The Words
35 music words, one plain sentence each. If a word appears anywhere in this app, it is here.
You do not need any of these words to use the app. They are here for when you meet one and want to know what it means. Search for a word, or read a letter at a time.
A
- Attribution
- Naming the person who made the work, wherever it is used.
- Audio file
- The finished song saved as one file on a computer.
B
- Blend
- Sliding one track out while the next slides in, so you barely notice the change.
- BPM (beats per minute)
- How fast a track is, counted in beats.
- Build
- Adding energy a little at a time so the track lifts as it goes.
C
- Compression
- Squashing the loudest parts down so the quiet parts can still be heard.
- Crate
- A DJ's record box, and the word for digging through music to find the good stuff.
- Cue
- Choosing where a track will start from before anyone hears it.
D
- DAW (digital audio workstation)
- The program where a track is recorded and put together.
- Deck
- One player: vinyl, CD or laptop. 'The decks' means the whole setup.
- Demo
- An early version of a track, shared before it is released.
- Drop
- The moment a track kicks in fully after a build-up.
E
- EQ (equaliser)
- Turning parts of the sound up or down: more bass, less top.
- Export
- Saving the finished track as one file you can send to someone.
H
- Headroom
- Room left at the top so nothing distorts.
L
- Label
- The readings we measure from a track, written in words on the track page.
- Licence
- The permission that says what other people may do with your track.
- Loop
- A short piece of music that repeats.
M
- Master
- The final version of a track, and also the main volume for a whole room.
- Mix
- Two tracks played at once so they overlap, or all the sounds in a song balanced together.
- Mixdown
- Balancing all the separate parts of a song into one finished stereo track.
P
- Phrasing
- Changing tracks at a natural point, usually every 16 or 32 beats.
- Provenance
- The record of where a track came from, who made it, and what its licence allows.
- Public domain
- Free of rights. Anyone may use it, and no credit is needed.
R
- Reading
- Tempo and loudness heard by ear in the room, before the file has been measured.
- Release
- Making a track public, usually on a chosen date.
- Rendering
- The computer writing your finished track out to a file.
- Royalty
- Money paid to the person who made the work, each time it is used.
S
- Sample
- A small piece of another recording used inside a new track.
- Session
- A scheduled listen, live or recorded.
- Set
- A run of tracks played one after another, usually by one person.
- Stem
- One of the separate parts of a song, like the drums on their own.
- Stream
- Listening without keeping a copy of the file.
T
- Tempo
- The speed of a track.
- Track
- One piece of music: a song or an instrumental.