Glossary
Music Director Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential music director terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key music director vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in music director training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Arrangement
- Adapted version.
- Concertmaster
- Lead violinist.
- Cue
- Signal to start.
- DAW
- Digital audio workstation.
- Downbeat
- First beat.
- Dynamics
- Loudness.
- Ensemble
- Group of musicians.
- Intonation
- Pitch accuracy.
- Orchestration
- Assigning parts to instruments.
- Pit orchestra
- Theater musicians.
- Rehearsal mark
- Reference point in music.
- Royalties
- Payments for use.
- Score
- Full music for all parts.
- Sight-reading
- Playing at first sight.
- Tempo
- Speed.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Music Director practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Music Director training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.