Note: I believe I was supposed to write Part 2 of my Manifestation Journey this week. I thought about it, and two weeks in a row of my life with manifestation is a week too much, but look for it soon. For now, let’s go back to language!
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Music is a language…and music has a language.
Music is a language that can pull at your heartstrings, revive a long-ago memory, make you happy, make you want to dance…..or cry….or sing out the car window….
MUSIC became an English word around 1250. It comes from the Middle French musique, which came from the Latin musica, which came from the Greek mousikos. Mousikos referred to any art ruled by Zeus’s nine daughters, who protected the arts — known as the Mousae, or Muses.
Here are some other musical words and their etymologies:
Tempo: Comes from the Latin tempus (time) and indicates the speed of a piece of music. Here are some tempos:
- Adagio: Italian for at ease or slow.
- Andante: Italian for going or walking. This music has a normal, easy speed.
- Allegro: Italian for cheerful or lively. This music is fast and bright.
- Presto: Italian for quick. This music is very fast.
Here are some other words that you might see on a piece of sheet music, instructing the musician how to play the music:
- Piano: Italian for soft. Play the notes quietly. Often abbreviated as p.
- Forte: Italian for strong or loud. Play the notes with power. Often abbreviated to f. Or ff (louder) or fff (loudest).
- Crescendo: From the Latin crescere, to grow. The music gets louder little by little.
- Staccato: Italian for detached. The notes are played short and sharp, not connected.
- Legato: Italian for tied together. The notes are played smooth and flowing without gaps.
And here are some other common musical terms:
- Chord: From Middle English, short for accord. It is three or more notes played at the same time (on a piano, usually by the same hand).
- Rhythm: From the Greek rhythmos, meaning a measured flow or movement. It is the steady beat in a piece of music.
- Timbre: From Old French meaning a bell’s tone quality. or color. It is the unique tone or sound quality — for example, the difference in sound between a guitar and a piano.
- Pitch: From Latin pegere, meaning to fasten. It is how high or low a musical note sounds.
- Treble: From the Latin triplus, triple or threefold. It is the highest part in a piece of music, perhaps a soprano or a high-pitched instrument.
- Bass: Originally from Latin bassus meaning short or low, and from later Italian basso, low in pitch.
- A cappella: Italian for in the chapel style, meaning vocal music without instruments.
- Cantata: From the Italian cantare, to sing, a piece sung along with instruments.
- Drum. From the Middle Dutch term tromme, which is believed to be onomatopoeic in origin. It became the English noun drum in the early 1500s.
- Dynamics: From the Greek dynamis, meaning power, indicating the volume levels of music.
- Psalm. From the Greek psallein, to pluck a stringed instrument. That became psalmos, which meant the sound of a harp, and then came to mean a song, especially a sacred song in the Jewish tradition.
- Melody: From the ancient Greek melos meaning song and aoidein, to sing. They were then combined to form melodia, the word for music. That became melodie in Old French, and then melody in English in the 1200s.
and to close….
DOO-WOP: This music style began in the 1950s. It featured rich vocal harmonies and was named for the nonsense syllables sung by the backup singers. The first song that actually had the phrase doowop in it was “When You Dance,” a 1955 hit by the Turbans. It became an official word in 1969.
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