Glossary
Jazz terminology, pitch terminology, and a few app-specific terms — defined in plain language. Flip to this when something in the app reads as gibberish.
Jazz vocabulary
Anacrusis (also called pickup) — One or more notes that lead into the first downbeat of a phrase. I've Got Rhythm opens with an anacrusis: three pickup notes before the downbeat.
Approach note — A note (often chromatic) used to lead into a target note, creating forward motion. Bebop is built on chromatic approach notes — playing a half step above or below a chord tone before resolving to it.
Arpeggio — Playing the notes of a chord one at a time instead of simultaneously. A C major 7 arpeggio is C–E–G–B.
Avoid note — A note that's in the scale but tends to clash if held over a chord. The 4th degree of Ionian over a major-7 chord is the classic example: it's diatonic, but landing on F over a Cmaj7 sounds wrong because it's a half step above the 3rd. You can pass through it; you just don't sit on it.
Backing track — The accompaniment the app generates on Side B: bass, comping (piano or organ), and drums. Plays underneath your practice.
Bebop — The style of jazz that came out of the early 1940s — Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell. Fast tempos, complex harmony, eighth-note lines built on chromatic approach notes and bebop scales (eight-note scales engineered so chord tones land on strong beats).
Blue note — A note slightly out of the key — usually the b3, b5, or b7 — that gives blues and jazz their characteristic color. The b5 in particular is the signature blues color.
Call and response — A musical conversation: one voice plays a phrase, another answers. The app's Side A is built around this — the app calls, you respond.
Chord tone — A note belonging to the current chord (root, 3rd, 5th, 7th). The "important" notes in a phrase usually land on chord tones; everything else passes between them.
Chromatic — Moving by half steps (semitones). A chromatic line moves note-by-note through every available pitch. Chromatic approach means approaching a target note by half step from above or below.
Circle of fifths — The ordering of all 12 keys by ascending fifths: C → G → D → A → E → B → F# → C# → G# → D# → A# → F → C. The app unlocks new keys in roughly this order, slightly modified for pedagogical reasons.
Comping — Accompaniment played by a piano or guitar — the chordal "comping" that fills in the harmony underneath a soloist.
Concert pitch — The actual pitch sounding in the air, regardless of what your instrument's sheet music reads. A B♭ tenor sax reading a written C is sounding a concert B♭. The app stores everything in concert pitch internally and translates to your written pitch only at display time.
Diatonic — Notes belonging to the current key's scale. A C-major scale has 7 diatonic notes (C D E F G A B); the other 5 chromatic notes are non-diatonic.
Dominant — A chord (or scale) with a major 3rd and a minor 7th. The V chord in a major key. Wants to resolve down a fifth to the I.
Enclosure — Surrounding a target note with notes above and below it before resolving. A common bebop figure is to enclose the 3rd of a chord by playing the note above, the note below, and then the 3rd itself.
Form — The repeating chord structure of a tune. Body and Soul has an AABA form: an A section, repeated, a contrasting B section (the bridge), and a return to A.
Ghost note — A note played very softly, often barely audible. Adds rhythmic texture without melodic weight. Lester Young and Stan Getz are full of ghost notes.
ii-V-I — The most common cadence in jazz. In C major: Dm7 → G7 → Cmaj7 (the ii, V, and I chords of the key). In C minor: Dm7b5 → G7alt → Cm7. The ii-V-I is the chord progression jazz musicians practice most.
Improvisation — Composing in real time. The whole reason ear-training and lick-practice matter: when you can hear and play in real time, you can improvise lines that respond to the harmony as it goes by.
Interval — The distance between two notes, measured in scale degrees (a third, a fifth) or in half steps (5 semitones).
Leap — An interval larger than a step (more than 2 semitones). Leaps create melodic shape; too many leaps in a row make a line sound disjointed.
Lick — A short melodic phrase (usually 1–4 bars) that fits a particular harmonic context. Musicians build vocabularies of licks by transcribing them from records or learning them from teachers, then drilling them in every key.
Modal — Music built on a single mode (a single scale) sustained over many bars, instead of moving through chord changes. Miles Davis's So What is modal: 16 bars of D Dorian, 8 bars of E♭ Dorian, 8 bars of D Dorian.
Mode — A scale built by starting on a different degree of an existing scale. The C-major scale starting on D is D Dorian. Starting on E is E Phrygian. Starting on F is F Lydian. Same notes, different tonal center, different sound.
Passing tone — A non-chord tone connecting two chord tones by step. Adds melodic motion without changing the harmonic implication.
Pentatonic — A 5-note scale. Minor pentatonic (1, b3, 4, 5, b7) is foundational in jazz, blues, rock, and most folk traditions. Major pentatonic is its bright counterpart.
Phrasing — How you shape a line — where you breathe, where you accent, where you let notes hang. Two players can play the same notes and make completely different phrases out of them.
Quartal — Built from fourths instead of thirds. McCoy Tyner is the canonical quartal pianist; quartal voicings have a more open, modal sound than triadic voicings.
Reharmonization — Changing the chords underneath a melody. The same melody can be played over many different chord progressions. Bill Evans was a master of reharmonization.
Rhythm changes — Shorthand for the 32-bar form of George Gershwin's I Got Rhythm. AABA structure, with the A sections moving I-vi-ii-V repeatedly and the B section cycling dominant 7 chords down a major third. The other big "standard form" alongside the 12-bar blues. Oleo, Anthropology, Cotton Tail, and many bebop heads use rhythm changes.
Scale degree — The position of a note in a scale, numbered 1 through 7 (or 1–8 for bebop scales, 1–5 for pentatonic). The 5th of C major is G. The b3 of C minor is E♭.
Sequence — A melodic pattern repeated at different pitches. Playing 1-2-3, then 2-3-4, then 3-4-5 is a sequence.
Side A / Side B — The app's two practice modes. Side A is Ear Training (call and response). Side B is Lick Practice (12-key drill over a backing track). Named for the two sides of an LP, in keeping with the Blue Note Records aesthetic.
Standard — A jazz tune that's part of the shared repertoire — All the Things You Are, Stella by Starlight, Autumn Leaves. Hundreds of them. Knowing standards is what lets a group of strangers sit down and play together.
Step — An interval of 1 or 2 semitones (half step or whole step).
Substitution — Replacing one chord with another that performs a similar harmonic function. The most famous is the tritone substitution — replacing G7 with D♭7 (a tritone away). Both chords share the same 3rd and 7th, so they resolve into Cmaj7 the same way.
Swing — A rhythmic feel where pairs of eighth notes are played long-short instead of evenly. The defining rhythmic quality of pre-modal jazz.
Syncopation — Emphasis on off-beats or weak beats, creating rhythmic tension against the underlying pulse. Most jazz rhythm is heavily syncopated.
Target note — A chord tone placed on a strong beat (beats 1 and 3 in 4/4). Strong-beat chord tones anchor a line so it sounds connected to the harmony.
Tonality — A key plus a scale type. C major is one tonality; C Dorian is another; G blues is another. The app rotates one tonality per day on Side A (the "daily key").
Transposing instrument — An instrument whose written notes don't match concert pitch. Tenor sax is in B♭: when you read a C, you sound a B♭ (a major 9th lower than written, when treated as the same octave; actually a major 2nd lower in the same staff position). Alto sax is in E♭. Trumpet is in B♭. The app handles transposition automatically — you read in your written key, the app stores in concert.
Turnaround — A short cadence (often I-vi-ii-V) at the end of a chorus that loops the form back to the top. Builds harmonic tension that resolves at the next downbeat.
Vamp — A repeating chord (or short pattern) sustained for a while. So What opens with a vamp. A Night in Tunisia has a vamp at the end of each chorus.
Voice leading — Smooth connection between notes, particularly across chord changes — picking the closest available pitch on the next chord. Good voice leading is what makes a chord progression sound inevitable instead of jumpy.
Pitch and tuning
Cents — A measure of how flat or sharp a note is, in 100ths of a semitone. ±5 cents is "in tune"; ±20 cents starts to sound off; ±50 cents is the edge between two adjacent notes.
Clarity — A confidence number (0–1) reported by the pitch detector. High clarity means the algorithm is confident the note is real; low clarity means there's noise or the signal isn't strongly periodic. Mankunku ignores any reading below 0.80.
MIDI note number — A number representing a pitch. Middle C is 60; each integer is one semitone. A4 (the orchestral tuning A, 440 Hz) is MIDI 69. The app uses MIDI numbers internally because they make math (transposition, intervals) trivial.
Onset — The moment a new note begins. Detected by the app from a sudden energy spike at the start of the note.
Pitch detection — The process of figuring out which note is being played from the audio signal. Mankunku uses an autocorrelation-based algorithm called the McLeod Pitch Method.
App-specific
Adaptive level — The 1–100 number that reflects how complex the material the app is feeding you is. Climbs when you're consistently above 85% accuracy in the rolling window; falls when you're consistently below 50%. See Levels & Difficulty.
Bleed filter — A filter that drops detected notes that look like room bleed from the speakers — the app re-hearing its own playback through your microphone. Helps when you're not using headphones. Setting in the global Settings page.
Combinatorial lick — A lick generated by pairing a scale pattern with a rhythm template. About 86 of these in the library, alongside the 163 hand-written ones.
Curated lick — A hand-written lick. The bulk of the library.
Daily key (Daily tonality) — The key + scale type the app picks for you each day. Same pick for everyone on the same date. Rotates at midnight. Can be overridden in Side A's settings.
Detected note — A note the app heard through your microphone. Each detected note has a pitch, an onset time, a duration, and a clarity score.
Difficulty band — The 10-color name for a difficulty range. Beginner, Elementary, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate, Advanced, Upper Advanced, Pre-Professional, Professional, Expert, Virtuoso.
Generated phrase — A phrase produced by the algorithmic generator at runtime, based on your difficulty level and category settings.
Grade — The label assigned to your overall percentage: Perfect (≥ 95%), Great (≥ 85%), Good (≥ 70%), Fair (≥ 55%), or Try Again (< 55%).
Pitch complexity / Rhythm complexity — The two underlying numbers that average to your displayed level. They climb (and fall) independently based on your accuracy in each dimension. See Levels & Difficulty.
Practice tag — A star you can apply to a lick to add it to your Side B practice book. Tagged licks rotate through all 12 keys in Lick Practice sessions.
Proficiency — Per-key and per-scale tracking that drives the unlocking system. Different from the displayed level — your level is one number; your proficiency is many numbers, one for each key and one for each scale type.
Source — Where a phrase came from: curated (hand-written), generated (algorithmic), combinatorial (scale × rhythm pairing), or user (yours).
Tonality — A key plus a scale type. See Tonality under the jazz vocabulary above.
Transposition (in the app) — The runtime shift of a curated lick from concert C (where it's stored) to whatever key the day is in (or whatever key you chose).