# Please help me remember a classical music term
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-remember-a-classical-music-term/226057
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 25, 2004, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-remember-a-classical-music-term/226057 "2004-01-25T23:15:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Live\_Better\_Electrically](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Live_Better_Electrically)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2004, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-remember-a-classical-music-term/226057/1 "2004-01-25T23:15:33Z")
I’m going crazy trying to remember a term I have encountered mostly in writings about classical music. The word describes when a musical phrase represents an idea being expressed in the lyric. For instance, when decending notes coincide with a lyric about falling. It’s sort of like the musical equivalent of onomatopiea.
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### Author:  [@Israfel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Israfel)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-remember-a-classical-music-term/226057/2 "2004-01-26T00:03:42Z")
I can’t think of a specific word, but I’ve always seen that idea expressed simply as “word painting”
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-remember-a-classical-music-term/226057/3 "2004-01-26T00:08:41Z")
Yep, word-painting it is. Although ‘madrigalisms’ is a slightly cynical term about an emphasis on word-painting and the rhythms of the words.
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### Author:  [@Live\_Better\_Electrically](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Live_Better_Electrically)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-remember-a-classical-music-term/226057/4 "2004-01-26T00:39:29Z")
That’s it. And I was giving myself a headache trying to remember a nonexistent foreign-language word. Thanks!