Trope (music)

A trope or tropus in medieval music is "any textual or melodic figure that is added to an existing chant without altering the textual or melodic structure of the said chant". It has inspired certain 20th- and 21st-century music conventions as well. The term trope derives from the Greek τρόπος (tropos), "a turn, a change", related to the root of the verb τρέπειν (trepein), "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change". The Latinised form of the word is tropus.