CHAPTER I: Elements of Music: Sound, Melody, Rhythm, and Harmony

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PRELUDE: The Fundamentals of Music

CHAPTER 1: Elements of Music: Sound, Melody, Rhythm, and Harmony

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Sound

Tone

Note

Pitch

Frequency

Staff

Interval

Unison

Octave

Major Scale

Pitch Range

Dynamics

Decrescendo

Diminuendo

Crescendo

Accent

Timbre

Rhythm

Beat

Meter

Duple

Triple

Quadruple

Sextuple

Irregular Meters

Measures

Downbeat

Upbeat

Accent

Syncopation

Tempo

Tempo Indications

Tempo Changes

Rubato

Fermata

Melody

Legato

Phrase

Cadence

Incomplete

Complete

Sequence

Theme

Harmony

Chords

Progression

Consonance

Dissonance

Triad

Arpeggio

NEW CONCEPTS

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tone

note

pitch

frequency

staff

interval

unison

octave

major scale

pitch range

dynamics

accent

pianissimo pp

piano p

mezzo piano mp

mezzo forte mf

forte f

fortissimo ff

decrescendo

diminuendo

crescendo

timbre

rhythm

beat

meter

measure

triple meter

downbeat

duple meter

quadruple meter

upbeat

sextuple

quintuple meter

septuple meter

syncopation

tempo

largo

grave

lento

adagio

andante

moderato

allegretto

allegro

vivace

presto

prestissimo

rubato

fermata

melody

legato

staccato

phrase

cadence

sequence

theme

harmony
chord

chord progression

consonance

dissonance

triad

tonic

arpeggio

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Through practice, students should become comfortable using the new terms and concepts to describe various aspects of sound, rhythm, melody, and harmony. Guided by each of the Learning Objectives, students should practice using newly introduced concepts and terminology.
Sound is a basic component of music. What is sound? What is a musical sound? Is a musical sound different from other types of sound? What creates pitch? What makes a violin sound like a violin and a piano sound like a piano? Students should devote some time to exploring various sounds and timbres.
Melody is the most familiar musical element for many students to listen for. Have students practice becoming aware of and listening for melodic structure in familiar tunes—whether folk songs or popular music—to introduce the idea of listening over the course of an entire piece.
Students should learn to listen for rhythmic organization. Students accustomed only to hearing the beat kept by percussion instruments often have trouble identifying a regular pulse in music without such a beat. As a first step, they should practice finding the beat in a variety of types of music. Next, they should focus on metrical patterns. As they become more comfortable, they should become more aware of changes to the metrical structure: syncopations, triplets, and so on.

OVERVIEW OF CHAPTER 1

The “Prelude” to Chapters 1–3 explains to students that they will experience a wide variety of music. Although these varied types of music sound quite different, they all involve the same components: sound, rhythm, melody, and harmony. In order to understand how these elements contribute to the music, it is necessary to become familiar with these elements and how they combine. It is also helpful to become familiar with the orchestra and its instruments. The first three chapters of the text will provide the vocabulary and experience needed.

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Although this chapter has no specific listening examples, it has ample opportunities for listening examples as illustrations of the elements. Having a keyboard handy to play simple melodies, illustrate concepts of tempo and dynamics, and provide examples of chords is useful. Consider incorporating the following pieces from the CD set as examples of concepts covered in Chapters 1–3:

Purcell, “When I am laid in earth,” from Dido and Aeneas-triple meter

Mozart, Symphony No. 40, I—duple meter

Handel, “Comfort Ye” from Messiah—quadruple meter

Bernstein, “America” from West Side Story—sextuple meter

Haydn, String Quartet, op. 33, no. 3, (“The Bird”) IV—dissonance

2. Music is a most difficult art to grasp because it is so abstract. It never entirely exists in the present, but relies on both memory and intuition (or expectation, as Leonard Meyer says in his Emotion and Meaning in Music). The listener needs to be able to remember what he or she has heard before and relate that to what he or she hears in the present. Much folk and popular music is short and repetitive with very little thematic development. More complex works—a Mozart string quartet, for example—have distinct themes that go through a period of development. The listener needs to have the skill to recognize something as a theme and then listen as that theme is transformed, manipulated, and recapitulated.

3. Listeners cannot always perceive the beat easily. Students may confuse it with the metric accent. Composers can also manipulate durations to make the music sound as though the beat speeds up or slows down. Simple examples of folk or nursery-rhyme songs can help illustrate: Play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” in common time and in cut time, or play the tune using quarter-note durations and then half notes, keeping the beat the same.

4. Students need to think of melody as linear. But melody also takes on contour because of its changes of pitch. Help students understand this by playing the opening phrase of “Joy to the World,” which descends stepwise, and then comparing that with “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” which has repeated pitches, leaps, and downward steps.

5. Students are often confused by melodic contour, perceiving legato melodies as conjunct and staccato passages as disjunct. Be sure to emphasize that melodic contour refers to the placement of pitches within a melody, and not to the way that melody is performed.

5. Probably the best way to illustrate harmony is to use the blues progression as an example of how chords provide a framework over which a melody is constructed. Chords create rhythm, too, by how often and regularly they change.

FURTHER QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

What do the terms piano and forte mean? How does the composer indicate dynamics between and beyond these two levels?
What are the components of rhythm? How does beat differ from meter? How do beat and meter differ from note values (duration)?
How does a listener recognize the end of a melodic phrase?
What is an arpeggio? How does it relate to a chord?
Can you draw a picture of a melody? What are some interesting melodies that you know? Suggest: Draw a picture of a melody you know. What makes it interesting to you? What materials would you use in order to recreate that melody? Are the pitches all connected, like a string? Or are they individual points?

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