C

Call and response

Often found in vocal music, but not exclusively, usually consists of a single performer stating the tune or call and the other performers, often a group, responding. The response is often the same.

Canon

Usually a tune imitated exactly, but after an interval of time, by another voice or instrument. In its simplest form it is called a 'round.

Chant

Usually a sung melodic line or tune regularly repeated or intoned.

Chords

A simultaneous combination of notes, anything from 2 upwards but usually three or more.

Chorus

Usually the part of a song which is repeated exactly the same after each verse.

Circle Dance

Generic name for dances of a repetitive nature done by groups of people in a circle.

Clapping Music

Usually combinations of rhythms or beats to create a rhythmic texture by employing clapping techniques, e.g. Clapping Music by the America composer Steve Reich.

Cluster

Chords or groups of notes performed by playing or singing notes which are adjacent to each other e.g. by playing a keyboard or piano with the forearm.

Complex (or grid)

A reasonably simple but clear way of notating rhythms and rhythm patterns.

Concerto

The name of a pieced of music where a solo instrument (or sometimes a group of soloists) are contrasted and blended with a larger group, usually an orchestra.

Contour

Another name for the shape of a tune or melody -pupils might 'draw' the contour of a tune (the highs and lows) in the air.

Contrast

In composition this is the act of writing, inventing or improvising something that is different from something else e.g. a different, contrasting section, a contrast of high and level, loud and quiet, timbre etc.

Conversation

As in verbal conversations this could be people or instruments playing or singing one after the other, together, perhaps as in an argument and so on.

Crescendo

The music gradually increases in loudness.

Crotchet

= a one beat note when using conventional staff notation, sometimes called a quarter-note as it is one quarter of whole note.

Crumhorn

Earliest and most common of the Renaissance reed-cap instruments. First named in the early

IS. The reed is inside a 'cap' which has a hole in it for the performer to blow through i.e. the performer's lips do not touch the reed so therefore it cannot be controlled like the later oboe reed.

Cumulative

Sometimes used when describing children’s' songs such as 'Old MacDonald' where with each repetition another part is added which lengthens the song.