Mr. Cowan
FHCI
Music Department
 There
are seven primary elements. All
music contains all of them to a certain
degree.
 When discussing these musical elements, it
is difficult, if not impossible, to talk about
one element without referring to another.
 For example, pitch cannot be separated
from time, because pitch happens in time!
You can’t have a melody without some type
of rhythm.
 To
put it another way, music is irreducible
beyond these elements. By that I mean, you
cannot remove one of the above elements
and still have music.
 Even music made up of all unpitched
percussion instruments has pitch, it’s just not
easily perceivable.
 We separate music into these elements for
the sake of teaching and discussion. But in
actual music, all of the elements function
together as one.

The duration of all of the sounds and silences in
music.

Rhythm changes constantly over the steady and
unchanging beat.

The steady beat provides the foundation over
which rhythm is organized.

The combinations of long and short, even and
uneven sounds that convey a sense of movement.

The movement of sound through time.

We shape time today musically by dividing it into
measurable units.

Meter: none, 2/4, 3/4 , 4/4, 6/8, etc. (repeating patterns
forming a pulse group)

The beat, a regularly recurring pulse, is the most basic unit
of musical time.

How fast the beat moves is called the tempo.
(slow, moderate, fast)

Rhythm is the element of musical time that brings the music
to life.

Drums….1) slow 2) moderate 3) fast
 Movement
in music with a feeling of
regularity & differentiation
 Pulse:
regular (ticking clock) vs.
irregular (hail on your roof)
 irregular
can become regular if repeated
 Example
#1)
Buena Vista Social Club:
 Example
#2)
Bob Marley:





Example 3: Tool
"Schism" is renowned for its use of uncommon time signatures and the frequency of its
meter changes. In one analysis of the song, the song alters meter 47 times.[4] The song
begins with two bars of 5/4, followed by one bar of 4/4, followed by bars of alternating
5/8 and 7/8, until the first interlude, which consists of alternating bars of 6/8 and 7/8.
The following verse exhibits a similar pattern to the first, alternating bars of 5/8 and 7/8.
The next section is bars of 6/4 followed by one bar of 11/8. This takes the song back into
alternating 5/8 and 7/8. Another 6/8 and 7/8 section follows, and after this the song goes
into repeating 7/8 bars.
The middle section is subsequently introduced, consisting of three bars of 6/8, one bar
of 3/8, and one bar of 3/4 repeating several times. At one point it interrupts with two bars
of 6/8 followed by a bar of 4/8, twice. A bar of 5/8 is played before the meter switches
back to 6/8 for two bars and 2/4 for one bar. This repeats, setting up another section: two
bars of 9/8 followed by a bar of 10/8, that pattern again, and then a single bar of 9/8
followed by alternating bars of 6/8 and 7/8. The outro has alternating bars of 5/8 and
7/8, ending with alternating 6/8, 2/8 that one could interpret as pulsing with a 4/4 feel.
The band has referred to the time signature as 6.5/8.[5] Although many composers would
use 13/16 instead, 6.5/8 is still a valid fractional time signature.
 Melody, to
many music lovers, is the most
important part of music. It’s common to refer
to a melody that is easy to remember and
easy to sing as a tune.


One pitch followed by another, or a succession of pitches in
time
the horizontal dimension of musical space.
 1)
a “tune” which can be whistled or
hummed
 2)
Generally, what we remember in a piece
of music
 3)
2 fundamental qualities:
Pitch and Duration
 4)
Refers to a series of individual notes
 5)
Horizontal Concept
 2)
Pitch is the element of music that
allows us to hear sounds as either high or
low


Any time objects vibrate at a consistent rate, we perceive pitch.
Strings are the easiest way to “see” what we’re hearing.
Pluck the string of a guitar and you see it vibrating consistently. That
consistent vibration creates the pitch that you hear. The faster the
string vibrates, the higher the pitch sounds.
 3)
Motif: a brief musical idea that is
repeated and developed throughout a
piece
• Main ingredient to a piece of music
 Metaphorically
then, we say that pitch is
the vertical dimension of musical space.
 And
because music happens in time, it
seems logical to say that musical time is
the horizontal dimension of musical
space.
 Pitch
and time, then, give us two
dimensions of musical space:
Harmony
 Some
music lovers are attracted most by
harmony. Most of us, I think, would agree
that the best music has both memorable
melodies and harmonies.
 For
now though, when we talk about
harmony, we are referring to:
• 1) two or more pitches happening at the same
time
• 2) the vertical dimension of musical space.
• 3) The combination of simultaneously produced
musical notes to produce chords and chord
progressions with a pleasing effect
 The
sounding of notes together
 Vertical
concept
 Visual
Representation:
 Example
#1:
 Piano...C,E,G
individually = melody
 Piano....C,E,G
 Leads
together = harmony
us into intervals, chords, etc.
 Any
and all types of music
 From
pop music, to rock, to barbershop
 1)
Fleet Foxes: Sun Giant
 2)
The Beach Boys: Good Vibrations
 3)
The Beatles:
 The
organization of the piece – the shape &
order in which a piece of music is
composed.
 Examples
include: theme & variations,
rondo, blues form, verse/chorus, bridge,
introduction, length of phrases etc.
 The
design of music, incorporating
repetition, contrast, unity, and variety. The
organization of music, its shape or structure.
 Typical
Pop Music Form:
Introduction  Verse #1  Chorus #1
 Verse #2  Chorus #2  Bridge 
Chorus #3  Outro
I
– V1 – C1 – V2 – C2 – B – C3 - O
 The
quality of a musical note or sound
which distinguishes different types of
sound production or musical instruments
 Also known as “tone colour”
 Acoustic
vs. Amplified
 Smooth vs. Rough
 Crisp/Sharp vs. Soft/Muddy
 Lastly, timbre
is important in
performance.
 Part of learning to create quality sounds
on your instrument involves learning how
to produce good tone quality, or good
timbre.
 Bright, Dark, Brassy, Warm, Raspy, Smooth
etc.
 Musical
texture ranges from very simple to
rather complex.
 It is the relationship of “melodic” and
“harmonic” elements which can interweave
like threads in a cloth
 If the texture is too simple for too long of a
period of time, we, as listeners, tend to get
bored.
 If it is too complicated (too many events
happening at once), the music gets
confusing, and we stop listening.
 Monophonic:
 is
a single melody with nothing else
going on around it: no accompaniment,
no harmony, just the melody.
 Polyphonic:
 Literally
means “many voices”
 Two or more simultaneous sounding
melodies (round: row row row your boat)
 Homophonic:
A
melody with a harmonic
accompaniment (guitar and vocals)
 In
music, we define dynamics as the relative
loudness or softness of volume throughout a
piece of music
 Relative is an important word here. Musical
dynamics cannot be designated in decibels
or any other scientific measurement of
volume or intensity
 “loud” (or the Italian term, forte) means
something different depending on the
context.
p
– piano – soft
 pp – pianissimo – very soft
 f – forte – strong (loud)
 ff – fortissimo – very strong (very loud)
 m – mezzo – means medium or
moderately and can be added to either a
“p” or a “f”
 crescendo – gradually increase volume
 decrescendo – gradually decrease
volume