| Term | Description |
|---|
| Madrigal | A madrigal is a type of secular vocal music composition, written during the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. |
| Mainstream | Mainstream music denotes music that is familiar and unthreatening to the masses, as for example popular music, pop music, middle of the road music, or soft rock; but it should be noted that older generations often dislike the mainstream taste of the youth, and may not agree as to what is or is not mainstream. |
| Major chord | Major chord is the triad made up of a major third and perfect fifth above the root—if the root of the chord is C, the chord will consist of the notes C, E and G. This is also known as a major triad. |
| Major scale | In music theory, the major scale or Ionian scale is one of the diatonic scales. It is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. |
| Major second | A major second, whole tone, or whole step is one of three commonly occurring musical intervals that span two diatonic scale degrees; the others being the minor second and the augmented second, which is one semitone larger. |
| Major seventh | A major seventh is the larger of two commonly occurring musical intervals that span seven diatonic scale degrees. |
| Marching band | A marching band is a group of instrumental musicians who generally perform outdoors, and who incorporate movement – usually some type of marching and other movements – with their musical performance. |
| Marching percussion | Marching percussion instruments are specially designed to be played while moving. This is achieved by attaching the drum(s) to a special harness (also called a carrier or rack) worn by the drummer. |
| Mariachi | Mariachi is a type of musical group, originally from Cocula, Jalisco, Mexico. Usually a mariachi consists of at least two violins, two trumpets, one Mexican guitar, one vihuela (a high-pitched, five-string guitar) and one guitarrón (a small-scaled acoustic bass). |
| Mass | The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the fixed portions of the Eucharistic liturgy (principally that of the Roman Catholic Church, the Churches of the Anglican Communion, and also the Lutheran Church) to music. |
| Matched grip | Matched grip is a method of holding drum sticks and mallets to play percussion instruments. In the matched grip each hand holds its stick in the same way. |
| Matrix | In music, especially folk and popular music, a matrix is an element of variations which does not change. The term was derived from use in musical writings and from Arthur Koestler's The Act of Creation, who defines creativity as the bisociation of to sets of ideas or matrices. |
| Measure | In musical notation, a measure or bar is a segment of time defined as a given number of beats of a given duration. |
| Mediant | In music, the mediant is the third degree of the diatonic scale, being the "middle" note of the tonic triad. |
| Medieval music | The term medieval music encompasses European music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends in approximately the middle of the fifteenth century. |
| Melodic motion | Melodic motion is the quality of movement of a melody, including nearness or farness of successive pitches or notes in a melody. This may be described as conjunct or disjunct, stepwise or skipwise, respectively. |
| Melody | In music, a melody, also tune, voice, or line, is a series of linear events or a succession, not a simultaneity as in a chord (see harmony). |
| Membranophone | A membranophone is any musical instrument which produces sound primarily by way of a vibrating stretched membrane. It is one of the four main divisions of instruments in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification. Most membranophones are drums. |
| Mensural notation | Mensural notation is the musical notation system which was used in European music from the later part of the 13th century until about 1600. "Mensural" refers to the ability of this system to notate complex rhythms with great exactness and flexibility. |
| Metallophone | A metallophone is any musical instrument consisting of tuned metal bars which are struck to make sound, usually with a mallet. |
| Meter | Meter or metre is the measurement of a musical line into measures of stressed and unstressed "beats", indicated in Western music notation by a symbol called a time signature. |
