Accent: An emphasis on a particular beat or part of a beat.
Articulation: The specific way a musician plays a note or series of notes.
Background: A melodic figure typically played by an instrument, or section instruments, behind the melody or an improvised solo.
Bar: The division of music into a consistent number of beats; also known as a measure.
Beat: The basic pulse of any given music; the unit by which musical time is measured.
Big Band: The popular genre of jazz during the swing era. Also refers to a large ensemble of contrasting sections of instrument families. Typical instrumentation includes trombones, saxophones, trumpets, and a rhythm section.
Blues: The foundation of most popular music, it is an African American music form developed in the South during the mid-1800s.
Brass Section: The combined brass instruments in a big band, typically trumpets and trombones.
Bridge: The middle section of many standard popular American songs. It typically moves to a different key.
Call and Response: A type of musical conversation where vocalists and/or instrumentalists answer one another.
Chord: Three or more notes played at the same time to create one sound. Songs are made up of a melody supported by a string of different chords called a progression. Soloists improvise over those progressions.
Clave: 1. Meaning “key” in Spanish.; 2. Rhythmic patterns that form the foundation for the music of Latin America and Cuba.; 3. Cylindrical, hand-held percussion instruments.
Collective Improvisation: More than one instrument improvising at the same time.
Dirge: A slow, funeral-like song or tune.
Drag: To play behind the established tempo.
Duple: A type of subdivision where the beat is divisible by two.
Form: The organization and structure of a piece, including the harmonic structure.
Front Line: The group of instruments playing the melody in a New Orleans-style band. Typically refers to the trumpet, trombone, and the clarinet.
Great Migration, The: A time during the early 1900s when Southern African Americans moved north in search of work, education, and better opportunities for their families.
Groove: The interaction of rhythms to form a pattern.
Harmonic Structure: The pattern of chords for a song.
Harmony: The chords that support the written and improvised melodies.
Improvisation: Spontaneous composition of melodies to fit the form and harmony of a song.
Interval: The distance between any two notes.
Jazz Combo: A smaller version of a big band. Typically containing a rhythm section with a few horn players (e.g. trumpet, trombone, or saxophone).
Kansas City Style: A riff-based style of big band popular in Kansas City during the 1930s. Most closely associated with Count Basie.
Lyrics:
Measure: The music contained between two bar lines.
Melody: The part of a song that you sing.
Meter: The number of beats per measure.
Mutes : A device added to a musical instrument to dampen or quiet the tone, often changing the quality of the sound.
Not-For-Profit Organization: A group of people that come together with a common goal to provide services for a given community.
Orchestration: The method by which a piece of music is organized, what instruments play together and when.
Ostinato: A short, repeated, rhythmic, or melodic pattern/phrase that is repeated throughout an entire piece or given section of music.
Phrase: A musical statement.
Port City: A city located on an ocean or other large body of water connected to an ocean.
Pulse: The basic beat of any given music.
Rhythm: The organized motion of sounds and rests.
Rhythm Section: The group of instruments in a jazz band that provide the rhythmic and harmonic structure. Typically consists of piano, bass, and drums.
Riff: A short repeated musical idea or phrase.
Rush: To play ahead of the established tempo.
Scale: An ascending or descending progression of notes organized in whole and half steps to form a specific pattern.
Scat Singing: Improvising using your voice and nonsense syllables, often to sound like an instrumentalist.
Second Line: A group of people who followed behind New Orleans jazz bands, dancing and parading down the street.
Section: A subdivision of a musical composition. Section may also refer to a group of instruments that are in the same family. Example: brass section, woodwind section, etc.
Shout Chorus: The climax of a big band piece. Generally the point of highest energy where everyone is playing.
Slur: The playing of two consecutive notes without a break between them.
Solo: When one musician improvises within the structure of an existing song.
Stanza: An arrangement of a certain number of lines of text or music, sometimes having a fixed length, meter, or rhyme scheme.
Subdivision: The manner in which the beats are divided. Example: duple or triple.
Swing: The rhythmic attitude of jazz. Also an era in the 1930s.
Syncopation: The accent of unexpected beats.
Tempo: The pace and speed at which music is played.
Timbre: The specific qualities and characteristics of sound.
Trill: Moving between two notes in a very rapid fashion.
Triple: A type of subdivision where the beat is divisible by three.
Triplet: The rhythmic foundation of swing.
Twelve-Bar Blues: The basic structure of a blues.
Vibrato: A slight and rapid fluctuation of pitch used to add character to the sound.
Woodwind Section:The section of instruments in a big band containing the saxophones. Occasionally, clarinets and/or flutes are added, too.
