BBC Home


Accessibility help
Text only
BBC Homepage
BBC Music

Sold on Song. Classic songs, covers, songwriting and more.

Listen Live.

 Full Schedule
-

Radio 2
Sold on Song
What's On
Search For A Songwriter
Songs A-Z
Artists A-Z
Songwriting Guides
Genres
Glossary
Newsletter

Contact Us

Like this page?
Send it to a friend!
 


Glossary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Chord
 When two or more notes are played together at the same time a chord has been heard. Chords are the building blocks of harmony .
Chorus
 Not all songs have choruses, but you can easily identify the ones that do because a chorus contains the most memorable music and lyrics in the song. It is repeated after each verse and usually contains the hook . A chorus can be removed from the rest of the song and still sound complete in itself both musically and lyrically. All together now: “We all live in a yellow submarine…”
Chromatic
The chromatic scale on the piano uses all 12 black and white notes, so contains notes outside whatever key a song is in, since each key only uses 7 notes. The word "chromatic" is used to describe music which uses the chromatic scale, or to distinguish instruments which are capable of playing all its notes (like the chromatic harp). When songs use the chromatic scale it often lends an exotic or sinister feel to the music.

Classical Guitar
Strings on classical guitars are gut or nylon. The bodies of classical guitars are usually deeper than those of standard acoustic guitars for warmer and richer tones. Listen to John Williams play theme to The Deer Hunter for a good peice of modern classical guitar work.

Click Track
 This is an audio track that contains a metronome beat at the tempo of the music which is removed just before mixing . This allows musicians to synchronise accurately to a film or parts recorded during another performance.

Contralto
Contralto is the lowest range of the female voice, typically g-g". Has come to be used synonymously with alto.
(Contra means against so a contra-voice/instrument is that which sings/plays 'against' the primary voice/instrument)
 Crossfade
 Fading one element or track of a mix out, as you fade another one in.

About the BBC | Help | Terms of Use | Privacy & Cookies Policy
 

Explore the BBC
Just to let you know, we're no longer updating this site. More information here

Change Text Only Settings

Graphic version of this page