Home › Glossary › Letter S

sarabande

Musical Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A slow, stately dance in triple metre from the Baroque tradition, often associated with dignity and introspection, and sometimes used in poetry as a metaphor for measured, ceremonial movement.

Detailed Definition
A sarabande is a slow, stately dance in triple metre that originated in Latin America, probably with Spanish colonial influence, before becoming an important form in Baroque European music. Characteristically emphasising the second beat, the sarabande often conveys gravity, dignity, introspection, or solemn beauty. In poetry, the term may be used metaphorically to suggest measured movement, ceremonial progression, emotional restraint, or elegant formality. Poets may invoke a sarabande to create associations with courtly ritual, choreographed emotion, or the interplay between movement and stillness.
Example
Example in poetry:
Sarabande evokes slow triple pulse in verse: "your blood still dances... sarabande" as in the Poetry Foundation example of wreckage and obstinate joy.; Poets adapt sarabande for reflective or sensual septets with weighted second beats.; Educational: create a sarabande stanza evoking forbidden dance through rhythmic gravity.; It appears in formal experiments drawing on musical dance forms.; Sarabande adds historical musicality and measured movement to contemporary work.; Students explore it as septet with two-part structure for balance.
Additional Notes
Sarabande (variant spelling) evokes the same slow triple pulse and stately dance character as saraband, sometimes realized as a seven-line poetic stanza form imitating the dance pattern with possible rhyme variations across languages; it appears in poems blending wreckage and obstinate joy or historical ceremony. Usage tip: employ for reflective or sensual septets emphasizing second-beat weight to create solemn flow. Educational for experimenting with dance-derived structures. In teaching, compare sarabande poems to musical dance suites. This term enriches verse with exotic historical musicality, allowing poets to structure movement and gravity while connecting language to embodied performance traditions.
Other Meanings of “sarabande”
Also Known As
Saraband
Skip to main content