Musical imagery adds a lot to writing when it’s done right. The only trouble is that so many writers get it wrong. They misunderstand the terminology or the capacities of the instruments. Music is a big part of my life, so it especially bothers me when references to music are full of mistakes. Here are a few pointers which could be useful.
absolute pitch: Also called “perfect pitch.” The ability to identify the pitch of a note with great accuracy and without any context. It’s a rare ability, and even most virtuoso musicians don’t have it. Many people can develop a rough ability to identify pitches with training, but that’s not the same.
baritone: a range of pitch intermediate between tenor and bass. A bass baritone splits the difference again, between baritone and bass. No one ever talks about a tenor baritone.
bassoon: Some writers think the bassoon is a loud, powerful instrument. It’s probably the fault of Coleridge, who refers to the “loud bassoon” in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” It’s a woodwind instrument, like an overgrown oboe but less piercing. Its volume is comparable to the clarinet or oboe.
bugle, trumpet, cornet: These are different kinds of brass instruments. A bugle is generally a military instrument, and it used to serve the practical purpose of conveying orders to troops. It has a harsh, piercing sound and can’t hit all the notes of the scale. The trumpet and cornet are very similar, and one can often be substituted for the other. Trumpets are used more in classical and jazz music. Cornets are widely used in concert and marching bands. (Think of Harold Hill’s 76 trombones and 110 cornets.) The cornet was invented in the 1820s, so if you’re writing about a period before that, you probably want to talk about trumpets.
contralto: A range of pitch intermediate between soprano and tenor. As applied to voices, it corresponds to the lower end of normal female ranges, though some women are tenors or even baritones. In Italian, it literally means “against high.” It’s usually shortened to “alto,” which confusingly means “high.” The important thing is that alto and contralto are the same.
crescendo: A gradual increase in volume. To perform an effective crescendo, the performer needs to have somewhere to go. It starts relatively softly and get louder. Conversely, “diminuendo” requires the performer to start with a certain amount of volume and get softer. The expression “rise to a crescendo” is complete nonsense. It means “rise to a rise.” Banish it from your vocabulary.
horn: This term has a lot of different meanings. In the orchestra, it refers to the French horn or its valveless ancestor, the natural horn. The English horn is an oboe-like instrument with a lower pitch, but it’s never called simply a horn. Other old-style instruments, such as the basset horn, flugelhorn, and posthorn, use the name in a phrase or compound word. In older historical contexts it means anything you can blow on to make a loud sound, including an animal horn which has been suitably cut. In bands it can mean any brass instrument or even any wind instrument. Just make sure that your usage is appropriate to the context.
Lied: That’s just the German word for “song,” capitalized because the language capitalizes its nouns. The plural is “Lieder.” In English it refers to German art songs. Please don’t say “Lieders” or “a Lieder.”
rimshot: Striking the rim rather than the head of a drum to produce a distinctive sound. The term has become a cliché in connection with comedy routines, where it refers to a sequence of percussion strokes including a rimshot and a cymbal stroke.
tone-deafness: A rare condition in which the sufferer can’t distinguish musical intervals with any accuracy. The vast majority of people can distinguish tones which are half a step or more apart and recognize tunes. Inability to sing on pitch is not tone-deafness, it’s lack of musical training.
Knowing Italian isn’t always helpful. A lot of musical terms come from Italian but have taken on their own technical meaning. For instance, the middle part of a classical minuet or the last part of a Sousa march is called the “trio,” even though a lot more than three players may be involved. “Piano” means “soft” in Italian; the name of the instrument is shortened from “pianoforte,” signifying a keyboard instrument that can play both softly and loudly.
Feel free to use musical terms imaginatively in your writing, but know what you’re saying.
I always assumed, without bothering to look it up, that just as a counter-tenor is higher pitch than a tenor, so a contralto is lower pitch than an alto. I take it that’s wrong?
Our language isn’t very consistent. “Tenor” comes from the Latin “tenere,” to hold, and in old music the tenor is the part that holds the main melody. “Counter-tenor” was added later. According to Etymonline.com, “alto” originally applied to a high male voice, so it would mean the same as “counter-tenor.” The female voice below the soprano range was originally called the contralto. It’s likely that parts that used to be sung by male altos got taken over by contraltos as mixed choruses became more common, so people started to use the term “alto” for that range.
It’s confusing. As I said, the main thing is that alto and contralto are the same, at least for female voices.
Exploring further: The Wikipedia article claims that “alto” refers to the second highest part in four-part mixed harmony, while “contralto” refers to a vocal range. That would be consistent with the presence of “alto” in vocal scores dating back to the baroque period and perhaps earlier.