I can kind of get along with the terms of cassical music theory (sometimes at least) - I know stuff like staccato and legato. Then there's other kinds of musical slang terms like "riff" and "lick" I understand less.
But what I'm really confused by is the slang sorrounding electronic music and music production. For example, synth instruments seem to be categorized in broad categories like "Lead" or "Pad". From experience the "Lead" instruments are always in the higher to mid frequency range and stick out really well, so I'm guessing they're for melodies, and the "Pad" ones never stick out too much and are really good for layering underneath. There's probably some origin to these terms I'm not just old enough to know about.
Other than that I usually have to stick to just trying them out to know what they sound like with all the wierd fantasy names, that admittedly sound pretty cool (with words like "Neon", "Massive", or "Silky", my favorite is a preset called "Antarctic Sun" included in GarageBand), but don't really speak to me. Also they can be confusing, for example the term "noise" makes a chiptune composer like me think of the non-melodic, so-called noise channels of old soundchips (they make kind of a buzzing sound in several variations which is great for percussion if you're unfamiliar with them), when as it turns out, what this actually means is distortion. Also there's terms like "glass" (which goes in kind of rhodes sounding direction?) or "dirty". Some are just called "crazy", "odd" or "wierd".
Maybe there's some kind of master plan behind this and someone more in the know will be able to explain it to me. Or maybe you eventually just pick it up as you go along. Right now it's somewhat confusing, though admittedly it's pretty amusing and I do really like colorful language like this.
But what I'm really confused by is the slang sorrounding electronic music and music production. For example, synth instruments seem to be categorized in broad categories like "Lead" or "Pad". From experience the "Lead" instruments are always in the higher to mid frequency range and stick out really well, so I'm guessing they're for melodies, and the "Pad" ones never stick out too much and are really good for layering underneath. There's probably some origin to these terms I'm not just old enough to know about.
Other than that I usually have to stick to just trying them out to know what they sound like with all the wierd fantasy names, that admittedly sound pretty cool (with words like "Neon", "Massive", or "Silky", my favorite is a preset called "Antarctic Sun" included in GarageBand), but don't really speak to me. Also they can be confusing, for example the term "noise" makes a chiptune composer like me think of the non-melodic, so-called noise channels of old soundchips (they make kind of a buzzing sound in several variations which is great for percussion if you're unfamiliar with them), when as it turns out, what this actually means is distortion. Also there's terms like "glass" (which goes in kind of rhodes sounding direction?) or "dirty". Some are just called "crazy", "odd" or "wierd".
Maybe there's some kind of master plan behind this and someone more in the know will be able to explain it to me. Or maybe you eventually just pick it up as you go along. Right now it's somewhat confusing, though admittedly it's pretty amusing and I do really like colorful language like this.