Piano Terms

What is a 'sonata'?

A sonata is a musical piece written for a solo instrument that was basically used mostly in the Baroque Era of music. And it's a form of music that is not exclusive to classical music, it's just one of many forms available.

What is 'syncopation'?

Syncopation is the phenomenon of what we normally hear as a downbeat, we hear as the pulse by which we reference all other beats of music. Syncopation is when you don't put the emphasis on the downbeat but you put the emphasis on an offbeat and it creates this effect of a floating nature in the music. It's mostly heard in popular music, and a lot of music is sung with syncopation.

What is 'harmony'?

Harmony is harmonizing along with a melody. It means that you have a main pitch and a sequence of notes happening in a melody. The harmony is another pitch that is moving in conjunction with the main melody that is adding another element of total quality to the melody.

What is 'melody'?

Melody is the forefront of the music. It is what is communicating the idea of the song over chords. In general, in popular music, for example, the melody is usually sung by a singer. In classical music the melody is generally played by the lead instrument and is usually the highest note you hear over all the notes that are being played.

What is an 'octave'?

An octave is a note played above itself at the exact double frequency of the previous note, and the reason why we call it an octave is because in western tuning and in our normal western scale, a scale is comprised of eight notes. For example, a C scale is composed of C, D, E, F, G, A, B and then back to C. There's eight notes between C and C and they use "oct", which means eight, as to define it, so "octave."

What is a 'time signature'?

Time signature is a road map for how to play a piece. It's based on two elements - on how many beats there are per measure, and how much time we give each beat. For example, four four time signature is four beats per time measure, and the according note gets the beat. It helps us set up tempo and bass of a piece. By splitting a piece up into measures using the time signature, it makes it easier for a composer to build phrases into music and to define how a song is built into it's separate components.