| Alternate Picking |
Technique |
Picking in alternate directions (down-up-down-up). |
| Anticipation |
Improvisation |
"anticipation" is another melodic device in jazz... you start playing notes to fit the next chord, before the chords change |
| Approach Note |
Fretboard Knowledge |
A chromatic note above or below a target note |
| Arpeggio |
Fretboard Knowledge |
A succession of chord tones, usually played evenly low to high and back again. |
| Arrangement |
Progression/Song Form |
The setting of an original or standard tune for a given solo instrument or group of instruments |
| Articulation |
Phrasing |
Articulation is a fundamental musical parameter that determines how a single note or other discrete event is sounded. Articulations primarily structure an event's start and end, determining the length of its sound and the shape of its attack and decay. They can also modify an event's timbre, dynamics, and pitch. |
| Artificial Harmonics |
Phrasing |
The harmonics of a note produced on a stringed instrument by lightly touching a stopped sounded string. |
| Ascending Run |
Improvisation |
A melodic line that ascends in pitch as it progresses, |
| Atonal |
Modes/Scales |
Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. |
| Augmented |
Theory |
Augmented chords are major triads with a sharp fifth |
| Augmented Fifth |
Theory |
It is one semitone wider than a perfect fifth and enharmonically equivalent to a minor sixth. |
| Augmented Scale |
Modes/Scales |
built from alternating halftones and minor 3rds |
| Automation |
Misc |
<p>A production technique used to adjust volume or panning on a single track through a song</p> |
| Backing track/ Jam Track |
Misc |
A backing track is an audio recording on audiotape, CD or a digital recording medium or a MIDI recording of synthesized instruments, sometimes of purely rhythmic accompaniment, often of a rhythm section or other accompaniment parts that live musicians play along with or sing along to |
| Ballad |
Genre |
Ballads are a form of narrative verse that can be either poetic or musical; not all ballads are songs. Many ballads tell stories, but this is not a mandatory attribute of the form. Many musical ballads are slow and emotionally evocative. |
| Banjo Roll |
Technique |
Hybrid picking rolling with Pick, M and A |
| Bar |
Theory |
A segment of written music in which there is a designated number of beats. Sometimes called a measure. |
| Baritone |
Misc |
An instrument that is second lowest in pitch in its family |
| Baroque |
Genre |
<p>A popular genre of music in the 17th and 18th century famous for the use of a harpsichord.</p> |
| Barre Chord |
Chords/Harmony |
From the French term barré. The technique of placing the fretting hand index finger over two to six strings in the fingering of a chord. |
| Basics |
Misc |
Concerning the fundamentals of a subject. |
| Bass |
Misc |
<p>A low pitched instrument typically used to provide a solid foundation within a song.</p> |
| Bass Note |
Theory |
The lowest note of a chord |
| Bebop |
Genre |
Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumental virtuosity, and improvisation based on a combination of harmonic structure, the use of scales and occasional references to the melody |
