Printed music and writing about music involve the use of complex systems of notation and a wealth of technical terms in several languages. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Musical Terms provides clear, succinct, definitions of a comprehensive range of the musical terms, in English and other European languages, that are likely to be encountered in Western music.

Over 2,500 A-Z entries range across a spectrum of subjects, among them: rhythm, metre, forms, genres, pitch, scales, chords, harmony ...