Glossary of Film Music terms

ADR – Automated Dialogue Replacment – the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a soundtrack, after it has been shot on location.
ATONAL – Music that lacks a tonal centre and tends to have an unsettling effect.
COMPILATION SCORE – A musical score cobbled together primarily from pre-existing music, usually classical works. 
COMPOSITE  – Used to describe a score using a combination of original music, pre-existing classical pieces and pre-existing popular music.
CUE – musical segments created specifically for moments in a film.
CUESHEET – A detailed listing of musical cues matching the visual action of a film so that composers can time their music accurately to match the visual images.
DIEGETIC MUSIC – Where the sound is visible on screen or where the source is implied to be present by the action/story of the film.
DISCORDANT – conflicting musical notes that clash or are harsh sounding.
EMPATHETIC SOUND – Music or sound effects whose mood matches the mood of the action.
FOLEY – A means of supplying additional sound effects, and matching them to visuals.
IMITATION – This is when a melody in a polyphonic texture is repeated shortly after its first appearance in a different voice, usually at a different pitch.
LEITMOTIF – use of a musical phrase to identify with a particular character, place or idea.
MICKEY MOUSING – Where the music is synced with the actions onscreen.
NONDIEGETIC MUSIC – Where the source of a sound is not visible on the screen i.e..background music.
REPETITION – This is where the sounds or sequences are often repeated.
SOUNDTRACK – The music and sound recorded on a motion picture film. The word ‘soundtrack’ can often mean a commercial recording of a collection of music and songs from a film sold individually as an audio CD.
THEME – The term used to signify a recurring melody of significance in a film. A Leitmotif is a specific kind of theme.
UNDERSCORE – musical accompaniment to dialogue.