Letter A
A
The musical note, ‘A’, is the sixth degree of the scale of C major. and the first note of the musical alphabet. The ‘Concert A’ has the universal standard of 440Hz, commonly used as the standard for the tuning of instruments. The piano has 8 pitches of A often starting at A0 and ending on A7. The violin has A as the third string as does the mandolin, it is the fifth string on a guitar and the fourth string on a ukulele.
Anacrusis
An anacrusis is a pickup, upbeat or lead-in note or group of notes that precedes the first complete bar. The last bar of the piece and the first bar, should, total one bar.
Arpeggio
The word means to sound like a harp, when you play an arpeggio you play the noted of a chord one after the other,
Letter B
Bar
Music is organised into bars (or measures), separated by vertical barlines, and with each bar containing a certain number of beats. This number is specified in the time signature at the beginning of the stave.
Bar-line
A vertical line dividing music into easy to read boxes which are called bars. The bar-line should not disrupt the flow of the music.
Interpretation
Deciding how to perform piece of music.The score to a musician is like the script to an actor, everything needs interpreting. Musical notation cannot specify everything (or even a tiny fraction of everything!) and so, to realise the intentions of the composer, the meaning of the music, we need to make decisions about how to best communicate. These include choices about tempo, dynamics, phrasing, fingerings, rubato, articulation etc., and large-scale decisions about structure, the pacing of musical climaxes, stylistic integrity. How you interpret a piece goes beyond learning the notes and playing them in the right order.
Interpretation Skills
How you interpret the note by pressing the note down in different ways to produce various sounds. This section includes sight reading skills.
Interval
The distance in pitch between two notes.
Intonation
Accuracy of pitch, the quality and accuracy of tuning. If the pitch is lower than intended then it’s described as flat. If it’s higher than intended it's described as sharp.