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ertain person, situation, abstract idea, or allusion in the course of the play; a sort of musical label. -- Leading note (Mus.), the seventh note or tone in the ascending major scale; the sensible note. -- Leading question, a question so framed as to guide the person questioned in making his reply. -- Leading string…

With a low musical pitch or tone. Can sing both high and low. Shak.

A literary or musical composition written with the hand, as distinguished from a printed copy.

A Chilian shrub (Aristotelia Maqui). Its bark furnishes strings for musical instruments, and a medicinal wine is made from its berries.

A musical istrument of percussion, consisting of bars yielding musical tones when struck. Knight.

The portions of the Mass usually set to music, considered as a musical composition; -- namely, the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, the Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei, besides sometimes an Offertory and the Benedictus. Canon of the Mass. See Canon. -- High Mass, Mass with incense, music, the assistance of a deacon, subdeacon…

A reception, or a musical or dramatic entertainment, held in the daytime. See SoirÉe.

A piece of melody; a song or tune, -- as opposed to recitative or musical declamation.

The department of musical science which treats of the pitch of tones, and of the laws of melody.

A contrivance for preserving a record of music, by recording the action of the keys of a musical instrument when played upon.

Containing, or producing, melody; musical; agreeable to the ear by a sweet succession of sounds; as, a melodious voice. "A melodious voice." "A melodious undertone." Longfellow. -- Me*lo"di*ous*ly, adv. -- Me*lo"di*ous*ness, n.

Formerly, a kind of drama having a musical accompaniment to intensify the effect of certain scenes. Now, a drama abounding in romantic sentiment and agonizing situations, with a musical accompaniment only in parts which are especially thrilling or pathetic. In opera, a passage in which the orchestra plays a somewhat de…

tones, ranging for the most part within a given key, and so related together as to form a musical whole, having the unity of what is technically called a musical thought, at once pleasing to the ear and characteristic in expression.

Musical instruments. [Obs.] Chaucer.

A kind of musical toy into which one sings, hums, or speaks, producing a coarse, reedy sound.

A musical composition adapted to the 50th psalm. Where only the wind signs miserere. Lowell.

To vary or inflect in a natural, customary, or musical manner; as, the organs of speech modulate the voice in reading or speaking. Could any person so modulate her voice as to deceive so many Broome.

An instrument for experimenting upon the mathematical relations of musical sounds. It consists of a single string stretched between two bridges, one or both of which are movable, and which stand upon a graduated rule for the purpose of readily changing and measuring the length of the part of the string between them.…

Manner; style; mode; logical form; musical style; manner of action or being. See Mode which is the preferable form).

The part of a musical or other instrument to which the mouth is applied in using it; as, the mouthpiece of a bugle, or of a tobacco pipe.