Lo-Fi Glossary

London club movement of the late 1980s and 1990s fusing jazz, funk, soul and hip hop grooves for dancers, named by DJ Gilles Peterson.

A playlist generated automatically for each listener from listening data, such as Spotify's Discover Weekly, rather than chosen by an editor.

Music designed to colour a space as much as to be listened to, named by Brian Eno in the 1970s and built on texture rather than rhythm.

A name under which an artist or producer releases music instead of their legal name; many lo-fi producers release under one or several.

Autonomous sensory meridian response: a pleasant tingling, often on the scalp, that some people feel in response to whispers, taps and slow movements.

A strong accent on beats two and four of a 4/4 bar, usually on the snare drum: the pulse behind most popular music.

Music played to set an atmosphere rather than to be listened to closely, in cafés, shops and workplaces or while studying and working.

A collection of instrumental beats by one producer, first a demo for rappers and labels, now a common way to release lo-fi music.

A producer who builds beats by programming drums, chopping samples and layering chords in a sampler or DAW; most lo-fi artists are beatmakers.

Fast, harmonically daring small-group jazz of the 1940s, created by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and others: the start of modern jazz.

Pop written, recorded and produced by the artists themselves at home, usually on a laptop, and spread online; a close cousin of lo-fi.

An auditory illusion: two slightly different tones, one in each ear, create a perceived beat; claims that it tunes brainwaves remain unproven.

Bitcrushing is a digital effect that lowers bit depth, and often sample rate, to add gritty, crunchy distortion.

A note sung or played slightly flat, mainly the third and seventh (and sometimes fifth) of the scale, central to blues and jazz.

New York jazz label founded in 1939 by Alfred Lion, famed for hard bop, Rudy Van Gelder's recordings and Reid Miles's cover designs.

A six-note scale, in C: C–E♭–F–G♭–G–B♭, the minor pentatonic plus a flattened fifth, used for blues and jazz phrases.

Hip hop production style named after its kick (boom) and snare (bap): hard sampled drums and looped records, the sound of 1990s New York rap.

A chord taken from the parallel key, such as F minor used in C major, to add a bittersweet colour to a progression.

Brazilian style born in late-1950s Rio that joins samba rhythm to jazz harmony, with soft vocals and nylon-string guitar; a key lo-fi influence.

Noise with even more low-frequency energy than pink noise, a deep rumble named after the botanist Robert Brown, not the colour.

Drumsticks ending in a fan of wire or nylon bristles, swept and tapped on the snare for a soft, swishing jazz sound.

A musical exchange in which one voice or instrument states a phrase and others answer it, rooted in African musical traditions.

DIY scene of the 1970s to 1990s in which musicians recorded, copied and swapped music on cassette by post, outside the record industry.

Relaxed electronic and eclectic music for winding down, named after the quiet rooms of late-1980s clubs and spread by Ibiza's Café del Mar.

A near-synonym of lo-fi hip hop that stresses its chilled, jazzy side; also the name of a Dutch label and YouTube channel central to the scene.

Late-2000s indie style of hazy synths, heavy reverb and slowed samples evoking 1980s summers; the blog-coined forerunner of vaporwave.

Chopping is cutting a sample into short slices, usually mapped to pads or keys, so they can be replayed in a new order or rhythm.

The order in which chords follow one another in a piece; jazz musicians often simply call it "the changes".

The way the notes of a chord are arranged: which notes are played, in what order and octave, and by which instruments.

Chorus is a modulation effect that blends a sound with slightly delayed, pitch-wavering copies to make it richer and wider.

Polished Japanese pop of the late 1970s and 1980s, rich in jazz chords, funk and soft rock, rediscovered online and widely sampled.

A body such as SIAE, PRS for Music or ASCAP that licenses music on behalf of many rights holders, then collects and shares out the fees.

Jazz accompaniment: the chords a pianist or guitarist places rhythmically behind a soloist or melody.

Compression automatically reduces the level of loud passages, narrowing a sound's dynamic range for a steadier, denser result.

YouTube's automated system that matches uploads against files supplied by rights holders, then blocks, monetises or tracks the matching videos.

Relaxed, soft-toned jazz of the late 1940s and 1950s, from Miles Davis's Birth of the Cool sessions to Chet Baker and Dave Brubeck.

The legal right that gives creators control over copying, sharing and adapting their original works, arising automatically in most countries.

Crate digging is the hunt through record shops, flea markets and archives for obscure records to sample or play.

A set of free, standardised copyright licences from the non-profit Creative Commons that let creators allow reuse under conditions such as credit.

A DAW, or digital audio workstation, is software for recording, editing, arranging and mixing audio and MIDI on a computer.

Delay is an effect that repeats a sound after a set time, creating echoes that can be single, multiple or long-lasting.

The delivery of recordings and their metadata to streaming services and download stores, usually through a distributor or a label.

A major triad plus a minor seventh, such as G7 (G–B–D–F): the restless chord that pulls a progression back home.

A minor-sounding scale with a raised sixth, the white keys from D to D; the mellow sound of modal jazz.

The largest and lowest member of the string family, tuned E–A–D–G and plucked in jazz to anchor rhythm and harmony.

Umbrella term for slow, atmospheric electronic music with a steady groove, from 1990s Bristol and Vienna to today's chilled beats.

A drum machine is an electronic instrument that plays programmed rhythms using synthesised or sampled drum sounds.

A playlist curated by a streaming service's own editors rather than by an algorithm or a listener, often a major source of new listeners.

Equalization (EQ) adjusts the balance of frequencies in a sound, boosting or cutting areas such as bass, midrange or treble.

Chords that add notes beyond the octave (the 9th, 11th and 13th) to a seventh chord, giving the lush colours typical of jazz and lo-fi.

A field recording is audio captured outside the studio, from rain and birdsong to city streets and café chatter.

A flip is the creative reworking of a sample, when a producer transforms a borrowed fragment into something that sounds new.

A state of complete, enjoyable absorption in a challenging activity, described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in which time seems to vanish.

Foley is the craft of performing everyday sound effects, such as footsteps or rustling clothes, in sync with picture.

Erik Satie's idea, from 1917, of music that furnishes a room like wallpaper instead of being listened to; a forerunner of ambient music.

A very quiet, often barely audible note between the main accents, felt more than heard, that fills out a rhythm.

The rhythmic feel that makes music want to move with it, built by a repeating pattern in the rhythm section.

Mid-1950s jazz that extended bebop with blues, gospel and R&B feeling; earthy, groove-driven and closely tied to Blue Note Records.

In jazz, the main written melody of a tune, played at the start and end of a performance, with solos in between.

A high-pass filter lets high frequencies through and cuts low ones, removing rumble or making a sound thinner.

The most common chord progression in jazz: chords on the second, fifth and first degrees of a key, as in Dm7–G7–Cmaj7.

Creating music spontaneously during performance, without a fixed score; in jazz usually within a tune's chords and form.

Hip hop without a rapper: beats, samples and scratches presented as finished music, and the direct ancestor of lo-fi hip hop.

A lab finding: background sound, especially speech, impairs memory for the order of items even when people try to ignore it.

International Standard Recording Code: a unique 12-character identifier for each sound recording or music video, not for the song itself.

Detroit producer James Dewitt Yancey (1974–2006), whose loose, unquantised drums and soulful sampling made him a founding influence on lo-fi.

Lo-fi that puts jazz first: electric piano chords, double bass, brushed drums and muted horns, softened with warm tape and vinyl textures.

A tune that jazz musicians widely know and play, from Broadway and film songs of the Great American Songbook to classics by jazz composers.

Instrumental hip hop built around jazz: sampled or played piano, horns and bass over relaxed hip hop drums, a cornerstone of lo-fi.

Playing slightly later than the strict pulse, so that the music feels relaxed rather than rushed.

Layering is stacking two or more sounds so they play together as one, combining their strengths into a fuller result.

Ready-made music recorded for licensing to TV, film and radio; its 1960s and 1970s records are now prized by collectors and samplers.

Short for low fidelity: recordings that keep audible imperfections such as tape hiss, crackle and wobble, often as a deliberately warm choice.

The look and feel around lo-fi: looping anime-style scenes of study and rain, warm lamps, worn textures and a gentle sense of nostalgia.

Mellow instrumental hip hop built on jazzy chords, soft drums and vinyl noise, made famous by 24/7 YouTube streams for studying and relaxing.

YouTube channel and label, formerly ChilledCow, whose non-stop lo-fi stream and animated girl studying by a window became the genre's emblem.

A loop is a section of audio or MIDI that repeats seamlessly, forming the cyclical backbone of many beats.

Automatic volume adjustment by streaming services so tracks play at a similar perceived loudness, measured in LUFS; Spotify's default is −14 LUFS.

Smooth, often retro easy listening linked to cocktail bars and hotel lounges, from 1950s exotica and space-age pop to modern downtempo.

A low-pass filter lets low frequencies through and cuts high ones, softening or muffling a sound.

LUFS (Loudness Units relative to Full Scale) measure perceived loudness; streaming services use them to even out playback volume.

Californian producer Otis Jackson Jr., a prolific crate digger whose Madvillainy, Blue Note remixes and beat tapes shaped instrumental hip hop.

A major triad plus the major seventh, as in Cmaj7 (C–E–G–B): a soft, dreamy chord often used as a home chord in jazz.

The definitive recording of a track from which copies and streams are made, and the separate rights that protect that sound recording.

Mastering is the final stage of audio production, polishing finished mixes so they sound consistent and translate well everywhere.

MIDI is the standard, first published in 1983, that lets instruments, controllers and computers exchange performance data such as notes and velocity.

A minor triad plus a minor seventh, as in Cm7 (C–E♭–G–B♭): mellow and open, the ii chord of the classic ii–V–I.

Mixing is the stage where separate tracks are balanced, placed and processed into a single coherent stereo recording.

Jazz that improvises over modes and long-held harmonies instead of fast chord changes, epitomised by Miles Davis's Kind of Blue (1959).

The popular claim that Mozart makes people smarter, based on a small 1993 study whose brief effect later research largely explained away.

The MPC is Akai Professional's line of sampling drum machines, launched with the MPC60 in 1988 and central to hip hop beatmaking.

The song itself, its melody, harmony, rhythm and any lyrics, protected separately from recordings of it and managed by songwriters and publishers.

A trumpet played with a mute in its bell, such as the Harmon mute, giving the intimate, buzzing tone Miles Davis made famous.

Brand of piped background music for shops, offices and hotels, launched in 1934, whose name became a byword for bland elevator music.

Late-1990s and 2000s fusion of jazz with electronic music, from house to drum and bass, also called future jazz or jazztronica.

Tokyo producer Jun Seba (1974–2010), whose jazz-rich beats and music for Samurai Champloo made him a guiding figure of lo-fi hip hop.

A scale of five notes per octave, such as C–D–E–G–A, found in music all over the world and easy to improvise with.

Noise whose power falls as frequency rises, with equal energy per octave, giving a deeper, softer sound than white noise.

Pitch-shifting raises or lowers the pitch of audio, either together with its speed or independently of it.

An ordered list of tracks to be played in sequence, from radio running orders and mixtapes to the curated and personalised lists of streaming services.

A plug-in is a software instrument or effect that runs inside a DAW; VST and AU are the most widespread plug-in formats.

A time-management method of working in focused blocks, classically 25 minutes, separated by short breaks, devised by Francesco Cirillo.

Works no longer protected, or never protected, by copyright, which anyone may use freely; when a work enters it depends on the country.

Quantization moves recorded notes or hits onto a rhythmic grid, tightening timing that was played slightly early or late.

Resampling is recording a sound back into a sampler or DAW after processing it, so effects and edits become part of a new sample.

Reverb is the dense wash of reflections that follows a sound in a space, or an audio effect that recreates it.

An electric piano whose hammers strike metal tines read by pickups: the warm, bell-like keyboard sound at the heart of jazz lo-fi.

A jazz piano voicing that leaves out the root of the chord, letting the bass supply it and freeing the hands for colour notes.

Music licensed for a one-off fee, or free, with no further per-use payments; it is still protected by copyright and comes with conditions.

A flexible, expressive tempo in which the performer stretches and compresses time instead of following a strict beat.

Listening habits that keep sound exposure within safe limits, such as moderate volume and regular breaks, to protect hearing from lasting damage.

A sample is a short piece of recorded audio, such as a drum hit or a few bars of a record, stored so it can be triggered and reused.

Getting permission from the owners of both the recording and the composition before using a sample in a new track.

Sample rate reduction, or downsampling, lowers how many times per second audio is measured, dulling the highs and adding aliasing.

Sampling is the practice of recording a fragment of existing audio and reusing it as raw material in a new piece of music.

Saturation is mild, pleasing distortion produced by driving tape, valves or transformers, adding harmonics, warmth and density.

A sequencer records, stores and plays back musical events such as notes and drum hits, telling instruments what to play and when.

A four-note chord made of a triad plus the note a seventh above the root: the basic building block of jazz harmony.

Sidechain compression lets one sound control a compressor on another, so the second dips in level whenever the first plays.

Slow, quiet music meant to help listeners relax and fall asleep; reviews suggest it may improve perceived sleep quality in some adults.

Groove-based jazz of the late 1950s and 1960s rooted in gospel, blues and R&B, often led by the Hammond organ, with catchy riffs and steady bass.

The SP-404 is Roland's compact sampler and effects unit, launched in 2005 and now in its MKII version, a favourite of lo-fi beatmakers.

Stereo width describes how wide a mix sounds between the left and right speakers, from narrow mono to an expansive spread.

Payments generated when music is streamed, divided between the owners of the recording and of the composition according to their share of plays.

Music played while reading, revising or working, usually instrumental, steady and unobtrusive, as in many jazz lo-fi playlists.

The lilting long-short rhythm of jazz, in which pairs of written eighth notes are played unevenly.

Placing accents on normally weak beats or between beats, upsetting the expected pulse and giving rhythm forward drive.

Tape hiss is the soft, high-frequency background noise inherent in analogue magnetic tape, familiar from cassettes.

Tape saturation is the soft compression and harmonic distortion produced when analogue magnetic tape is recorded at high levels.

The speed of music, measured in beats per minute (BPM): 60 BPM is one beat per second.

Famous collection of jazz lead sheets compiled by Berklee students in the 1970s, long an unlicensed bootleg and legally published since 2004.

The two stacked numbers at the start of a score, like 4/4, telling how many beats are in each bar and which note counts as a beat.

Time-stretching changes the duration or tempo of a piece of audio without changing its pitch.

Slow, moody 1990s blend of hip hop breakbeats, samples, soul and film-score atmosphere, born in Bristol with Massive Attack and Portishead.

Replacing a dominant seventh chord with the dominant seventh a tritone away, such as D♭7 for G7, for a smooth chromatic bass line.

A short chord sequence at the end of a section that leads the music back to its beginning, such as Cmaj7–Am7–Dm7–G7.

Unquantized or "drunk" drums are beats left off the strict grid, with hits slightly early or late, for a loose, human sway.

The 12- or 13-digit GS1 barcode number (UPC or EAN) identifying a whole release, such as a single, EP or album, in stores and streaming services.

Internet-born genre of the early 2010s that slows, loops and drenches in reverb samples of 1980s and 1990s smooth jazz, muzak and pop.

A keyboard percussion instrument with tuned aluminium bars, resonator tubes and motorised vibrato, with a soft shimmering tone.

Vinyl crackle is the pops and surface noise of a record, often added to lo-fi tracks to evoke dusty old vinyl.

A bass line moving in steady quarter notes, four to the bar, that outlines the chords and drives a swing rhythm.

A random signal with equal power at every frequency, heard as a steady hiss and widely used to mask other sounds for sleep or focus.

Wow and flutter are pitch wobbles caused by uneven speed in tape machines and turntables: slow ones are wow, faster ones flutter.

An electric piano with hammers striking steel reeds, made by Wurlitzer from 1954: reedier and more biting than the Rhodes.

A live stream that runs around the clock, typically on YouTube, playing a continuous programme of music; a signature format of lo-fi culture.