The definitions below are commonly understood working definitions for use with the primary curriculum and teacher guidelines.
| accent | the emphasis on a selected beat or beats in a bar |
| beat | the steady, continuous pulse underlying the music |
| body percussion | using different parts of the body to create different sounds and rhythms, for example clap, stamp, slap, etc. |
| cabasa | a percussion instrument, cylindrical in shape and covered in strings of metal beads that rotate freely on the curved surface to produce a grating sound |
| descant | an added part above the melody line in the treble clef |
| diatonic | built on the notes d, r, m, f, s, l, t, d' |
| drone | long, held note or notes |
| dynamics | the loudness and softness of a piece of music, for example lullaby -- soft (p), march -- loud (f) |
| hand signs | gestures used to indicate pitch in solfa |
| harmony | two or more sounds played or sung together |
| interval | the distance between two notes of different pitch |
| key signature | indicates where doh lies at the beginning of a piece of music |
| major scale | a scale built on the notes d, r, m, f, s, l, t, d', also known as the diatonic scale |
| metre | the basic grouping of beats in each bar of music, as indicated by the time signature |
| minor scale | a scale built on the notes l, t, d, r, m, f, si, l, beginning on lah instead of doh, with a sharpened seventh note (si) |
| modal scale | a scale built on the notes of the major scale but starting and finishing on notes other than doh; for example the re mode: r, m, f, s, l, t, d' r' |
| mood | type of feeling created by music, for example happy, sad |
| octave | the distance between notes of the same name, eight letter notes higher or lower: for example D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D |
| ostinato | a constantly repeated musical pattern, rhythmic or melodic |
| pentatonic scale | a scale comprising five notes: d, r, m, s, l, widely used in folk music. Pentatonic scales can begin on any note: for example, mi-pentatonic comprises the notes m, s, l, d, r. Pentatonic scales can be played on the black notes of a piano: for example, beginning on F# the first three notes together are d, r, m, while the next two black notes are s and l. |
| percussion instruments | instruments that are struck or shaken, for example tambourine, triangle; tuned percussion instruments are tuned to a specific note at concert pitch; untuned percussion instruments are not given specific tuning |
| phrase | a natural division in the melodic line; similar to a sentence or part of a sentence |
| pitch | a term referring to the high/low quality of a musical sound |
| pulse | the underlying 'throb' in music |
| rest | no sound for a specified length of time, according to
the musical sign, for example:
|
| rhythm | different durations of sounds, long and short |
| rhythm syllables | words or syllables used to demonstrate duration in rhythm |
| round | one melody strictly imitated in pitch and rhythm, any number of beats later; usually two, three or four parts, repeated any number of times |
| staff notation | notes written on a five-line stave |
| stick notation | a form of shorthand used for notating rhythm quickly and easily; for example a crotchet is represented as simply: |
| structure | overall plan of a composition, for example AB: two contrasting sections |
| style | the combination of tempo, timbre and dynamics |
| syncopation | the occurrence of unexpected accents in metred music |
| tempo | speed or pace of the underlying beat |
| texture | refers to combinations of sounds: single sounds or sounds together |
| timbre | tone colour; refers to the characteristic sound produced by different instruments, for example trumpet, violin |
| time signature | the sign placed at the beginning of the music indicating the number of beats in each bar |
| tonic solfa | moveable pitch names, d, r, m, f, s, l, t, d' |
| treble or G clef | the fixed pitch sign placed at the beginning of the staff to identify the fixed pitch name G |
| tremelo | rapid iteration of a note, or alternation of two notes |