Fun and Effective Ways to Memorise Musical Terms: Grades 1–5
Have you ever learnt a musical term, felt sure you knew it, and then completely forgotten what it meant when you needed it?
Music theory involves quite a lot of vocabulary, particularly as you progress through the grades. Many of the terms are Italian, with French and German terminology appearing as you move further through the syllabus.
But learning musical terms does not have to mean memorising long lists of words and definitions.
One of the most effective ways to remember them is to turn them into pictures, characters, funny sentences or little stories.
The sillier the story, the more likely you are to remember it!
A Memory Trick I Still Remember from Childhood
When I was learning music theory as a child, I needed to remember:
meno mosso = less movement / slower
For some reason, I imagined men walking through moss.
Picture a group of men trying to walk through thick, sticky moss. They can hardly move their feet!
Men + moss = meno mosso.
Because they are struggling to get through the moss, they are moving less and therefore walking more slowly.
It is a wonderfully silly picture — but that is precisely why I still remember it.
And that is the point of a good memory trick. It does not have to be sensible or sophisticated. It just needs to create a picture that your brain can easily bring back.
Even after all these years, meno mosso makes me think of men walking through moss.
That childhood memory is a good example of how much easier musical terminology can become when you turn a word into a little story rather than simply trying to memorise its definition.
Some Musical Terms Almost Tell Their Own Story
Once you start looking for them, some musical terms lend themselves particularly well to funny pictures and little stories.
| Musical term | Meaning | A silly way to remember it |
|---|---|---|
| meno mosso | less movement / slower | Imagine men walking through thick moss. They can hardly move their feet! |
| ma | but | “Ma says I MUST tidy my room, BUT…” |
| lento | slowly | Len’s toe hurts, so he has to walk slowly. Len’s toe → lento. |
| grazioso | gracefully | Imagine Grace dancing gracefully across a stage. |
| grave | slow and solemn | Imagine standing beside a grave, walking slowly and solemnly. |
| poco | a little | Meet Poco, a cute little character who only wants a little piece of cake. |
| poco a poco | little by little / gradually | Poco takes tiny steps, one at a time — little by little. |
| presto | very fast | Imagine Press Toe running so fast that his shoes are pressing his toes! |
| più | more | You are given a tiny piece of cake and shout “PIÙ! I want MORE!” |
| più mosso | more movement / faster | The men escape the moss and start moving much more quickly. |
| vivace | lively / brisk | Viv is so lively that she simply cannot sit still. |
| volante | flying / fast | think of a high speed volleyball flying through the air, or the volt energy of electricity |
| estinto | as soft as possible, lifeless | Dinosaurs are extinct and completely silent |
| lunga | long pause | looks like long or lung. Take a huge breath into your lungs for a long pause. |
| smorzando | getting softer, dying away | smorzando → smorz.🕯️ “SMORZ = candle going out.” |
| ritenuto | held back / slower | Imagine Rita running, then someone shouting, “Rita! Hold back!” |
A Fun Way to Learn Musical Terms
The All-in-One Music Theory books for Grades 1–5 include crosswords, anagrams, stories and other activities to help make musical terminology memorable.
“Crosswords, anagrams and stories using Italian and French words…the book is worth every penny just for this section alone.”
— Rhinegold Music Teacher Magazine
See more reviews
A Few More Musical Characters
Here are some more musical terms that can be turned into little characters or scenes. You may find that one of these gives you an idea for your own memory tricks.
| Musical term | Meaning | A silly way to remember it |
|---|---|---|
| molto | very / much | Imagine Molly wanting a very large amount of something — “Molly wants lots!” |
| con | with | Con says, “Come with me!” |
| con moto | with movement | Imagine Con on a motorbike, zooming along with plenty of movement. |
| senza | without | Senza orders a pizza without cheese. |
| non troppo | not too much | Someone is filling your glass and you quickly say, “That’s enough — not too much!” |
| largo | slowly | Imagine a drunk person who has had “larger” walking very slowly. |
| andante | at a moderate, walking pace | Dan is walking down the street. |
| dolce | sweetly | Picture a cute, sweet little doll singing a soft lullaby. |
| largamente | broad / slow | Imagine Larry going large, stretching his arms as wide as possible. |
| allargando | broadening and generally slowing | Al stretches his arms wider and wider as he gradually slows down. |
| espressivo | expressively | Imagine Esme expressing herself dramatically through music. |
| alla marcia | in the style of a march | Ella marches along with a very serious expression. |
| dal segno | from the sign | Dale sees the sign and knows he needs to go back to it. |
Some short musical words appear again and again in longer expressions. Once you know what these little words mean, they can give you useful clues when you meet a new term.
- meno = less
- più = more
- con = with
- senza = without
- poco = little / a little
For example:
- meno mosso = less movement
- più mosso = more movement
- con moto = with movement
- poco a poco = little by little
- non troppo = not too much
Learning these small building blocks can make longer musical expressions much easier to remember.
Use Opposites to Make Things Easier
Learning contrasting words together can be particularly helpful.
meno = less
più = more
These two little words are useful building blocks for remembering longer expressions. Once you know that meno means less and più means more, the difference between meno mosso and più mosso becomes much easier to remember.
One word tells you there is less movement; the other tells you there is more.
Make the Music Come Alive
Some terms are especially easy to remember if you turn them into actions.
- largamente — stretch your arms out as wide as possible.
- presto — move as quickly as you can.
- vivace — bounce around and refuse to sit still.
- ritenuto — pretend to run, then suddenly hold yourself back.
- allargando — gradually make your movements wider and slower.
- poco a poco — take tiny steps, one at a time.
- alla marcia — march around the room.
You could even ask someone to call out the musical terms while you act them out. This turns revision into a quick memory game rather than simply reading definitions from a page.
What About French and German Musical Terms?
The same approach works with French and German terminology too.
Rather than trying to memorise a long list of translations, look for something that gives each unfamiliar word a memorable association. A sound-alike, a character, an image or a short story can all work.
The exact terminology you need will depend on your grade and examination board, so it is useful to work from the relevant syllabus rather than trying to learn every musical term you come across.
For the grade-by-grade terminology covered by ABRSM, Trinity and VCM, see:
👉 Music Theory Syllabus Requirements: ABRSM, Trinity & VCM
👉 See ABRSM Grade 5 music Theory: New Terms You Need to Know
Make Up Your Own Memory Tricks
Once you have seen a few examples, try making up your own.
When you meet a term that you keep forgetting, ask yourself:
- Does it sound like an English word or name?
- Can I turn it into a funny picture?
- Could it become a character?
- Is there an obvious action I could imagine?
- Does it have an opposite that I already know?
- Can I make up a ridiculous sentence using it?
Your memory trick does not have to make sense to anyone else. It only has to work for you.
Perhaps lento makes you think of Len’s toe. Perhaps you invent something completely different. Both are perfectly good if they help you remember that lento means slowly.
The Best Memory Trick Is the One You Remember
Musical terms can seem much less daunting when you stop treating them as a list of foreign words and start turning them into things you can picture.
For me, it was men walking through moss.
For you, it might be a character, a funny sentence, a dramatic scene or a ridiculous image that you could never possibly forget.
So the next time a musical term refuses to stick, don’t just read the definition again.
Ask yourself:
“What could this word become?”
And if the answer is something completely silly, that’s probably a very good sign.
A silly story that you remember is far more useful than a sensible definition that you forget.
Aural listening exercises
Learn to recognise sequences – both real and tonal, in an
