grace notes

Noun

grace note (plural grace notes)

1. A musical note, indicated on a score in smaller type with or without a slash through it, played to ornament the melody rather than as part of it. Its note value does not count as part of the total time value of the measure it appears in.
   • There is a manner of gracing the notes or accents in reading, as in singing, but which is always at pleasure. This grace note in music is called appoggiatura, that is, supporter, insinuator. As the quantities of these little notes in music are always taken out of the next note that follows, so it...1821, James Chapman, chapter II, in The Original Rhythmical Grammar of the English Language: Or, The Art of Reading and Speaking, on the Principles of the Music of Speech, Edinburgh: Printed for...

   Synonyms:

   grace

2. (figuratively) Something that decorates, embellishes, or ornaments; a finishing touch.
   • These concerns, often given mythic expression, explore the common human element in diverse experience: the poet [Rita Dove] touches the grace notes of famous and unknown lives, past and present.2006, Pat Righelato, “Grace Notes: Stepping off the Tin Roof into Blue”, in Understanding Rita Dove (Understanding Contemporary American Literature), Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina...