| Keyword | Excerpt (click on keyword for complete article) |
| Abblasen | Baroque trumpet fanfare in a very virtuoistic style. |
| Abendlied | (Ger.) Evening song. |
| Absolute music | Also called "abstract music."Music composed simply as music, with no references to emotions, stories, paintings or any other non-musical subject. |
| Abstract music | See Absolute music. |
| accumulative songs | Also called "cumulative song". A song where a new phrase is added for each verse, such as "Old MacDonald had a farm". |
| Aguinaldo | Traditional christmas song played by musicians travelling from house to house in Puerto Rico and Venezuela. |
| Air | From It.: "Aria".A simple tune. |
| Alba | Morning song. |
| Alberti bass | An accompagniment style (usually for keyboard instruments) consisting of simple arpeggiated chords, like this Arietta by Joseph Haydn:The technique was named after Domenico Alberti who used it frequen |
| Aleatoric music | Music containing chance or random elements. A trend since 1945 with composers like John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. |
| Allamanda | See Allemande (1). |
| Allemande (1) | Fr.: "German".A moderately slow dance in 4/4 time popular during the 16th, 17th and early 18th century. The allemande was often used as the first movement in the Baroque dance suite. The dance seems t |
| Allemande (2) | Fr.: "German".The late 18th and early 19th century allemande was a brisk dance in 3/4 time, not related to the earlier allemande. It later developed into the waltz. |
| Almain | 16th/17th C. English spelling of allemande. There were some national and regional differences of the allemande at that time, and it's possible to argue that the almain should be regarded as a dance fo |
| Alta danza | Sp.: "High dance".Lively dance popular in Spain in the late 14th and early 16th centuries. |
| Anglaise | Fr.: "English"A variant of the contre danse |
| Anthem | A short vocal composition.The term is commonly used in three different circumstances:In the Church of England it's used for a song (often with a non-liturgical text and not part of the official servic |
| Aria (1) | It.: "Song". The word is especially used for solo songs in operas. |
| Arie | Norwegian for aria. |
| Arietta | (It.) A small aria. |
