Ornaments

Ornament (music)

In music, ornaments or embellishments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody , but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central note...

are a frequent embellishment to music. Sometimes different symbols represent the same ornament, or vice versa. Different ornament names can refer to an ornament from a specific area or time period. Understanding these ornaments is important for historically informed performance

Historically informed performance

Historically informed performance is an approach in the performance of music and theater. Within this approach, the performance adheres to state-of-the-art knowledge of the aesthetic criteria of the period in which the music or theatre work was conceived...

 and understanding the subtleties of different types of music. This list is intended to give basic information on ornaments, with description and illustrations where possible.

A

• Accent
  Accent (music)
  In music, an accent is an emphasis placed on a particular note,either as a result of its context or specifically indicated by an accent mark.Accents contribute to the articulation and prosody of a performance of a musical phrase....
  
  can refer to any stressed note, however it was used to indicate an ornament until the 18th century. In German Baroque music it occurs in J. S. Bach's ornament tables as a stressed appoggiatura, indicated by a half circle or "C" in front of a note. This ornament was continued in French Baroque ornament tables.
• Accent und Trillo, German, used mainly by Bach, a trill prepared by an accented note. Generally indicated by a trill sign (jagged line) with a descending line at the beginning.
• Accento (pl. accenti) Italian, extremely popular vocal ornament, used in the late Renaissance
  Renaissance music
  Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...
  
   and early Baroque
  Baroque music
  Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
  
  , Lodovico Zacconi
  Lodovico Zacconi
  Lodovico Zacconi was an Italian-Austrian composer and musical theorist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras...
  
   and Giovanni Battista Bovicelli, Giulio Caccini
  Giulio Caccini
  Giulio Caccini , also known as Giulio Romano, was an Italian composer, teacher, singer, instrumentalist and writer of the very late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He was one of the founders of the genre of opera, and one of the single most influential creators of the new Baroque style...
  
   was a big proponent of its use. Consists of a dotted figure used to fill in or expand an interval or connect two longer notes. Generally improvised or written out literally.
• Appoggiatura in Italian, in French appoggiature and German Vorschlag. An accented dissonant note, followed by a consonant resolution, generally by step downward. Very common in recitative
  Recitative
  Recitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...
  
  , particularly in Baroque and Classical music. May be notated or improvised.
• Accentuirte Brechung German, a broken chord with an added passing tone. Used by Bach, described by Marpurg
  Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg
  Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg was a German music critic, music-theorist and composer. He was friendly and active with many figures of the Enlightenment of the 18th century.-Life:...
  
   and Kirnberger, similar to the French coulé. Sometimes indicated by a slash between two noteheads.
• Acciaccatura Italian; French - pincé étouffé; German - Zusammenschlag.
• Andolan
• Arpeggio
  Arpeggio
  An arpeggio is a musical technique where notes in a chord are played or sung in sequence, one after the other, rather than ringing out simultaneously...
  
  

R

• Rubato: From the Italian "robbed". Used to indicate a modification of the strict rythmical flow.
• Rasguedo
• Ring

T

• Tremolo
  Tremolo
  Tremolo, or tremolando, is a musical term that describes various trembling effects, falling roughly into two types. The first is a rapid reiteration...
  
  
• Trill
  Trill (music)
  The trill is a musical ornament consisting of a rapid alternation between two adjacent notes, usually a semitone or tone apart, which can be identified with the context of the trill....
  
  German - Triller, Italian - trillo, Spanish - trinado, a rapid alternation in pitch, generally from a main pitch and one a step or half-step above or below it. There can be differently-named variations within this general type.
• Turn

V

• Vibrato
  Vibrato
  Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...
  
  Italian, a fluctuation in pitch, volume, or both, generally applied to vocal music. Later used for left hand technique on bowed strings, and with breath vibrato on wind instruments. It is either used constantly or used as an ornament, depending on repertoire. When used as an ornament, it is generally improvised, although some 17th century English and French sources indicate a dot over a note should be used. Giuseppe Tartini
  Giuseppe Tartini
  Giuseppe Tartini was an Italian baroque composer and violinist.-Biography:Tartini was born in Piran, a town on the peninsula of Istria, in the Republic of Venice to Gianantonio – native of Florence – and Caterina Zangrando, a descendant of one of the oldest aristocratic Piranian families.It...
  
  discussed it as one of the four Graces. There are many terms which can be understood to refer to what is now called vibrato. It is believed that vibrato has been used in European music since medieval times, and went through several cycles of popularity.