Entertainment / Music Glossary

Bell Tree: Long stick with bells suspended from it, adopted from Janissary music.

Bellows: An apparatus for producing air currents in certain wind instruments (accordion, bagpipe).

Big Band: Large jazz ensemble popular in 1930s and 1940s, featuring sections of trumpets, trombones, saxophones (and other woodwinds), and rhythm instruments (piano, double bass, drums and guitar).

Binary Form: Two-part (A-B) form is based on statement and departure. Also two-part form.

Biwa: A Japanese lute, similar to the Chinese pipa.

Blue Note: A slight drop of pitch on the third, fifth or seventh tone of the scale, common in blues and jazz. Also bent pitch.

Blues: African-American form of secular folk music, related to jazz, that is based on a simple, repetitive poetic-musical structure.

Bodhran: Hand-held frame drum with a single goatskin head: used in Irish traditional music.

Bongo: A pair of small drums of differing pitches, held between the legs and struck with both hands, of Afro-Cuban origin.

Bossa Nova: Brazilian dance related to the samba, popular in the 1950s and 1960s.

Bourrée: Lively French Baroque dance type in duple meter.

Branle: Quick French group dance of the Renaissance, related to the ronde.

Brass Family: The principal orchestral instruments of the brass family, from highest to lowest, are: trumpet, French horn, trombone and tuba. Other brass instruments commonly used in concert and marching . . . View Full Definition

Break: Jazz term for a short improvised solo without accompaniment that 'breaks' an ensemble passage or introduces an extended solo.

Bridge: Transitional passage connecting two sections of a composition, also transition. Also the part of a string instrument that holds the strings in place.

Bugle: Brass instrument that evolved from the earlier military, or field, trumpet.

Burgundian Chanson: Fifteenth century French composition, usually for three voices, some or all of which may be played by instruments. Also chanson.

Cadence: A sequence of chords that brings an end to a phrase, either in the middle or the end of a composition.

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