How to Write a Killer Music Brief:

Music & Studio Jargon Cheat Sheet MUSICAL TERMS • MELODY: The tune. Sometimes called the ‘top-line’. • HARMONY: The chords that support the melody. Without changing a single note of a melody, altering the

harmony can completely change a melody’s ‘feel’ from sad to happy to scary and everything in between. This is called ‘re-harmonisation’.

• TEMPO: The speed of the music. Often measured in beats per minute (BPM) or using more classical terms such as Allegro or Andante.

• PITCH: How high or low a sound is. • RHYTHM: You can think of this as the ‘timing’ i.e when a note occurs and for how long. Can also be used to

describe a specific pattern e.g a cha-cha rhythm. • BAR (also called a MEASURE in the US): A segment of time corresponding to a specific number of beats. • BEAT: Can refer to either the smaller subdivisions that make up a bar or a rhythmic pattern (usually played by

drums or percussion). • TIME SIGNATURE (sometimes called METER): How many beats go into making a bar. Usually there are four beats

in a bar, but just about any number of beats can make a bar. e.g A waltz has 3 beats to a bar. • CHORD: Three or more different musical notes played at the same time. • ARPEGGIO: The notes of a chord played in a sequence as opposed to all at once. • OCTAVE: The next ‘same’ note played higher or lower. When a frequency or pitch is transposed up by one octave,

its frequency is doubled. Likewise if it is pitched down an octave it is halved. • UNISON: Using two ore more different instruments or voices to play the same melody. • INTERVAL: The distance between two notes. An octave is type of interval(it is exactly 12 notes apart). • TRANSPOSE: To change the key. • RIFF (or OSTINATO): A repeated musical idea.

• TIMBRE: The tonal 'colour' or character of a sound. For example, mellow or bright. • SYNCOPATION: a rhythmic idea that emphasises the normally unaccented beats instead. Often used in funk, jazz

and dance music. • DYNAMIC (or DYNAMIC RANGE): The variation between the loudest and softest parts. • INSTRUMENTATION: The choice of instruments used to play a piece of music. • ARRANGEMENT*: Typically referring to the structure to timeline of the song and where each element is placed.

As such sometime referred to as the STRUCTURE or FORM. • DENSITY / ECONOMY: How many parts or instruments in an arrangement. Simpler tracks are said to be more

economical whilst larger ones, for example an orchestral piece, would be dense. • CUE: A piece of music used to accompany a particular scene or sequence in Film / TV scoring. • CRESCENDO (or BUILD): an increase in volume or force towards a musical climax. • DROP: The big musical ‘pay-off’ section, often used in dance music to describe the arrival of the chorus or post-

chorus hook, or where the beat kicks back in after a crescendo. • BUTTONED END: Where a music track comes to a final stop as opposed to being faded out. PRODUCTION & MIX : KEY PHRASES • MIX: The creative process of organising and sweetening the elements together to form a cohesive piece of audio.

Also a noun for the finished product. • MASTERING: The final audio polishing process after mixing (kind of like an audio equivalent of ‘grading’).

Involves sweetening, balancing and preparing for broadcast, but is also a vital step in defining a track’s identity as well as consistency. Volume is typically maximised at this stage.

• STEREO: Standard two-channel system - one for the left and one for the right loudspeaker used to create the impression of sound heard from varying degrees of the left or right.

• MONO: All sounds are mixed into one channel output which both speakers play back equally. Used largely for most recordings prior to the mid-1960s. (Opposite of stereo)

• SURROUND SOUND: Multi-channel (commonly 5:1 or 7:1 configurations) system used to create the impression of sound heard from 360° all around the listener.

• SOUND DESIGN: The process of creating a sonic palette for a film as well as more specific sound effects to help convey narrative, meaning and exploit expressive possibilities. Sometimes it’s used as a looser umbrella term for AUDIO POST-PRODUCTION to cover a wider remit, including FOLEY and even a more general management of the sound post-production process, even as far as DIALOGUE EDITING and ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement).

• TRACKLAY: The process of piecing the various audio elements (sound effects, music, voiceover, dialogue etc) together in audio post production to create a final mix.

• AUTOMATION: the process of writing changes to a part or mix (including changes in volume, panning or effects). Traditionally called ‘riding the faders’.

• BOUNCING: The process of mixing two or more recorded tracks together and rendering these into a new file (called a ‘bounce’).

• HEADROOM: The amount of space in your audio level below the 0dB point. Running lots of audio near to this results in a fatiguing ‘squashed’ sound.

• OVERDUB: To add another part to a multitrack recording or to replace one of the existing parts Recording over an already recorded section of audio.

• ANALOGUE / ANALOG: Descriptive term relating to or the use of physical equipment, such as recording to tape machine as opposed to digital (read computer) recreation.

• SIGNAL CHAIN: The route through which sound travels from it’s source e.g instrument to it’s end point e.g headphones

• COMPRESSION: A reduction in the dynamic of a piece of audio. Compression puts a cap on louder peaks levelling out the variance, so the audio is more consistent in terms of volume overall. Compressors can also add character, warmth and punch depending on which units are used.

• SIDE-CHAINING: Where one part is influenced or changed by what another part in the arrangement is doing. e.g a bass is muted or attenuated whenever the kick drum is hit.

• PAN: A Control enabling the user to move the signal to any point in the stereo image by varying the relative levels fed to the left and right speaker.

• MASKING: When two or more instruments occupy the same ‘space’ at the same time you often won’t be able to hear them both, as one sound covers up or ‘masks’ the other.

• MIDI: Stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. A standard way for transmitting data between electronic devices. e.g MIDI keyboards send data to computers.

• REVERB: The ‘room’ sound. Refers to the way after an initial sound is heard, the sound wave reflects off various surfaces in an acoustic space (e.g a room, a hall, a cathedral etc) before reaching the listener's ear. These reflections essentially create a series of very fast echoes that merge together so that the listener interprets reverb as a single effect. Today we can recreate this effect with electronic reverb units and plug-ins that allow us to create the impression that a performer is actually doing so in that space.

• DELAY (or ECHO): Repeating a sound after the initial audio to create an echo-ing effect. • EQ: The process of increasing or reducing volume from various frequencies. Also a noun for a device actually used

to perform this task. • FILTER: A specific type of Equalizer that affects only certain frequencies. Example, a high-pass filter (HPF) allows

the high frequencies to pass untouched while lowering the low frequencies. • PITCH SHIFT: a technique used to transpose or to make sounds sound higher or lower. • TIME-STRETCH: A technique used to make a piece of audio shorter or longer. • FREQUENCY: Best thought of as ‘pitch’ in relation to music. Frequency: The number of cycles per second in an

audio wave. Frequency is measured in Herz (HZ) or kHz. Also referred to as pitch, the human ear can hear between 20Hz and 20kHz.

• SUB BASS: Frequencies below the range of typical monitor loudspeakers. Some define sub-bass as frequencies that can be felt rather than heard. Sub Bass: Felt rather than heard. Sub bass frequencies lie below 100Hz.

• AIR: Refers to very high frequencies (above 12 kHz), that when boosted give the track a feeling of spaciousness, brightness or sheen.

• ATTACK: How quickly a sound begins. Its impact, if you like. • SUSTAIN: How long a sound lasts. • BODY: The frequency range of an instrument where it produces its richest tone. • SIBILANCE: Pronounced ’s’ sounds. • DEPTH: Sounds that seems almost three dimensional, not flat. • AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format): Uncompressed i.e Full resolution digital audio format, developed by Apple. • WAV (Waveform Audio Format): The Microsoft equivalent of the AIFF. Neither is better than the other. • MP3 (Motion Picture Experts Group Audio Layer III): Compressed low-resolution audio file format, good for

online transfer due to it’s small file size.

WIDELY UNDERSTOOD ‘DESCRIPTIVE’ TERMS • ANGULAR: Music or a melody that seems to jump around unconventionally or erratically. • BOOMY: Too many low or low-mid frequencies. • BOXY: Too much 400-Hz to 600-Hz. • CLEAN: a distortion-free sound with few effects. • DARK: Lacking high-frequency brightness. Could also be ‘dull’. Sometimes used in an entirely different way to

express mood. Clarification of which always handy here. • DRY: An instrument / part without effects applied to it. • WET: An instrument with effects applied to it. • EDGY: A subjective term that can mean an extreme of punchy, bordering on uncomfortable, depending on the

music. • GRAINY: Not smooth / Imperfect. Or has poor digital resolution. • GRITTY: Applying a combination of effects, most notably a little distortion to inject added ‘ballsiness’ and

imperfection to a part. • HARSH: Another derogatory term for digital recordings. This could also refer to frequencies in the 5-kHz to 8-kHz

range that are too pronounced. • MUDDY: Lack of definition in a sound, often as a result of too much low-mid (400- to 800-Hz) energy. Also known

as ‘flabby’. • NASALLY: Too much midrange energy, around 600Hz to 2 kHz in some instruments. • PUNCHY: A part or mix that has a strong sense of impact. • ROUND: Sometimes refers to sounds that have a pronounced midrange quality and softer attack. Sometimes

described as ‘smooth’. • SPIKY: A sound that has a percussive character. • WARM: A catchall term used to describe anything from analogue equipment to a pleasing quality that can't be

put into words. Sometimes used to describe a sound that has a pronounced low / low mid-range quality.