Glossary

106 terms every string player meets, defined properly.

What the word means, how the technique is actually executed, and what it is commonly confused with, for bowing, the left hand, notation, theory, expression, the instrument itself, and the rehearsal room.

Bowing & articulation

Arco Italian, "bow": Arco is the instruction to play with the bow, and it appears in string parts to cancel a previous pizzicato marking.
Pizzicato Italian, "pinched": Pizzicato is plucking the string with a finger instead of bowing it, abbreviated pizz. in the score and cancelled by the marking arco.
Détaché French, "detached": Détaché is the basic string bowing in which each note gets its own bow stroke, changing direction between notes while the bow stays on the string.
Legato Italian, "tied together": Legato is playing notes smoothly connected with no audible gap between them; on a string instrument it usually means several notes under one bow, indicated by a slur.
Staccato Italian, "detached": Staccato shortens a note, notated with a dot above or below the notehead, so it sounds for roughly half its written value and is followed by silence.
Spiccato Italian, "distinct, separated": Spiccato is a controlled bouncing bow stroke in which the bow leaves the string between notes, producing short, light, clearly separated sounds.
Sautillé French, "skipping": Sautillé is a rapid bowing in which the bow bounces on its own from the natural springiness of the stick, used at tempos too fast for controlled spiccato.
Martelé French, "hammered": Martelé is a strongly accented bow stroke that begins with a sharp bite of pressure, releases into a fast stroke, and stops on the string before the next note.
Col legno Italian, "with the wood": Col legno is striking or drawing the wooden stick of the bow against the string instead of the hair, producing a dry percussive click.
Sul ponticello Italian, "on the bridge": Sul ponticello is bowing very close to the bridge, which suppresses the fundamental and brings out high harmonics, producing a thin, glassy, metallic sound.
Sul tasto Italian, "on the fingerboard": Sul tasto is bowing over the fingerboard, well away from the bridge, producing a soft, hollow, flute-like tone with very little edge.
Tremolo Italian, "trembling": Tremolo is the rapid repetition of a single note, played on strings with fast, short bow strokes near the tip, and notated with slashes through the note stem.
Up-bow and down-bow: Down-bow moves the bow from frog to tip and is marked with a bracket symbol; up-bow moves from tip to frog and is marked with a V.
Bow hold: The bow hold is the way the right hand contacts the bow, a flexible, curved grip that lets the fingers absorb pressure changes rather than locking them out.
Ricochet French, "rebound": Ricochet is a bowing in which the bow is dropped onto the string and allowed to bounce several times in one direction, producing a rapid group of notes from a single stroke.
Portato Italian, "carried": Portato is a bowing in which several notes share one bow stroke but are gently separated by a pulse of pressure, notated as dots or dashes under a slur.
Bariolage French, "multi-coloured": Bariolage is a string technique that alternates rapidly between strings, often repeating the same pitch on a stopped string and an open string, for a shimmering change of colour rather than of note.
Frog English; Italian: al tallone: The frog is the block at the hand end of the bow that holds the hair and carries the screw mechanism; playing at the frog means using the heaviest part of the bow, nearest the hand.
String crossing: A string crossing is any move of the bow from one string to another, and controlling its smoothness is one of the central bow-arm skills on every orchestral string instrument.

Left hand & fingerboard

Vibrato Italian, "vibrated": Vibrato is a small, regular oscillation of pitch produced by rocking the left-hand finger on the string, used to warm and sustain a tone.
Position: A position is a fixed placement of the left hand on the fingerboard, numbered by which note the first finger falls on, so that a set of pitches is reachable without moving the hand.
Shifting: Shifting is moving the left hand to a new position on the fingerboard, and it is the technique that gives a string player access to the instrument's full range.
Thumb position: Thumb position is a cello and double bass technique in which the left thumb leaves the back of the neck and presses down on the string itself, acting as a movable nut.
Extension: An extension is a temporary widening of the left-hand frame, most commonly on cello, that reaches a note a half step outside the position without shifting the whole hand.
Simandl fingerings: Simandl fingerings are the standard orchestral double bass system, using the first, second, and fourth fingers in the lower positions because the hand spans only a whole step there.
Harmonics: Harmonics are pure, flute-like tones produced by touching a string lightly at a node instead of pressing it to the fingerboard, notated with a small circle above the note.
Double stop: A double stop is two notes played simultaneously on adjacent strings of a string instrument, with the bow drawn across both at once.
Open string: An open string is a string played with no left-hand finger stopping it, sounding the pitch the string is tuned to.
Intonation: Intonation is accuracy of pitch, on a fretless string instrument, the ongoing skill of placing each finger so the note is in tune with the harmony around it.
Half position: Half position is the hand placement one semitone below first position, used on violin, viola, and cello to reach the lowest chromatic notes without stretching backwards.
Third position: Third position is the hand placement in which the first finger sits where the third finger sits in first position, and it is the first shift most string students learn.
Glissando Italian, from French glisser, "to slide": A glissando is a continuous slide from one pitch to another, notated with a line between the two notes, and on a string instrument it is produced by keeping the finger pressed while the hand travels.
Trill Italian: trillo: A trill is a rapid alternation between the written note and the note directly above it in the key, marked tr above the staff.
Guide finger: A guide finger is a finger kept lightly on the string during a shift so the hand can measure the distance it travels rather than jumping blind.
Finger pattern: A finger pattern is the arrangement of whole steps and half steps between the four fingers of the left hand in a given position, and it is what determines the key a string player’s hand is shaped for.

Notation & reading

Alto clef: Alto clef is a C clef that places middle C on the middle line of the staff, and it is the standard clef for the viola.
Tenor clef: Tenor clef is a C clef placing middle C on the fourth line of the staff, used for the higher register of cello, bassoon, and trombone parts.
Treble clef: Treble clef is a G clef that places the G above middle C on the second line of the staff, and it is the clef used for violin and for the upper register of viola.
Bass clef: Bass clef is an F clef placing the F below middle C on the fourth line of the staff, and it is the primary clef for cello and double bass.
Ledger line: A ledger line is a short line written above or below the staff to extend it, allowing notes outside the five-line range to be notated.
Key signature: A key signature is the group of sharps or flats written at the start of each staff line, indicating which notes are consistently altered throughout the piece.
Time signature: A time signature is a pair of numbers showing how many of a given note value fill a bar; their grouping indicates the metre and main beats.
Slur: A slur is a curved line over two or more different pitches indicating they should be played smoothly connected, on strings, in a single bow stroke.
Tie: A tie is a curved line joining two notes of the same pitch, combining them into a single sound lasting the sum of their values.
Accidental: An accidental is a sharp, flat, or natural sign placed before a note to raise, lower, or restore its pitch for the remainder of that bar.
Sight-reading: Sight-reading is playing a piece of music accurately on first sight, without having practised it beforehand.
Mordent Italian mordente, "biting": A mordent is an ornament in which the written note is played, followed rapidly by the note below it, then the written note again, notated as a short zigzag with a vertical stroke through it.
Staff: The staff is the set of five horizontal lines on which music is written; a note’s vertical place on the lines and spaces, read against a clef, gives its pitch.
Measure: A measure, called a bar in British usage, is the span of music between two barlines, containing the number of beats set by the time signature.
Anacrusis Greek, "striking up": An anacrusis, or pickup, is one or more notes that precede the first full measure of a phrase, falling on a weak beat and leading into the downbeat.
Rehearsal mark: A rehearsal mark is a boxed letter or number placed at structural points in a score and in every part, so a conductor can restart the whole ensemble at the same place.
Tuplet: A tuplet is a group of notes played in the time normally occupied by a different number of them, written with a bracket and a numeral, most commonly a triplet, three notes in the space of two.
Da capo Italian, "from the head": Da capo, abbreviated D.C., instructs the player to return to the beginning of the piece; dal segno, D.S., instructs a return to the segno sign, and both are usually followed by an instruction about where to stop.
Ottava Italian, "octave": Ottava is an instruction to play the marked passage an octave higher or lower than written, notated 8va above the staff or 8vb below it, and cancelled by the word loco.
Courtesy accidental: A courtesy accidental is a sharp, flat, or natural printed to confirm a pitch the reader might otherwise doubt, often in parentheses, and it changes nothing about how the note is played.
Score and parts: A score shows every instrument’s music stacked on aligned staves, while a part shows one instrument’s line alone, the conductor reads the score, the players read parts.

Theory & harmony

Interval: An interval is the distance between two pitches, named by the number of staff steps it spans and qualified as perfect, major, minor, augmented, or diminished.
Scale: A scale is an ordered sequence of pitches spanning an octave, defined by its specific pattern of whole and half steps.
Arpeggio Italian, "harp-like": An arpeggio is a chord played one note at a time in sequence rather than simultaneously.
Triad: A triad is a three-note chord built from a root with a third and a fifth stacked above it, and it is the basic unit of western harmony.
Circle of fifths: The circle of fifths is a diagram arranging the twelve keys by ascending perfect fifths, so each step clockwise adds one sharp and each step counter-clockwise adds one flat.
Enharmonic: Two notes are enharmonic when they sound the same pitch but are written differently, such as F sharp and G flat.
Cadence: A cadence is the harmonic formula that ends a musical phrase, functioning like punctuation to signal a full stop, a comma, or a surprise.
Ear training: Ear training is the practice of learning to identify pitches, intervals, chords, and rhythms by hearing alone.
Relative minor: The relative minor of a major key is the minor key that shares its key signature, found three semitones below the major tonic, A minor is the relative minor of C major.
Chromatic scale Greek chroma, "colour": A chromatic scale is a scale made entirely of semitones, using all twelve pitches within an octave rather than the seven of a major or minor scale.
Mode: A mode is a scale defined by which degree of a parent scale it starts on, playing the notes of C major from D to D gives Dorian, from G to G gives Mixolydian.
Inversion: A chord is inverted when a note other than its root is in the bass, a C major triad with E in the bass is in first inversion, and with G in the bass, second inversion.
Tonic and dominant: The tonic is the home note and chord of a key, and the dominant is the chord built on the fifth degree above it, the tension between them drives most Western tonal music.
Syncopation: Syncopation is rhythm that places emphasis where the metre does not expect it, on a weak beat or between beats, creating a pull against the underlying pulse.

Expression & tempo

Dynamics: Dynamics are the markings that indicate volume, running from pianissimo (very soft) through mezzo-forte to fortissimo (very loud).
Crescendo and diminuendo Italian, "growing" and "diminishing": A crescendo is a gradual increase in volume and a diminuendo a gradual decrease, written as the words or as opening and closing hairpin symbols.
Tempo Italian, "time": Tempo is the speed of a piece, given either as an Italian term such as Allegro or Adagio or as a precise metronome marking in beats per minute.
Rubato Italian, "stolen": Rubato is expressive flexibility of tempo, in which the performer stretches some notes and hurries others while the underlying pulse remains recognisable.
Ritardando and accelerando: Ritardando is a gradual slowing of tempo and accelerando a gradual speeding up, both written as abbreviations with a dotted line showing how far they extend.
Fermata Italian, "stop": A fermata is a symbol, a dot under an arc, placed over a note or rest indicating it should be held longer than its written value, for a duration the performer or conductor chooses.
Articulation: Articulation is how a note is started, sustained, and released, the markings that distinguish smooth, separated, accented, and shortened notes from one another.
Portamento Italian, "carrying": Portamento is an audible slide between two pitches, produced on a string instrument by shifting while the bow keeps the string sounding.
Phrase: A phrase is a complete musical thought, typically four or eight bars ending in a cadence, and it is the unit that shapes how music is performed.
Allegro Italian, "cheerful": Allegro is a tempo marking meaning fast and lively, conventionally around 120 to 156 beats per minute, and it is the most common opening tempo in the classical repertoire.
Andante Italian, "walking": Andante is a tempo marking meaning a moderate walking pace, conventionally around 76 to 108 beats per minute, between the slow adagio and the moderate moderato.
Adagio Italian, "at ease": Adagio is a slow tempo marking, conventionally around 66 to 76 beats per minute, indicating music played at ease and with space rather than merely slowly.
Sforzando Italian, "forcing": Sforzando, written sfz or sf, is an instruction to give a single note a sudden strong accent, louder than the surrounding dynamic and then immediately back to it.
Tenuto Italian, "held": Tenuto is a short horizontal dash over a note asking for it to be held to its full value, and often given a little extra weight or emphasis.
Cantabile Italian, "singable": Cantabile is an instruction to play in a singing style, shaped, connected, and phrased as a voice would phrase it rather than as a sequence of notes.
A tempo Italian, "in time": A tempo instructs the player to return to the previous speed after a passage that slowed down or sped up, most often following a ritardando or a rubato passage.

The instrument

Concert pitch: Concert pitch is the agreed tuning reference for an ensemble, standardly the A above middle C at 440 Hz, though many orchestras tune to 442 Hz.
Cents: A cent is a unit of pitch measurement equal to one hundredth of an equal-tempered half step, used by tuners to show how far a note is from true.
Rosin: Rosin is the hardened tree resin applied to bow hair to create the friction that makes a string speak; without it the bow slides silently across the string.
Sound post French, âme, "soul": The sound post is a small wooden dowel wedged inside a string instrument between the top and back, transmitting vibration and holding the body under string tension.
Metronome: A metronome is a device that sounds a steady pulse at a chosen number of beats per minute, used to establish and gradually increase tempo in practice.
Transposing instrument: A transposing instrument is one whose written notes sound at a different pitch than notated, such as the double bass, which sounds an octave below what is written.
Double bass tuning: The double bass is tuned in perfect fourths, E1, A1, D2, G2, unlike the rest of the string family, which is tuned in perfect fifths.
Mute Italian: sordino: A mute is a small clamp fitted to the bridge of a string instrument that damps its vibration, producing a veiled, quieter tone; con sordino asks for it and senza sordino removes it.
Bridge: The bridge is the shaped piece of maple standing under the strings that transmits their vibration into the body of the instrument, and it is held in place by string tension alone.
Fine tuners: Fine tuners are small screws on the tailpiece that alter a string’s tension by a tiny amount, allowing precise tuning without turning the pegs.
Instrument sizes: String instruments are made in fractional sizes, 1/16 through 4/4 for violin and cello, chosen by the player’s arm length and hand span rather than by age, and the fractions do not describe physical proportions.
Luthier French luth, "lute": A luthier is a maker and repairer of stringed instruments, and the person to see for anything involving the bridge, soundpost, pegs, seams, or setup.

Ensemble & rehearsal

Divisi Italian, "divided": Divisi instructs a string section to split into two or more groups playing different notes, rather than every player attempting the written chord alone.
Tutti Italian, "all": Tutti indicates that the whole ensemble or the whole section plays, and in a concerto part it marks the orchestral passages where the soloist rests.
Concertmaster and section seating: The concertmaster is the principal first violinist, who leads the string sections, decides bowings, and tunes the orchestra before the conductor appears.
Étude French, "study": An étude is a piece written to develop one specific technical skill, isolating a difficulty so it can be practised in a musical context rather than as a bare exercise.
Concertmaster: The concertmaster is the principal first violinist, who leads the string section, decides its bowings, tunes the orchestra, and acts as the link between the players and the conductor.
Stand partner: A stand partner is the other player sharing your music stand in a string section; the player on the inside, nearer the centre of the stage, turns the pages.
Tacet Latin, "it is silent": Tacet is a marking in an orchestral part indicating that the instrument does not play for an entire movement or section, so no bars of rest are printed.
Orchestral excerpt: An orchestral excerpt is a short, technically revealing passage extracted from the orchestral repertoire, used in auditions to test whether a player can meet the section’s standard.

See these terms in context

Arco's curricula teach each technique where it belongs in the path, with the staff, the keyboard, and your fingerboard shown together.

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Bowing & articulation

Arco

Italian, "bow"

Arco is the instruction to play with the bow, and it appears in string parts to cancel a previous pizzicato marking.

Pizzicato

Italian, "pinched"

Pizzicato is plucking the string with a finger instead of bowing it, abbreviated pizz. in the score and cancelled by the marking arco.

Détaché

French, "detached"

Détaché is the basic string bowing in which each note gets its own bow stroke, changing direction between notes while the bow stays on the string.

Legato

Italian, "tied together"

Legato is playing notes smoothly connected with no audible gap between them; on a string instrument it usually means several notes under one bow, indicated by a slur.

Staccato

Italian, "detached"

Staccato shortens a note, notated with a dot above or below the notehead, so it sounds for roughly half its written value and is followed by silence.

Spiccato

Italian, "distinct, separated"

Spiccato is a controlled bouncing bow stroke in which the bow leaves the string between notes, producing short, light, clearly separated sounds.

Sautillé

French, "skipping"

Sautillé is a rapid bowing in which the bow bounces on its own from the natural springiness of the stick, used at tempos too fast for controlled spiccato.

Martelé

French, "hammered"

Martelé is a strongly accented bow stroke that begins with a sharp bite of pressure, releases into a fast stroke, and stops on the string before the next note.

Col legno

Italian, "with the wood"

Col legno is striking or drawing the wooden stick of the bow against the string instead of the hair, producing a dry percussive click.

Sul ponticello

Italian, "on the bridge"

Sul ponticello is bowing very close to the bridge, which suppresses the fundamental and brings out high harmonics, producing a thin, glassy, metallic sound.

Sul tasto

Italian, "on the fingerboard"

Sul tasto is bowing over the fingerboard, well away from the bridge, producing a soft, hollow, flute-like tone with very little edge.

Tremolo

Italian, "trembling"

Tremolo is the rapid repetition of a single note, played on strings with fast, short bow strokes near the tip, and notated with slashes through the note stem.

Up-bow and down-bow

Down-bow moves the bow from frog to tip and is marked with a bracket symbol; up-bow moves from tip to frog and is marked with a V.

Bow hold

The bow hold is the way the right hand contacts the bow, a flexible, curved grip that lets the fingers absorb pressure changes rather than locking them out.

Ricochet

French, "rebound"

Ricochet is a bowing in which the bow is dropped onto the string and allowed to bounce several times in one direction, producing a rapid group of notes from a single stroke.

Portato

Italian, "carried"

Portato is a bowing in which several notes share one bow stroke but are gently separated by a pulse of pressure, notated as dots or dashes under a slur.

Bariolage

French, "multi-coloured"

Bariolage is a string technique that alternates rapidly between strings, often repeating the same pitch on a stopped string and an open string, for a shimmering change of colour rather than of note.

Frog

English; Italian: al tallone

The frog is the block at the hand end of the bow that holds the hair and carries the screw mechanism; playing at the frog means using the heaviest part of the bow, nearest the hand.

String crossing

A string crossing is any move of the bow from one string to another, and controlling its smoothness is one of the central bow-arm skills on every orchestral string instrument.

Left hand & fingerboard

Vibrato

Italian, "vibrated"

Vibrato is a small, regular oscillation of pitch produced by rocking the left-hand finger on the string, used to warm and sustain a tone.

Position

A position is a fixed placement of the left hand on the fingerboard, numbered by which note the first finger falls on, so that a set of pitches is reachable without moving the hand.

Shifting

Shifting is moving the left hand to a new position on the fingerboard, and it is the technique that gives a string player access to the instrument's full range.

Thumb position

Thumb position is a cello and double bass technique in which the left thumb leaves the back of the neck and presses down on the string itself, acting as a movable nut.

Extension

An extension is a temporary widening of the left-hand frame, most commonly on cello, that reaches a note a half step outside the position without shifting the whole hand.

Simandl fingerings

Simandl fingerings are the standard orchestral double bass system, using the first, second, and fourth fingers in the lower positions because the hand spans only a whole step there.

Harmonics

Harmonics are pure, flute-like tones produced by touching a string lightly at a node instead of pressing it to the fingerboard, notated with a small circle above the note.

Double stop

A double stop is two notes played simultaneously on adjacent strings of a string instrument, with the bow drawn across both at once.

Open string

An open string is a string played with no left-hand finger stopping it, sounding the pitch the string is tuned to.

Intonation

Intonation is accuracy of pitch, on a fretless string instrument, the ongoing skill of placing each finger so the note is in tune with the harmony around it.

Half position

Half position is the hand placement one semitone below first position, used on violin, viola, and cello to reach the lowest chromatic notes without stretching backwards.

Third position

Third position is the hand placement in which the first finger sits where the third finger sits in first position, and it is the first shift most string students learn.

Glissando

Italian, from French glisser, "to slide"

A glissando is a continuous slide from one pitch to another, notated with a line between the two notes, and on a string instrument it is produced by keeping the finger pressed while the hand travels.

Trill

Italian: trillo

A trill is a rapid alternation between the written note and the note directly above it in the key, marked tr above the staff.

Guide finger

A guide finger is a finger kept lightly on the string during a shift so the hand can measure the distance it travels rather than jumping blind.

Finger pattern

A finger pattern is the arrangement of whole steps and half steps between the four fingers of the left hand in a given position, and it is what determines the key a string player’s hand is shaped for.

Notation & reading

Alto clef

Alto clef is a C clef that places middle C on the middle line of the staff, and it is the standard clef for the viola.

Tenor clef

Tenor clef is a C clef placing middle C on the fourth line of the staff, used for the higher register of cello, bassoon, and trombone parts.

Treble clef

Treble clef is a G clef that places the G above middle C on the second line of the staff, and it is the clef used for violin and for the upper register of viola.

Bass clef

Bass clef is an F clef placing the F below middle C on the fourth line of the staff, and it is the primary clef for cello and double bass.

Ledger line

A ledger line is a short line written above or below the staff to extend it, allowing notes outside the five-line range to be notated.

Key signature

A key signature is the group of sharps or flats written at the start of each staff line, indicating which notes are consistently altered throughout the piece.

Time signature

A time signature is a pair of numbers showing how many of a given note value fill a bar; their grouping indicates the metre and main beats.

Slur

A slur is a curved line over two or more different pitches indicating they should be played smoothly connected, on strings, in a single bow stroke.

Tie

A tie is a curved line joining two notes of the same pitch, combining them into a single sound lasting the sum of their values.

Accidental

An accidental is a sharp, flat, or natural sign placed before a note to raise, lower, or restore its pitch for the remainder of that bar.

Sight-reading

Sight-reading is playing a piece of music accurately on first sight, without having practised it beforehand.

Mordent

Italian mordente, "biting"

A mordent is an ornament in which the written note is played, followed rapidly by the note below it, then the written note again, notated as a short zigzag with a vertical stroke through it.

Staff

The staff is the set of five horizontal lines on which music is written; a note’s vertical place on the lines and spaces, read against a clef, gives its pitch.

Measure

A measure, called a bar in British usage, is the span of music between two barlines, containing the number of beats set by the time signature.

Anacrusis

Greek, "striking up"

An anacrusis, or pickup, is one or more notes that precede the first full measure of a phrase, falling on a weak beat and leading into the downbeat.

Rehearsal mark

A rehearsal mark is a boxed letter or number placed at structural points in a score and in every part, so a conductor can restart the whole ensemble at the same place.

Tuplet

A tuplet is a group of notes played in the time normally occupied by a different number of them, written with a bracket and a numeral, most commonly a triplet, three notes in the space of two.

Da capo

Italian, "from the head"

Da capo, abbreviated D.C., instructs the player to return to the beginning of the piece; dal segno, D.S., instructs a return to the segno sign, and both are usually followed by an instruction about where to stop.

Ottava

Italian, "octave"

Ottava is an instruction to play the marked passage an octave higher or lower than written, notated 8va above the staff or 8vb below it, and cancelled by the word loco.

Courtesy accidental

A courtesy accidental is a sharp, flat, or natural printed to confirm a pitch the reader might otherwise doubt, often in parentheses, and it changes nothing about how the note is played.

Score and parts

A score shows every instrument’s music stacked on aligned staves, while a part shows one instrument’s line alone, the conductor reads the score, the players read parts.

Theory & harmony

Interval

An interval is the distance between two pitches, named by the number of staff steps it spans and qualified as perfect, major, minor, augmented, or diminished.

Scale

A scale is an ordered sequence of pitches spanning an octave, defined by its specific pattern of whole and half steps.

Arpeggio

Italian, "harp-like"

An arpeggio is a chord played one note at a time in sequence rather than simultaneously.

Triad

A triad is a three-note chord built from a root with a third and a fifth stacked above it, and it is the basic unit of western harmony.

Circle of fifths

The circle of fifths is a diagram arranging the twelve keys by ascending perfect fifths, so each step clockwise adds one sharp and each step counter-clockwise adds one flat.

Enharmonic

Two notes are enharmonic when they sound the same pitch but are written differently, such as F sharp and G flat.

Cadence

A cadence is the harmonic formula that ends a musical phrase, functioning like punctuation to signal a full stop, a comma, or a surprise.

Ear training

Ear training is the practice of learning to identify pitches, intervals, chords, and rhythms by hearing alone.

Relative minor

The relative minor of a major key is the minor key that shares its key signature, found three semitones below the major tonic, A minor is the relative minor of C major.

Chromatic scale

Greek chroma, "colour"

A chromatic scale is a scale made entirely of semitones, using all twelve pitches within an octave rather than the seven of a major or minor scale.

Mode

A mode is a scale defined by which degree of a parent scale it starts on, playing the notes of C major from D to D gives Dorian, from G to G gives Mixolydian.

Inversion

A chord is inverted when a note other than its root is in the bass, a C major triad with E in the bass is in first inversion, and with G in the bass, second inversion.

Tonic and dominant

The tonic is the home note and chord of a key, and the dominant is the chord built on the fifth degree above it, the tension between them drives most Western tonal music.

Syncopation

Syncopation is rhythm that places emphasis where the metre does not expect it, on a weak beat or between beats, creating a pull against the underlying pulse.

Expression & tempo

Dynamics

Dynamics are the markings that indicate volume, running from pianissimo (very soft) through mezzo-forte to fortissimo (very loud).

Crescendo and diminuendo

Italian, "growing" and "diminishing"

A crescendo is a gradual increase in volume and a diminuendo a gradual decrease, written as the words or as opening and closing hairpin symbols.

Tempo

Italian, "time"

Tempo is the speed of a piece, given either as an Italian term such as Allegro or Adagio or as a precise metronome marking in beats per minute.

Rubato

Italian, "stolen"

Rubato is expressive flexibility of tempo, in which the performer stretches some notes and hurries others while the underlying pulse remains recognisable.

Ritardando and accelerando

Ritardando is a gradual slowing of tempo and accelerando a gradual speeding up, both written as abbreviations with a dotted line showing how far they extend.

Fermata

Italian, "stop"

A fermata is a symbol, a dot under an arc, placed over a note or rest indicating it should be held longer than its written value, for a duration the performer or conductor chooses.

Articulation

Articulation is how a note is started, sustained, and released, the markings that distinguish smooth, separated, accented, and shortened notes from one another.

Portamento

Italian, "carrying"

Portamento is an audible slide between two pitches, produced on a string instrument by shifting while the bow keeps the string sounding.

Phrase

A phrase is a complete musical thought, typically four or eight bars ending in a cadence, and it is the unit that shapes how music is performed.

Allegro

Italian, "cheerful"

Allegro is a tempo marking meaning fast and lively, conventionally around 120 to 156 beats per minute, and it is the most common opening tempo in the classical repertoire.

Andante

Italian, "walking"

Andante is a tempo marking meaning a moderate walking pace, conventionally around 76 to 108 beats per minute, between the slow adagio and the moderate moderato.

Adagio

Italian, "at ease"

Adagio is a slow tempo marking, conventionally around 66 to 76 beats per minute, indicating music played at ease and with space rather than merely slowly.

Sforzando

Italian, "forcing"

Sforzando, written sfz or sf, is an instruction to give a single note a sudden strong accent, louder than the surrounding dynamic and then immediately back to it.

Tenuto

Italian, "held"

Tenuto is a short horizontal dash over a note asking for it to be held to its full value, and often given a little extra weight or emphasis.

Cantabile

Italian, "singable"

Cantabile is an instruction to play in a singing style, shaped, connected, and phrased as a voice would phrase it rather than as a sequence of notes.

A tempo

Italian, "in time"

A tempo instructs the player to return to the previous speed after a passage that slowed down or sped up, most often following a ritardando or a rubato passage.

The instrument

Concert pitch

Concert pitch is the agreed tuning reference for an ensemble, standardly the A above middle C at 440 Hz, though many orchestras tune to 442 Hz.

Cents

A cent is a unit of pitch measurement equal to one hundredth of an equal-tempered half step, used by tuners to show how far a note is from true.

Rosin

Rosin is the hardened tree resin applied to bow hair to create the friction that makes a string speak; without it the bow slides silently across the string.

Sound post

French, âme, "soul"

The sound post is a small wooden dowel wedged inside a string instrument between the top and back, transmitting vibration and holding the body under string tension.

Metronome

A metronome is a device that sounds a steady pulse at a chosen number of beats per minute, used to establish and gradually increase tempo in practice.

Transposing instrument

A transposing instrument is one whose written notes sound at a different pitch than notated, such as the double bass, which sounds an octave below what is written.

Double bass tuning

The double bass is tuned in perfect fourths, E1, A1, D2, G2, unlike the rest of the string family, which is tuned in perfect fifths.

Mute

Italian: sordino

A mute is a small clamp fitted to the bridge of a string instrument that damps its vibration, producing a veiled, quieter tone; con sordino asks for it and senza sordino removes it.

Bridge

The bridge is the shaped piece of maple standing under the strings that transmits their vibration into the body of the instrument, and it is held in place by string tension alone.

Fine tuners

Fine tuners are small screws on the tailpiece that alter a string’s tension by a tiny amount, allowing precise tuning without turning the pegs.

Instrument sizes

String instruments are made in fractional sizes, 1/16 through 4/4 for violin and cello, chosen by the player’s arm length and hand span rather than by age, and the fractions do not describe physical proportions.

Luthier

French luth, "lute"

A luthier is a maker and repairer of stringed instruments, and the person to see for anything involving the bridge, soundpost, pegs, seams, or setup.

Ensemble & rehearsal

Divisi

Italian, "divided"

Divisi instructs a string section to split into two or more groups playing different notes, rather than every player attempting the written chord alone.

Tutti

Italian, "all"

Tutti indicates that the whole ensemble or the whole section plays, and in a concerto part it marks the orchestral passages where the soloist rests.

Concertmaster and section seating

The concertmaster is the principal first violinist, who leads the string sections, decides bowings, and tunes the orchestra before the conductor appears.

Étude

French, "study"

An étude is a piece written to develop one specific technical skill, isolating a difficulty so it can be practised in a musical context rather than as a bare exercise.

Concertmaster

The concertmaster is the principal first violinist, who leads the string section, decides its bowings, tunes the orchestra, and acts as the link between the players and the conductor.

Stand partner

A stand partner is the other player sharing your music stand in a string section; the player on the inside, nearer the centre of the stage, turns the pages.

Tacet

Latin, "it is silent"

Tacet is a marking in an orchestral part indicating that the instrument does not play for an entire movement or section, so no bars of rest are printed.

Orchestral excerpt

An orchestral excerpt is a short, technically revealing passage extracted from the orchestral repertoire, used in auditions to test whether a player can meet the section’s standard.