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In time (i.e. the performer should return to the stable tempo, such as after an accelerando or ritardando); also may be found in combination with other terms such as a tempo giusto (in strict time) or a tempo di menuetto (at the speed of a minuet) ab (Ger.) off, organ stops or mutes abafando (Port.) muffled, muted abandon or avec (Fr.)
In music theory, the term period refers to forms of repetition and contrast between adjacent small-scale formal structures such as phrases. In twentieth-century music scholarship, the term is usually used similarly to the definition in the Oxford Companion to Music : "a period consists of two phrases, antecedent and consequent, each of which ...
"But that music is a language by whose means messages are elaborated, that such messages can be understood by the many but sent out only by the few, and that it alone among all language unites the contradictory character of being at once intelligible and untranslatable—these facts make the creator of music a being like the gods and make music itself the supreme mystery of human knowledge."
Meter animates time in regular pulse groupings, called measures or bars, which in Western classical, popular, and traditional music often group notes in sets of two (e.g., 2/4 time), three (e.g., 3/4 time, also known as Waltz time, or 3/8 time), or four (e.g., 4/4 time). Meters are made easier to hear because songs and pieces often (but not ...
In music, a caesura denotes a brief, silent pause, during which metrical time is not counted. Similar to a silent fermata, caesurae are located between notes or measures (before or over bar lines), rather than on notes or rests (as with a fermata). A fermata may be placed over a caesura to indicate a longer pause.
In Western music theory, the term sentence is analogous to the way the term is used in linguistics, in that it usually refers to a complete, somewhat self-contained statement. Usually a sentence refers to musical spans towards the lower end of the durational scale; i.e. melodic or thematic entities well below the level of movement or section ...
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The term 'lullaby' derives from the Middle English lullen ("to lull") and by[e] (in the sense of "near"); it was first recorded circa 1560. [4] [5] A folk etymology derives lullaby from "Lilith-Abi" (Hebrew for "Lilith, begone"). [6] [7] [8] In the Jewish tradition, Lilith was a demon who was believed to steal children's souls in the night. To ...