairpins' like ">" also mean this.

tempo – the speed of the music. Usually written in descriptive, italian terms but can also be expressed as beats per minute. Some common tempos and instructions to slow down, etc. are given below

• Largo / Lento – Slow
• Andante – Walking pace
• Andantino – A little quicker than andante (and perversely, sometimes means a little slower!)
• Allegro – Quick
• Con moto – E.g. "Allegro con moto" is faster than Allegro.
• Vivace – Lively (in practice quite fast!)
• Presto – Fast (usually very quick)
• rallentando ('rall') – Get gradually slower.
• ritenuto ('rit') – Slower (straight away, in contrast to rallentando).
• accelerando ('accel') – fairly obvious. Get faster gradually.
• a tempo – back to the original speed (normally after a rit. or rall.)

accent – Indicated with ">" on top of a note. As the name suggests, this note is usually to be sung or played louder than those around it.

a capella – sung without accompaniment

aria – literally an 'air' – most commonly used for an expressive (maybe slow) solo number for tenor or soprano

arpeggio – singing or playing the notes of a chord one after another.

legato – smooth notes, the opposite of staccato. It's not usually written in the score, at least for G+S. However you might hear people using the term.

ma non troppo – not too much. Usually in terms of " allegro ma non troppo" – i.e. fast but not too fast.

molto – a lot. E.g. 'molto cresc.' means 'getting much louder'

pause – perhaps self explanatory – the note or rest under the pause sign is held for a little longer than normal. The Pause symbol looks like a half–circle with a dot in the middle, either facing down or up.

recitative (Recit.) – Recitative is sung with the rhythm of natural speech instead of to a strict time. The orchestra usually play only between sentences, often just playing a chord or two to keep the music moving along or to emphasise key words. In G+S it's usually heard between the end of some dialogue and the start of a song, and normally only sung by principals. Recitative is used much more in 'serious' opera where there is no spoken dialogue.

staccato – short, spiky notes. Usually indicated with a "." on top of a note.

stave, or staff – the five lines that the music is written on

sforzando – 'forced'. usually shown by a "sfz" in the score. Suddenly loud.

tutti – "All", Often after a short solo section, or if everyone on stage is singing together (though not necessarily in unison). You might see tutti in a finale, when the principals stop singing on their own and join in with the chorus.

unison – All parts singing the same note, usually with the ladies an octave above the men.

Principals:

Soprano – the highest female voice. The leading lady is always a soprano.

Mezzo–soprano – middle–soprano, somewhere between soprano and alto. The smaller female roles in G+S shows are often written for mezzo. They can often be sung by a soprano or alto depending on what sound the director wants.

Alto (Contralto) – The lowest female voice. Often a "duchess" or "matron" type role. There's usually only one of these parts in a G+S operetta.

Tenor – The "romantic lead" is typically a tenor role. It's the highest male voice found in G+S parts.

Baritone – somewhere between tenor and bass, and often categorised as "tenor/bari" or "bass/bari" parts, for the higher and lower ranges. See "Patter Baritone". Perhaps since they are much more common than real tenors or basses there are usually at least two or three baritone roles in every G+S show.

Bass – The bottom end. Often the realm of the baddies!

Chorus:

G&S chorus parts are usually written for Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass (SATB). These are often subdivided or 'split' into two parts, especially the Soprano, Tenor and Bass parts. For some reason, in some cases the soprano part is split to sopranos 1 and 2 and there's no alto part. The second sopranos are often referred to as altos in this case anyway.