Music Slang, Jargon, and New Words from Double-Tongued Dictionary

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cinema jazz n. The same goes for moving pictures, whether it’s the grainy old educational clips or the handcrafted abstract strips with which the trio create, and in fact improvise to a degree, a luminous collage of loops and layers, entirely by way of creaky old 16mm projectors.…While they do perform with projectors in cinemas, Wet Gate regard themselves as much a music project as anything. Their loops are chosen with rhythmic and tonal qualities in mind, and the three aren’t uncomfortable with the neologism “cinema jazz.” [English Movies Music New or Nonce] [full cite] (Oct. 9, 2006)

color call n. In Asia, where sales of music to mobile phones outpace CD sales in some places, labels may offer more than 400 different items in connection with a specific album, including ring-back tones—snippets of music that play to callers while they wait for their call to go through—or “color call” tones, background songs that play while someone talks on the phone. [English Music Technology] [full cite] (Dec. 11, 2006)

comping n. Hutcherson delivered some of his best work on this tune as he played the straight man to the G-men (Garrett and Gonzalez). Refusing to get caught up in a contest of speed or strength, the wily vet relied on his smarts as he added small, yet significant, bits of color to the music. It’s known in jazz as “comping”—and few do it as well as Hutcherson. [English Music] [full cite] (Jan. 29, 2007)

coup de glotte n. Actually, Mr. Johnson explained, the trick at the heart of ventriloquism isn’t “throwing” the voice but “treating” it. Thanks to a throat-muscle manipulation that opera singers call a coup de glotte, the amplitude of the emerging sound waves is constricted in a way that the human ear misinterprets as distance. Keeping the lips immobile and shifting focus supports the illusion. [French Entertainment Music] [full cite] (Sep. 22, 2006)

cowpat music n. He also gives no sign of recognising, or being interested in, the ways in which arcadian ideals influenced later generations of artists, musicians and poets, including the 19th-century Romantics and 20th-century composers of the English pastoral tradition (sometimes disparagingly referred to as “cowpat music”). [English United Kingdom Music] [full cite] (Jan. 22, 2008)

cowpunk n. Though too much of a loner to be taken up by the “cowpunks”, as she calls them, [Lucinda Williams] did land a UK record deal from Rough Trade. [English Music] [full cite] (Jul. 18, 2005)

crate-digging n. What it is, however, is a feel-good mash-up of beats, scratching, jazz, swing, rock—and one of the most eclectic collections of vocal samples ever. Compiling these somewhat strange recordings, or crate-digging as it’s known in DJ culture, is second nature to San. [English Music] [full cite] (Nov. 2, 2006)

crunk ’n’ b n. Following a frenetic yet lacklustre, tracks-only stint by young R&B (or crunk “n’ b in the current vernacular) sensation Ciara, the easygoing Afro-American allowed his DJ, Benny-D (a Virgin Islands native) to warm up the audience. [English Music] [full cite] (Jul. 29, 2005)

cut heads v. I still long to be in a band that plays just good, old, classic rock and roll music. After playing that song, Phil asked me if I wanted to “cut heads” which is blues slang for friendly competition of dueling guitar solos. [English Music] [full cite] (Jan. 25, 2005)

cut heads v. When it comes to slide guitar, he can cut heads with any guitar-slinger on the range. [English Music] [full cite] (Jan. 26, 2005)

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