Cantabile – In a singing style

(Pronounced kahn-tah-bee-lay)

Note: In music, cantabile, an Italian word, means literally "singable" or "songlike". In instrumental music it is a particular style of playing designed to imitate the voice.

To remember what cantabile means, use the following mnemonic:

Tonight they proved you can't table lay (cantabile) while singing opera.

Examples of cantabile in a sentence

The sing-song cantabile style was inappropriate for that particular movement.

Cantabile is okay if you like your instrumentals to sound like voices, but I prefer punchier sounds myself.

When they played cantabile, it was hard to tell if wind instruments or voices were making the haunting sounds.