An Extensive Encyclopedic Music Dictionary

An Extensive
Traditional and Folk Music
Encyclopedic Dictionary

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(Section Q)

Quadrille-The quadrille was one of the most popular ball-room dances of the 19th century, generally in a brisk duple metre. 2, A square dance

quadruplet four notes in the time alloted for three. The notes are tied and a "4" written above them. Similar in construction to a triplet. While the textbooks say that the notes should be played as written, folk musicians often take liberties in order to reproduce a particular musical style (for instance, the four notes in a jig (6/8 time) might be played as eighth-sixteenth-sixteenth-eighth).

quartal pertaining to a harmonizing system based on the interval of a fourth. The sacred harp music is quartal harmony.

quartal. Anything that can be spelled, or arranged, in fourths.

Quarter-tone-Divisions of the tone smaller than a semitone are occasionally found in art-music, particularly in the 20th century. Quarter-tones occur in the solo violin part of the Second Violin Concerto of Belá Bartók.

Quartet-A quartet is a composition for four players or the name for a group of four players.

Quasi-almost.

quaver see notation, British.

quid in British slang, a pound.

quintal. a misnomer for chords constructed in fifths. All "quintal" chords are inverted quartal chords.

Quintet-A quintet is a composition for five players or the name for a group of five players.

quire an archaic spelling of "choir". Thomas Hardy recorded that the early 19th-century quires in small churches used local musicians playing brasses and woodwinds and performing hymns set to local folk tunes.

quodlibet two or more songs or tunes performed together to produce a polyphonic effect. An example might be Amazing Grace with "When the Saints Go Marching In". See also bitonal, round, polyphonic.

Quodlibet-A quodlibet (Latin: what you please) is a light-hearted composition generally containing a combination of well known tunes. There is an example in Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, where the composer combines the theme of the variations with two popular songs of the time.