D

It’s how loud you want to play a note, a certain group of notes or a passage. Dynamic markings are part of the music notation. Directions are usually given by…

Initials for Digital Audio Workstation. They are apps, programs or whatever you can use to produce, record or edit audio. You can create or manipulate sounds, mix and master them…

Opposite of crescendo. Gradual decrease in loudness. See dynamics for more.

There’s no imagination here. Lay down the notes of a scale in ascending order and start counting. First degree is the first note; second degree is the second note. That’s…

Lit.: the devil in music. It’s the interval that splits an octave into two equal parts. It’s a dissonant sound that needs to be resolved into a consonant interval. It was heavily criticized…

Also known as: source music. The opposite of incidental music. It’s music that’s heard both by the viewer and the characters. We are able to listen to the music, as…

In this case, the diminished interval is the fifth, not the third. So we have two minor thirds on top of one another. The interval between the first and and the third notes…

See diabolus in musica.

Technically, it’s the same interval as major third but from a different perspective. Let’s say that we have A to C#. That would be a major third. But knowing that C#…

Typically the interval between the tonic and the fourth, fifth or eighth degrees of the scale, minus a semitone. We can also have a diminished third (it’s basically a major second),…

Lit.: diminished. See diminished interval and diminished chord.

Think of consonant intervals as round sounds and of dissonant intervals as sounds with edges. Dissonant sounds are cloudy, ‘noisy’ and ever so slightly irregular. They want to be resolved…

It’s the fifth degree of a scale.

In my articles, I’m turning around in circles in order to avoid using the term dotted note. I have used the phrase ‘elongated notes’ instead, which is by no means…