1-5

A note in the left lane followed by a note in the right.

1-3-5

A note in the left lane, then the middle, then the right.

1-5-1 etc.

Notes alternating between the left and right lanes.

90 slider

A fundamental slider shape named after the 90° angle it creates. Though it visually looks like a sharp movement, it is quite lenient. The bend appears just before the next end point, so adjust that one forward to center the 90 bend at the right timing.

aesthetic slider

A slider that uses extra end points to create a unique look while still following a simple path. Very effective at emphasizing different instrumentation.
Specific subtypes: static, wiggly, vibrato

alt-tap pattern

A pattern that requires 2 or more tap inputs to be played consistently, usually by having many taps in a small space or placing taps at the same time as ongoing sliders.

backscratch

A scratch followed by a spin going the direction opposite of convention. Generally, spins after scratches go the same direction they would if the scratch wasn't there.

backspin

A spin going opposite the direction of the movement or note position that comes before it. A backspin can only occur after a tap, match, or slider.

barrel

Refer to rifle.
A lesser-used term for a rifle with only 2 sequences.

beat spam

Any pattern defined by rapid, regular beats. Beat spam doesn't carry a negative connotation despite having "spam" in its name.

beat-taps

Any pattern that alternates beats and taps rapidly. If the pattern starts with a tap, it might instead by referred to as a tap-beat.

blast beats

block slider

A compound slider made of rapid 90 bends. The result creates a solid block of slider color on the track. Staying anywhere in it will keep the slider from breaking.

boing

A compound slider consisting of a curve-in into a curve-out. Very common.

cheesable pattern

Any pattern that can be hit in a non-intentional way, often easier than the intended one. The most common cheesable patterns are sliders.

cheeseburger

A compound slider consisting of 2+ consecutive curve-ins. Named as such because canned cheeseburgers were the topic of discussion at the time of its inception.
...yeah.

chord

Two opposite colored notes at the same time, 4 lanes apart. Often used in the middle of rifles, to create color puzzles, or to emphasize a characteristic of the song.

Chroma

Refer to Speen Chroma 2.

color puzzle

A pattern that is a reading challenge based on the use of colored notes. Often involves unconventional color swaps and chords.

conrad

Refer to untelegraphed spin.
Named after Darnoc (spelled backwards) as an opposite to darnocs.

controller-unfriendly

A pattern or chart that is significantly harder to play on a gamepad controller. Despite improvements to aim assist, some fast or wide movements are still unfriendly.

cosine slider

ctm

Short for "click to move," a playstyle that can be enabled in-game. Ctm can only move the wheel if the tap key is held down. Ctm is meant to simulate turntable play.

ctm-unfriendly

A pattern or chart that is significantly harder on the ctm playstyle. Often caused by fast movement into tap, movement after liftoff, or super short spins ending with taps.

ctm-scratch

A tap placed just before a scratch. Simulates ctm or turntable engaging the wheel in order to scratch it.

ctm-spin

A tap placed just before a spin. Simulates ctm or turntable engaging the wheel in order to spin it.

curve-early

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curve-in slider

A fundamental slider shape. The names refer to the portion where most of the movement occurs. The most common shape to use alone, but also used extensively in compound sliders.

curve-late

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curve-out slider

A fundamental slider shape. The names refer to the portion where most of the movement occurs. These are rarely used alone, but are common in compound sliders.

cutoff scratch

A scratch that is ended by an end point rather than a spin. With enough space, these can be followed by a tap or match safely.

cutoff spin

A spin that is ended by an end point rather than another spin, tap, or slider. In some circumstances, a cutoff spin can mess with turntable players.

cutoff 90

darnoc

Refer to telegraphed backspin.
Named after Darnoc[spinsha.re], who used these at the advent of custom charting.

daverswap

An uncommon name for opposite-lane tap swaps. Named after Daverwob, the charter for base game, who used many such swaps.

default slider

A fundamental slider shape named because it's the default shape of a newly-placed slider. Used extensively for longer sliders commonly found in lower difficulties. Used in many compound sliders. Sometimes used alone.

diagonal slider

drift

A measure of how far the player has moved from their initial position. Drift is caused by color swaps and resolved by swaps in the other direction, spins, or scratches. Minor drift is good for providing the feel of traveling or for building tension. Excessive drift can be uncomfortable, especially for players with a low mouse sensitivity.

DTS

Refer to Dynamic Track Speed

drum fill

Dynamic Track Speed

A mod made by Mew that allows the charter to change the player's trackspeed at any time.

eggs

Repeating sequences of a beat, match, tap, and match of the same color and position. Between each sequence, the position and/or color of the matches and taps changes.
See also: scrambled eggs.

error flag

A small red line shown on any note the in-game editor deems erronously placed. Stray beathold releases, misaligned chords, and some stacked note types will produce error flags. Error flags aren't necessarily a sign of bad charting.

experimental chart

A chart that intentionally breaks normal conventions or the charter's usual style in order to try new things. Experimental charts have been responsible for initiating most revisions to the standards.

fake backspin

A pattern with a slider or matchstring that moves into the spin that comes after it, except the movement is fast or small enough that it can be largely ignored.

fast food charting

A silly term coined by Daverwob for a chart that relies on fast movement, simple rhythms, and enough spins that drift can never be generated. Though fast and intense, these charts are often very easy.

fill

A music term referring to a small solo at the end of a musical phrase, generally by the drummer. These tend to translate into brief difficulty spikes when charted.

flam

Refer to grace note.
Specifically, a grace note performed on two different drums.

flick

A pattern that requires the player to move very rapidly for a very brief moment. Often created with matches or sliders.

four on the floor

A music term referring to drums that hit every beat (most songs have 4 beats per measure).

freeform

A term referring to music with no discernable rhythm. Freeform occurs most often during soft piano solos or vocals.

freewheel

The default mouse & keyboard playstyle. Freewheel has a slight weakness to drift, something that precious few charts challenge.

full-diff

A chart that contains 5 or even 6 difficulties: Easy, Normal, Hard, Expert, XD, and optionally RemiXD.

gallops

A rhythm common in rock and metal music. Named after the rhythm created by the footsteps of a galloping horse.

gniob slider

grace note

A musical term for a note that plays slightly earlier than normal. Grace notes are often followed by another note on the normal timing.

half-diff

A chart that contains 3 difficulties, generally Hard, Expert, and XD.

helix

A matchstring named after the double helix. Only consistently hittable thanks to match pairing.

henry

A pattern involving a soft beathold on a slider and a slider release stacked on a beat. The staggered nature of these makes timing them tricky. Henry.[spinsha.re]

ice cream sandwich

A pattern involving a hard beathold with exactly one tap centered within it. Though it arguably looks like an ice cream sandwich, it only gained its name after Way lamented his melted ice cream sandwich on stream. Comparisons were made and the name stuck.

inverted triangle

A variation of a triangle that is slightly easier to play.
See also: triangle.

invisible match

A match that can't be seen, but can still be hit and generates particles. Commonly paired with unmissable matches and used to create visual effects via particles.

invisible tap

A tap that can't be seen, but can still be hit and generates particles. The timing of an invisible tap is still shown via a fine white line on the track.

irregular swap

A color swap that doesn't span the usual lane gap of 0 or 4 lanes.

jacks

Multiple rapid taps or beats in quick succession.

jane swap

A tap followed immediately with a same-lane color-swapped matchstring. Used extensively by jane[spinsha.re], especially in older charts.

linear slider

A fundamental slider shape named for its resemblance to a line. Commonly used to emphasize unique synths and to create aesthetic sliders. Also used in zick spins.

low-diff

Any difficulty below XD.

match art

Matches placed to create an image, letters, or visually striking pattern. Usually no action is needed by the player to hit the pattern.

match bomb

A large number of matches stacked on the same position and timing. Creates a threatening glow and potential for massive health loss if missed.

match on beat

A match stacked on a beat note. In older versions of the game, the beat would obscure the match.

match on slider

Matches placed at the same time as a slider. Usually the matches align closely to the slider, though some patterns might have them deviate.

match to tap movement

A form of movement into tap. Generally attributed to poor telegraphing and thus seldom used in XD charts.

matchstring

A general term for any pattern that involves consecutive matches, generally 5 or more.

meme chart

Perhaps it's funny audio, unhittable patterns, or ridiculous match art. Anything is fair game.

metalmanning

The act of hitting a 1-5 by moving the "wrong" direction. Alternately, the act of moving only one direction to hit a 1-5-1-etc. matchstring.

mid spin

A note in the middle lane followed by a spin. Due to the nature of spins, these create ambiguity about the forward spin direction.

mid swap

A note in the middle lane followed by an opposite-colored note in the middle lane.

midi-accurate charting

A broad term for charting hyper-accurately to the song. Examples include hand-timing every note, placing matches on every wave of a noise, or charting everything.
See also: pitch charting, overcharting

movement after liftoff

A pattern that requires the player to move after releasing from a slider liftoff. Depending on the timing involved, this ranges from difficult to outright impossible for ctm and turntable players.

movement into tap

A pattern that involves movement immediately before a tap. There are many forms of movement into tap, some more accepted than others.

moving trill string

A matchstring that moves from one lane to another, but whose individual matches deviate from the line connecting those two lanes.
See also: trill string

neppy spins

Many consecutive spins in the same direction. Named after Neppy[spinsha.re], a prolific charter in the early days of customs.

no-movement slider

A slider that doesn't require the player to move. Used semi-rarely to emphasize certain noises.

ohm

An archaic term for micro beatholds. In older versions of the game, the effect at the edge of the track would render before the beat. This was immediately patched after their use in an entry for Volt RemiXD[spinsha.re].

out of bounds

A note or pattern that's placed so wide that it's no longer on the track. This is
done via SRTB editing, but once edited, notes can be copied into other charts.

overchart

A blanket term for a chart that is subjectively too intense for the song it's made for, or else a chart with extra notes that don't align to any noticeable sound.

paradiddle

A drum rudiment in the pattern of A-B-A-A. Often represented as tap-beat-tap-tap and often chained one after another. Popularized by Programmatic[spinsha.re].

pitch charting

The act of charting a matchstring or aesthetic slider to the frequency of a given noise. Especialy noticeable for players who use sound effects for notes.

polyrhythm

A music term for two disparate rhythms played at the same time. The most basic polyrhythm is 3:2, where an instrument plays 3 notes while another plays 2.

reading challenge

Any pattern whose difficulty comes from reading instead of physical execution. Many factors contribute to reading challenges, including color puzzles, backspins, midspins, irregular swaps, and excessive color swaps.

redundant swap

An opposite-lane color swap that can be removed without affecting the way the pattern is meant to be played.

reverse-boing slider

Similar to a boing slider, but with the opposite shapes: a curve-out into a curve-in.

rifle

A rapid 1-2-3-4-5 matchstring followed by another of the opposite color, etc.. Often times the head and tail are chorded. Can skip lanes 2 and 4.
See also: barrel.

sail slider

Refer to block slider.
Named for their use in Sail[spinsha.re].

same-lane swap

A color swap that occurs over a single lane. Same-lane swaps create variation in patterns depending on the swap tendencies of the person playing them.

sawtooth slider

A compound slider consisting of linear shapes followed by 90 bends. The resultant slider looks like a sawtooth sound wave.

schrodinger's backspin

A same-lane color swap followed immediately by a spin. Since different players handle same-lane swaps differently, the spin will play as a backspin for some, but not for others. Regardless, it still telegraphs as a forward spin.

scrambled eggs

Repeating sequences of a beat followed by a match, a tap, then another match. These matches and taps can have any degree of movement between one another.
See also: eggs.

scratch snipe

A scratch followed immediately with a tap, match, or slider. Scratches don't auto-align like spins do, making this pattern deceptively difficult and non-standard. Turntable players have increased sensitivity on scratches, which makes these even harder.

sidechain slider

A compound slider consisting of default shapes followed by 90 bends. The resultant slider resembles sidechaining, a digital music production concept that emphasizes noises by reducing the volume of others.

skinny 90

The approach of using multiple end points to force a 90 bend to appear skinnier than usual. These can be used to emphasize certain noises or as the default 90, if the charter feels normal 90 bends are too thick.

slider matchstring

A matchstring designed to imitate a common slider shape. These can be easily created by charting a slider and placing matches on top of it before deleting the slider.

snepped spins

Rapid, repeated spins in alternating directions. Named after Snepped[spinsha.re], who used them most famously in his chart of Goodrage. These are often incredibly difficult.

soft-boing slider

A variation of the boing slider. Consists of a curve-in followed by a default, with the default having twice the space of the curve-in. Soft boings are generally preferred when following the slider with a tap.

Speen Chroma 2

A mod made by Mew that allows the charter to change the player's wheel colors at any time. Also allows for passive rainbow effects.

square slider

srtb

The file extension for a custom chart. Sometimes used to refer to the chart itself.

srtb editing

The process of using a text editor or other 3rd party program to modify a custom chart file. This was once necessary for setting backgrounds or preview loop bars. Now, it's used to exceed the limitations of the in-game editor.

stack

A beat or beat release stacked with another note type. Most commonly refers to beats stacked on taps.

staircase

Repeated sequences of a tap lane 1 followed by a match lane 5, swapping colors after each "step."

standard chart

A chart that adheres to standards developed by the community. The list is long, dynamic, and subjective, though a few things remain consistent: standard charts are correctly timed, friendly to all common playstyles, and generally easy to read.

static slider

An aesthetic of many, many linear endpoints. Often represents white noise in charts.
Can also refer to a no-movement slider.

straight slider

Can refer to a no-movement slider or a linear slider.

stride swap

A tap followed by an opposite lane match, followed by a color-swapped same lane match, then finally a tap. Stride charting[spinsha.re].

swap

Can refer to color swap or the interval a single color swap is equivalent to, 4 lanes.

swing

A musical term for a rhythm that splits intervals into unequal pieces. Straight rhythms split an interval 1:1, but swing might split 2:1 (triplet swing), 3:2 (quintuplet swing), 3:1 (hard swing), or more aside.

swiss triplet

A drum rudiment from the Swiss Army. It's played on snare as flam-right-left. Most charts will simplify the flam into a stack.

tailless 90

A slider that ends on a 90 bend. Looks and plays strangely, a fact that many patterns use to their advantage.

tap-beats

Refer to beat-taps.
Tap-beats lead on a tap instead of a beat, something most players find difficult.

tap stream

Rapid, consecutive taps with no movement.

tap swap

Two consecutive taps that are opposite colors, either same-lane or opposite-lane. Many people have trouble reading tap swaps.

tap-to-tap movement

Any taps that require movement between them. This is the most accepted movement into tap, but if done repeatedly or rapidly they become ctm unfriendly.

tech chart

A chart that uses note types and patterns that are intrinsically difficult to play, even at low speeds. Tech charts often have many slider and beathold releases.

telegraphed backspin

A spin that looks like a forward spin, but plays like a backspin. The preceding pattern will move to one side before swapping colors back to the other.

teleporting slider

A slider that appears to warp from one place to another. This is done by placing two end points obscenely close to each other, or by exploiting 90 bend logic. Both methods require the player to flick incredibly fast to avoid breaking the slider.

tournament edit

A separate upload of a chart that's been modified to adhere to tournament standards or playtester feedback. Often shortened as TE.

triangle

A tap followed by moving matches in the shape of a right triangle. The fast flick at the end of these can be tricky at higher speeds.
See also: inverted triangle.

trill string

A matchstring with matches that rapidly alternate between 2 neighboring lanes. The player is generally able to stand still despite the matches technically moving.
See also: moving trill string

triplet

tuplet

A music term for a rhythm that puts a given number of notes evenly spaced in a span normally covered by 2. Common tuplets include triplets (3), quintuplets (5), and sextuplets (6).

turntable-unfriendly

A pattern or chart that is significantly harder to play on a midi turntable. Similar to ctm, but also struggles with rapid spins and some short cutoff spins.

ultrawide

A pattern that goes wider than wide, out to lanes -1 or 7. These lanes are normally only accessible to matches, but by overwriting a match note, you can place any note type at those lanes.

underchart

A chart that omits noises or relegates them to easy notes such as matches. Undercharting is common and necessary to make most low-diff charts, though it's perfectly valid at the XD level too.

unmissable match

A match that has been made nearly-impossible to miss via any of multiple strategies. Invisible matches are often made unmissable and used for visual effect.

untelegraphed spin

A spin that is telegraphed like a backspin, but plays like a forward spin. Seldom used in standard charts.

vibrato slider

wide

A note or pattern that goes outside the standard lanes 1 through 5. These lanes are denoted as 0 and 6.

wiggly slider

A specific type of aesthetic slider with smooth wiggles. Often used to represent vibrato.

wraparound

A pattern that pushes the player to lane -1 and follows up with a note on lane 7 (or vice versa). The resulting notes are 8 lanes apart and therefore aligned, though in practice many players will attempt to flick 8 lanes instead of staying still.

zick spin

Repetition of a tap-match or slider moving in one direction followed by a spin in the other. Each repetition can be a different color or direction whilst still maintaining zick spin status. Popularized by Zick[spinsha.re] at the advent of custom charting.