| Term | Description |
|---|
| Early music | Early music is commonly defined as European classical music from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque. |
| Easy listening | Easy listening music is a style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the mid-20th century, evolving out of swing and big band music, and related to Beautiful music and Light music. |
| Eighth note | An eighth note (American or "German" terminology) or a quaver (British or "classical" terminology) is a musical note played for one eighth the duration of a whole note. |
| Electronic musical instrument | An electronic musical instrument is a musical instrument that produces its sounds using electronics. |
| Electrophone | Electrophone is any musical instrument involving electricity. |
| Eleventh | In music or music theory an eleventh is the note eleven scale degrees from the root of a chord and also the interval between the root and the eleventh. |
| Eleventh chord | An eleventh chord is a chord which contains an eleventh. |
| Embouchure | The embouchure is the use of facial muscles and the shaping of the lips to the mouthpiece of a wind instrument. Less frequently, it is used to mean the mouthpiece itself. |
| En chamade | En chamade (French: "to sound a parley") refers to powerfully voiced reed stops in a pipe organ that are mounted horizontally rather than vertically in the front of the organ case, projecting out into the church. They produce a commanding, loud trumpet-like tone, used for fanfares and solos. |
| Encore | The encore is an additional extra performance of a musical piece at the end of the regular concert, which is not listed in the event setlist, from the French encore, which means again. |
| Enharmonic | In modern music, an enharmonic is a note (or key signature) which is the equivalent of some other note (or key signature), but spelled differently. |
| Ensemble | A musical ensemble is a group of two or more musicians who perform instrumental or vocal music. In each musical style or genre, different norms have developed for the sizes and composition of different ensembles, and for the repertoire of songs or musical works that these ensembles perform. |
| Equal temperament | Equal temperament is a musical temperament, or a system of tuning in which every pair of adjacent notes has an identical frequency ratio. |
| Ethnomusicology | Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts." Formed from the Greek words ethnos (nation) and mousike (music), it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music. |
| Étude | An étude (a French word meaning "study") is a short musical composition designed to provide practice in a particular technical skill in the performance of a solo instrument. |
| Exoticism | In music exoticism is a genre in which the rhythms, melodies, or instrumentation are designed to evoke the atmosphere of far-off lands or ancient times. |
| Exposition | In musical form and analysis, exposition is the initial presentation of the thematic material of a musical composition, movement, or section. The use of the term generally implies that the material will be developed or varied. |
| Expressionism | Expressionism as a musical genre is notoriously difficult to exactly define. It is, however, one of the most important movements of 20th Century music. The central figures of musical expressionism are Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils, Anton Webern and Alban Berg, the so-called Second Viennese School. |
| Eye music | Eye music (often referred to in English by its exact German translation Augenmusik) describes graphical features of scores that when performed are unnoticeable by the listener. |
