| Term | Description |
|---|
| Vamp | In jazz, gospel, soul, and musical theater, a vamp is a repeating musical figure or accompaniment. |
| Variation | In music, variation is a formal technique where material is altered during repetition: reiteration with changes. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre or orchestration. |
| Venetian School | In music history, the Venetian School is a term used to describe the composers working in Venice from about 1550 to around 1610; it also describes the music they produced. |
| Verse | In popular music a verse roughly corresponds with a poetic stanza. When two or more sections of the song have basically identical music and different lyrics these sections are probably the verses of the song. |
| Verse-chorus form | Verse-chorus form is a musical form common in popular music and predominant in rock since the 1960s. In contrast to AABA form, which is focused on the verse (contrasted and prepared by the bridge), in verse-chorus form the chorus is highlighted. |
| Vibrato | Vibrato is a musical effect, produced in singing and on musical instruments by a regular pulsating change of pitch, and is used to add expression and vocal-like qualities to instrumental music. |
| Violin family | The violin family of musical instruments was developed in Italy in the sixteenth century. The modern violin family consists of the violin, viola and cello, along with the double bass (although the double bass's membership in the violin family has been a matter of some controversy). |
| Virtuoso | A virtuoso (from Italian virtuoso, late Latin virtuosus, Latin virtus meaning: skill, manliness, excellence) is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability at singing or playing a musical instrument. |
| Vocal range | The broadest definition of vocal range is the span from the highest to the lowest note a particular voice can produce. |
| Vocal registration | Vocal registration refers to the system of vocal registers within the human voice. A register in the human voice is a particular series of tones, produced in the same vibratory pattern of the vocal folds, and possessing the same quality. |
| Voice type | A voice type is a particular kind of human voice perceived as having certain identifying qualities or characteristics. Voice classification is the process by which human voices are evaluated and are thereby designated into voice types. |
