Music for Hangman 🎵

Clues for every answer

A one-line clue for every answer, easy to hard. They're the same clues the game's 💡 Hint shows, so you can read them out when you run your own game.

Jazz

Music genre known for swing, blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals and improvisation.

Rock

Genre of popular music typically centred on the electric guitar, usually with bass guitar, drums and singers.

Pop

Genre associated with commercial, accessible songs that usually have repeated choruses and hooks.

Blues

Genre that began among African Americans in the Deep South of the US; its most common chord pattern has twelve bars.

Soul

Genre from African-American communities of the late 1950s and early 1960s; catchy rhythms and handclaps are a hallmark.

Disco

Dance music genre that emerged in late-1960s American nightlife, known for four-on-the-floor beats and string sections.

Funk

Danceable genre from African-American communities of the mid-1960s, built on a strong groove of bass and drums.

Piano

Keyboard instrument in which felt-coated wooden hammers strike strings when you press the keys.

Guitar

Stringed instrument, usually fretted, typically with six or twelve strings that are strummed or plucked.

Flute

Woodwind instrument that sounds when the player's breath flows across an opening; Stone Age ones are the earliest known.

Drums

Set of percussion instruments, including cymbals, played by one musician, usually seated, with sticks and pedals.

Violin

Wooden string instrument, sometimes called a fiddle, most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings.

Harp

Stringed instrument whose strings run at an angle to its soundboard and are plucked with the fingers.

Rhythm

The pattern of strong and weak beats in music: how unaccented beats are grouped around an accented one.

Melody

Also called a tune: a line of musical notes, one after another, that the listener hears as a single whole.

Choir

Group of singers, most often split into four sections, and usually led by a conductor.

Opera

Form of theatre in which singers take the dramatic roles; it began in Italy at the end of the 16th century.

Verse

One of several similar sections of a song, made of several lines that are generally rhymed.

Ballad

Song or poem that often tells a story; since the later 19th century, also a slow love song.

Album

Collection of audio recordings released together on CD, vinyl, tape or in digital format.

Reggae

Music genre that began in Jamaica in the late 1960s, with short offbeat guitar or piano chords and a heavy bass.

Classical

Tradition of Western art music, often formal and complex, and mainly written down since at least the ninth century.

Trumpet

Brass instrument sounded by vibrating the lips in a mouthpiece; heard in orchestras and jazz ensembles.

Accordion

Box-shaped bellows instrument; the right hand normally plays the tune on buttons or keys, the left bass and chords.

Keyboard

The set of adjacent levers you press to play an instrument like a piano; its pattern repeats every octave.

Orchestra

Large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, usually with string, woodwind, brass and percussion sections.

Symphony

Extended piece of Western classical music, most often for orchestra, usually in several movements, often three or four.

Harmony

Different pitches sounding together: single notes combine into chords, and chords into progressions.

Concert

Live performance of music in front of an audience, known informally as a gig or show.

Festival

Community event with live singing and playing, commonly held outdoors with tents or temporary stages.

Conductor

Person who directs an orchestra or choir, setting the tempo, mainly with hand gestures and usually a baton.

Soprano

Type of classical singing voice with the highest vocal range of all voice types.

Tenor

Type of male singing voice, the highest male chest-voice type; its name comes from Latin for 'to hold'.

Chorus

The part of a song that is repeated between the verses to emphasise what the song is about; a refrain.

Tempo

The speed or pace of a piece of music, often measured in beats per minute.

Treble

Tones of high pitch: in music, the high notes; it is the counterpart of bass sound.

Octave

The interval between one musical pitch and another with double or half its frequency, such as C4 to C5.

Crescendo

Italian marking telling musicians to play gradually louder; its symbol is a narrow 'hairpin' angle.

Acoustic

Describes music played on instruments that make their sound naturally, not by electric or electronic means.

Ensemble

Group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music together, usually known by a distinct name.

Polyphony

Musical texture made of two or more independent melodic lines sounding at the same time.

Counterpoint

How two or more musical lines heard at once fit together in harmony yet move independently in rhythm.

Composition

An original piece of music, vocal or instrumental, or the process of creating or writing music.

Philharmonic

Name for a full-size symphony orchestra, which may use from about seventy to over a hundred musicians.

Improvisation

Making up music on the spot, in the moment and without planning, often over a set chord progression.

Dissonance

Sounds that some listeners hear as harsh or unpleasant together, though that depends on familiarity.

Modulation

A change from one tonality to another in a piece; it may or may not come with a new key signature.

Syncopation

Placing rhythmic stresses or accents where they wouldn't normally occur, making music feel off-beat.

Arpeggio

A chord whose notes are sounded one at a time in rising or falling order; on keyboards it may be called a 'rolled chord'.

Musicology

Academic, research-based study of this art, from its history to its theory, rather than composing or performing.

Instrumentation

The particular combination chosen for a piece, such as Debussy's sonata for flute, viola and harp; also used for orchestration.

Accompaniment

The musical part that supports a melody with rhythm or harmony, often played on piano or guitar behind a singer.

Sinfonietta

Musical group larger than a chamber ensemble but smaller than a full-size orchestra; also a small-scale symphony.

Harpsichord

Keyboard instrument that plucks its strings with small plectrums; widely used in Renaissance and Baroque music.

Fortissimo

Dynamic marking, written ff, telling musicians to play very loudly.

Percussionist

Musician who plays instruments that are struck or scraped, such as timpani, snare drum, cymbals or triangle.

Pizzicato

Italian for 'pinched': plucking the strings of a bowed instrument with the fingers instead of using the bow.

Diminuendo

Dynamic mark directing a passage to be played gradually more softly; it means roughly the same as decrescendo.

Rhapsody

One-movement piece, free-flowing in structure, with highly contrasted moods and a sense of improvisation.

Cadenza

Ornamental passage, improvised or written out, played or sung by a soloist, often allowing virtuosic display.