Sound and Music
± Music is sound organized in time.
Pitch, Rhythm, Harmony
± Developed over centuries in the Western world, common-practice tonality is the widely accepted system for describing the relationships among pitches and harmonies.
± Pitch is the highness or lowness of a sound. It is the basic building block for melody and harmony.
± Harmony occurs when two or more pitches sound simultaneously.
± The octave occurs naturally in the overtone series. Western tradition divides it into twelve equal intervals called half steps.
± Melody is a coherent succession of pitches perceived as a whole, with a beginning, middle, and end.
± Major and minor scales are sets of seven different pitches arranged in a specific pattern of whole and half steps within a single octave.
± The beat is the steady, regular pulse underlying most music.
± Tempo is the speed of the beat.
± Meter groups beats into regular patterns of strong and weak beats.
± Rhythm is the series of durations of varying lengths that overlie the beat.
± Nearly all Western music is built upon the need for dominant harmony to resolve to the tonic, or resting tone.
± A key is a hierarchical set of harmonic and melodic pitch relationships organized around a
± Tonic and using one of the thirty major and minor scales.
± Diatonic music uses pitches from only a single scale; music is chromatic when it uses accidentals (sharps and flats) to add pitches from outside the key, or to change keys.
± The triad is the most basic type of chord. It consists of two stacked thirds.
± Some composers in the last 120 years have sought to expand and even overturn common-practice tonality.
Other Aspects
± Texture, counterpoint, dynamics, articulation, and ornamentation are important features that can distinguish otherwise similar musical sounds. Form
± Tension and release, memory and anticipation, and continuity and contrast are fundamental to the listener’s musical experience.
± Motives, phrases, cadences, and themes are the smallest building blocks of form.
± Musical material may be repeated, varied, developed, or contrasted with different material to create longer forms; it can be framed by an introduction and/or a coda.
± Common forms include theme and variations, twelve-bar blues, thirty-two-bar form, ABA form, verse-chorus, and sonata form.
Conclusion
± Music can be represented by diagrams, with notation, or on sound recordings, each of which has limitations.
± Because music is an art form that structures time rather than space, some people consider it an activity rather than a fixed object.
± Music is sound organized in time.
Pitch, Rhythm, Harmony
± Developed over centuries in the Western world, common-practice tonality is the widely accepted system for describing the relationships among pitches and harmonies.
± Pitch is the highness or lowness of a sound. It is the basic building block for melody and harmony.
± Harmony occurs when two or more pitches sound simultaneously.
± The octave occurs naturally in the overtone series. Western tradition divides it into twelve equal intervals called half steps.
± Melody is a coherent succession of pitches perceived as a whole, with a beginning, middle, and end.
± Major and minor scales are sets of seven different pitches arranged in a specific pattern of whole and half steps within a single octave.
± The beat is the steady, regular pulse underlying most music.
± Tempo is the speed of the beat.
± Meter groups beats into regular patterns of strong and weak beats.
± Rhythm is the series of durations of varying lengths that overlie the beat.
± Nearly all Western music is built upon the need for dominant harmony to resolve to the tonic, or resting tone.
± A key is a hierarchical set of harmonic and melodic pitch relationships organized around a
± Tonic and using one of the thirty major and minor scales.
± Diatonic music uses pitches from only a single scale; music is chromatic when it uses accidentals (sharps and flats) to add pitches from outside the key, or to change keys.
± The triad is the most basic type of chord. It consists of two stacked thirds.
± Some composers in the last 120 years have sought to expand and even overturn common-practice tonality.
Other Aspects
± Texture, counterpoint, dynamics, articulation, and ornamentation are important features that can distinguish otherwise similar musical sounds. Form
± Tension and release, memory and anticipation, and continuity and contrast are fundamental to the listener’s musical experience.
± Motives, phrases, cadences, and themes are the smallest building blocks of form.
± Musical material may be repeated, varied, developed, or contrasted with different material to create longer forms; it can be framed by an introduction and/or a coda.
± Common forms include theme and variations, twelve-bar blues, thirty-two-bar form, ABA form, verse-chorus, and sonata form.
Conclusion
± Music can be represented by diagrams, with notation, or on sound recordings, each of which has limitations.
± Because music is an art form that structures time rather than space, some people consider it an activity rather than a fixed object.