Home » Music Glossary
Music Glossary
Find the meanings of 1070+ music and music related terms and concepts in this broad-ranging music industry reference. As a result, this glossary covers a large diversity of Music related terminology. You will find terms for the Music Business, Music Technology, Music Theory, alongside Music Law, Acoustics, and Electronics. The Songstuff Music Glossary is a dynamic and ever-growing collection. Everything from Absorption to Zero Level.
Table of Contents
Getting started in the music industry, or even getting involved in a new area of the music industry can be frustrating and confusing. If you want to take advantage of any opportunity that comes your way an understanding of potential benefits and pitfalls, will help you to be taken seriously by those you meet. At least within a music business context. Being able to respond in an appropriate way (without signalling “I know very little, please take advantage of my lack of knowledge”) is essential. That starts with understanding concepts and speaking the same language.
In other words, it is critical that you both know and understand key music industry words, phrases and concepts.
You cannot afford to miss the implications of a phrase. It isn’t wise to rely entirely upon the knowledge and understanding of others to highlight when terms are unfavorable to you, or when you could get more from a negotiation than you have.
To survive is not enough. You need to thrive in the music industry. To achieve that starts with understanding what people are talking about when they use common music industry terms, and being able to take part in the conversation.
Music Industry Buzzwords
Our music industry glossary is a great introduction to music industry terms and terminology. It is also a highly useful and growing reference companion. One that you can keep using as your music career grows and expands to take in new areas. In no time you will be dropping key music industry buzz words into the conversations and using them correctly!
We’re continually adding new descriptions, so if you have a suggested description please Contact Songstuff.
Glossary items are listed in alphabetical order. Please use the navigation block below to browse the glossary items.
Making Suggestions
All suggestions are very welcome. We ask that when you suggest a term, you also suggest a description for that term. As a regular contributor, we ask that you follow the instructions on becoming a contributor set out below. You are also welcome to make suggestions in our music community forums.
Become A Contributor To The Songstuff Music Glossary
Contributors Wanted
Are you a qualified entertainments lawyer? Or perhaps you have in-depth knowledge about tour management? Are you an experienced band manager? Or perhaps a booking agent? You could be a studio Engineer or a music producer. Would you be interested in helping musicians to build their skills and understanding by contributing definitions to the Songstuff Music Glossary? We rely upon musicians, and people working within the music industry, being willing to contribute to our knowledge base.
As well as contributions to our music glossary, we feature contributions to our music library, in our site blogs and social media portals.
In particular, we add video contributions to the Songstuff Channel on YouTube.
Please contact us and we can explore the possibility of you joining our contributors asap.
Songstuff Media Player
If you would like to listen to some awesome indie music while you browse, just open our media player. It opens in another window (or tab) so your playlist can play uninterrupted as you browse.
Open the Songstuff Media Player.
Playlists are curated by SSUK for the Independent Music Stage and Songstuff.