Music hangman words
83 music words, each with a clue and a difficulty score computed from its spelling. 46 easy, 25 medium, 12 hard.
Average score
3.8
Across all 83 words
Hardest
jazz
Scores 11.8
Easiest
notation
Scores -2.1
Music has the richest borrowed vocabulary of any category here, almost all of it Italian. Crescendo, staccato and legato behave nothing like English words, and a guesser who tries the usual openers gets very little back.
The instrument names are the opposite. Guitar, piano and violin are among the easiest words on the whole site, because everybody knows the spelling and the letters are all common.
That split makes this the best category for setting a difficulty deliberately. Filter to easy for the instruments and to hard for the notation, and you get two completely different games from one list.
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Easy music words46
The usual opening guesses cover most of it, so it tends to fall quickly.
| Word | Clue | Letters | Score | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| accordion | Bellows, buttons and a divided reputation | 9 / 7 distinct | 2.1 | Easy |
| acoustic | No amplification required | 8 / 7 distinct | 2.4 | Easy |
| ambient | Meant to be in the room, not in front of you | 7 / 7 distinct | 2.4 | Easy |
| amplifier | Makes it louder and often better | 9 / 8 distinct | 3.6 | Easy |
| audience | Half of what makes a performance | 8 / 7 distinct | 1.4 | Easy |
| baritone | Between tenor and bass | 8 / 8 distinct | 0.3 | Easy |
| baroque | Ornate, contrapuntal and busy | 7 / 7 distinct | 3.6 | Easy |
| bassoon | Long, low and folded in half | 7 / 5 distinct | 0.1 | Easy |
| clarinet | Single reed, and a wide range | 8 / 8 distinct | 2.5 | Easy |
| classical | A period, not a compliment | 9 / 5 distinct | 3.4 | Easy |
| composer | Writes it for other people to play | 8 / 7 distinct | 3.4 | Easy |
| concert | One night, and it is gone | 7 / 6 distinct | 3.1 | Easy |
| concerto | One soloist against the whole orchestra | 8 / 6 distinct | 1.8 | Easy |
| crescendo | Gradually getting louder | 9 / 7 distinct | 3.0 | Easy |
| encore | Planned, and pretended not to be | 6 / 5 distinct | 0.2 | Easy |
| ensemble | A small group playing as one | 8 / 6 distinct | 3.0 | Easy |
| falsetto | Above the natural range, and lighter | 8 / 7 distinct | 2.1 | Easy |
| guitar | Six strings, and everybody's first ambition | 6 / 6 distinct | 2.3 | Easy |
| harmonica | Pocket sized, and played by breathing both ways | 9 / 8 distinct | 2.4 | Easy |
| headphones | The private version | 10 / 8 distinct | 3.2 | Easy |
| legato | Smooth, with no gaps | 6 / 6 distinct | 2.3 | Easy |
| mandolin | Paired strings and a rapid tremolo | 8 / 7 distinct | 3.4 | Easy |
| marimba | Like a xylophone, but deeper and resonant | 7 / 5 distinct | 3.0 | Easy |
| metronome | Never wrong and never sympathetic | 9 / 6 distinct | 0.7 | Easy |
| microphone | Turns air pressure into a signal | 10 / 9 distinct | 3.5 | Easy |
| musician | Practises far more than they perform | 8 / 7 distinct | 2.4 | Easy |
| notation | Music written so someone else can play it | 8 / 5 distinct | -2.1 | Easy |
| oboe | Double reed, and the orchestra tunes to it | 4 / 3 distinct | -1.3 | Easy |
| octave | Eight notes, and the same note again | 6 / 6 distinct | 3.3 | Easy |
| opera | Sung all the way through | 5 / 5 distinct | 0.2 | Easy |
| orchestra | Strings, woodwind, brass and percussion | 9 / 8 distinct | 2.2 | Easy |
| overture | Played first, and often written last | 8 / 6 distinct | 1.8 | Easy |
| piano | Eighty eight keys and a great deal of practice | 5 / 5 distinct | 0.2 | Easy |
| quartet | Four players, and nowhere to hide | 7 / 6 distinct | 3.0 | Easy |
| recording | The take they kept | 9 / 8 distinct | 3.3 | Easy |
| reggae | Off-beat emphasis, from Jamaica | 6 / 4 distinct | 1.3 | Easy |
| rehearsal | Where it is actually decided | 9 / 6 distinct | 0.7 | Easy |
| saxophone | Brass body, reed mouthpiece, and unmistakable | 9 / 8 distinct | 3.2 | Easy |
| sonata | Written for one or two instruments | 6 / 5 distinct | -1.5 | Easy |
| soprano | The highest voice | 7 / 6 distinct | 0.6 | Easy |
| staccato | Short and detached | 8 / 5 distinct | 1.4 | Easy |
| tambourine | Shaken, struck, and hard to hide behind | 10 / 10 distinct | 2.0 | Easy |
| trombone | The one with the slide | 8 / 7 distinct | 2.1 | Easy |
| verse | The bit that moves the story on | 5 / 4 distinct | 2.7 | Easy |
| vibrato | A small wobble that warms the note | 7 / 7 distinct | 3.3 | Easy |
| violin | Four strings, a bow, and no frets to help you | 6 / 5 distinct | 3.0 | Easy |
Medium music words25
You will get a foothold, then have to work out the rest properly.
| Word | Clue | Letters | Score | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| anthem | Written to be sung by everyone | 6 / 6 distinct | 3.7 | Medium |
| ballad | Slow, and it tells a story | 6 / 4 distinct | 6.0 | Medium |
| banjo | Bright, loud and unmistakably itself | 5 / 5 distinct | 5.0 | Medium |
| bebop | Fast, complex and deliberately difficult | 5 / 4 distinct | 5.2 | Medium |
| blues | Twelve bars and a great deal of feeling | 5 / 5 distinct | 5.8 | Medium |
| bridge | The section that goes somewhere else | 6 / 6 distinct | 5.3 | Medium |
| cello | Sits between your knees and sounds like a voice | 5 / 4 distinct | 5.2 | Medium |
| chorus | The bit that comes back | 6 / 6 distinct | 5.3 | Medium |
| conductor | Makes no sound and shapes all of it | 9 / 7 distinct | 4.1 | Medium |
| country | Three chords and the truth | 7 / 7 distinct | 5.0 | Medium |
| festival | Several stages and no chance of seeing everything | 8 / 8 distinct | 4.5 | Medium |
| flute | Blown across rather than into | 5 / 5 distinct | 5.8 | Medium |
| gospel | Choir, call and response, and volume | 6 / 6 distinct | 5.3 | Medium |
| harmony | Notes agreeing with the melody | 7 / 7 distinct | 5.0 | Medium |
| harp | Forty seven strings and seven pedals | 4 / 4 distinct | 6.0 | Medium |
| keyboard | A piano that can pretend to be anything | 8 / 8 distinct | 5.8 | Medium |
| playlist | A sequence somebody thought about | 8 / 7 distinct | 5.6 | Medium |
| scale | The notes in order, going up | 5 / 5 distinct | 3.8 | Medium |
| single | One song, sent out alone | 6 / 6 distinct | 3.7 | Medium |
| synthesizer | Builds sounds that never existed | 11 / 9 distinct | 3.7 | Medium |
| techno | Machine-made and relentless | 6 / 6 distinct | 3.7 | Medium |
| tempo | How fast, measured in beats per minute | 5 / 5 distinct | 3.8 | Medium |
| trumpet | Three valves and a great deal of air | 7 / 6 distinct | 4.6 | Medium |
| ukulele | Four strings and immediate cheerfulness | 7 / 4 distinct | 5.8 | Medium |
| xylophone | Wooden bars struck with mallets | 9 / 8 distinct | 6.3 | Medium |
Hard music words12
Rare letters, few vowels, or almost no repetition for a guesser to lean on.
| Word | Clue | Letters | Score | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| album | A collection meant to be heard in order | 5 / 5 distinct | 7.8 | Hard |
| chord | Three or more notes at once | 5 / 5 distinct | 7.4 | Hard |
| cymbal | The crash at the top of the kit | 6 / 6 distinct | 10.0 | Hard |
| drums | The part everyone air-plays | 5 / 5 distinct | 7.4 | Hard |
| folk | Passed on before it was published | 4 / 4 distinct | 10.0 | Hard |
| jazz | Written down, then argued with | 4 / 3 distinct | 11.8 | Hard |
| lullaby | Designed to end in silence | 7 / 5 distinct | 8.4 | Hard |
| lyrics | The words, and often the argument | 6 / 6 distinct | 6.7 | Hard |
| melody | The part you leave humming | 6 / 6 distinct | 7.0 | Hard |
| rhythm | The pattern the time is cut into | 6 / 5 distinct | 9.2 | Hard |
| swing | Notes played slightly unevenly, on purpose | 5 / 5 distinct | 6.6 | Hard |
| symphony | Usually four movements, usually large | 8 / 7 distinct | 7.9 | Hard |
Questions
What are good music words for hangman?
The ones that survive a normal opening. A guesser starts with E, A, R and the other common letters, so a good word is one those letters barely touch. On this page that is the score: 83 music words are listed and 12 of them rate hard.
How many music words are on this list?
83, deduplicated, each with a clue and a computed difficulty score. They split into 46 easy, 25 medium and 12 hard.
What is the hardest word in this category?
JAZZ, at 11.8. The easiest is NOTATION at -2.1. Both numbers come from the same formula, which is published in full at hangmanwords.net/how-difficulty-is-scored/.
Can I play these words rather than read them?
Yes. The play link on this page loads a game that draws only from this music list, so every word you get is one of the 83 below.