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What is music? EC1 Music History and Appreciation
Name and class_________________
Music is difficult to define, but we all know it when we hear it!
Here are some dictionary definitions:
Noun:
an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the
elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and colour.
a pattern of sounds made by musical instruments, voices, or computers, or a combination of
these, intended to give pleasure to people listening to it:
the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal
relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity
vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony
an artistic form of auditory communication incorporating instrumental or vocal tones in a
structured and continuous manner
Music is the pleasing sound created by voices or instruments following some tonal structure. If you
sing, whistle, or play an instrument, you are making music.
Do you agree? Is music always meant to give pleasure to the listener? I am not so sure, although
music very often, if not always, conveys some kind of meaning – it says something. But what does it
say – and how can we say what it says? And would we all agree with what it says? If we could answer
these questions definitively, we would not need music – music goes above or beyond words.
What are the elements of music – what is it made of?
Music is deliberately organized sound. (But not all deliberately organized sound is music.)
So what it sound? Basically, it is vibration. If something physical vibrates, it sends sound waves to our
ears trough the air. If the vibrations are within the range of human hearing, we hear them.
When something vibrates slowly, it sounds low. If it vibrates quickly, it sounds high. And if one sound
vibrates twice as fast as another, it sound like the same tone, but twice as high.
Also, some tones, or pitches, sounds good together, some sound bad. We call this consonant, and
dissonant. Consonant combinations of notes sound pretty and peaceful. Dissonant combinations
sound harsh and stressful. It’s interesting that combinations of sound can convey emotions – but
they do!
Music is basically pitches organized in time. Paintings or drawings are basically colour organized in
space – usually a flat surface. Sculptures are 3-dimensional shapes. But music exists in time, not in
space, and is made of vibrations in the air. So it has no substance, and it happens over time.
Music consists of at least 3 elements: Melody – Harmony – Rhythm
Melody – the tune. When you sing or hum a song to yourself, you are singing the melody. The
melody is usually immediately recognizable and identifiable.
Harmony – Additional tones that support and sound good with the melody. If you are strumming a
guitar, you are most often playing the harmony. The harmony is usually not as recognizable.
(Both melody and harmony have mostly to do with pitch – faster or slower vibrations)
Rhythm – The time element of music. Drums play mostly rhythm. (It can not be completely
separated from melody and harmony, but they have to do with pitch, while rhythm has to do with
time.)
There are a few more elements as well:
Timbre, or colour. Musical instruments sound different from each other. An electric guitar can make
a huge variety of sounds. And singers sound different from each other. This has to do with colour or
timbre. The very same piece of music can sound very different on different instruments.
Tempo, or speed. Some pieces are fast, some are slow. This affects us. Fast music can sound happy,
or dangerous, or stressful or powerful. Slow music can sound sad or profound or peaceful.
Volume, or dynamics. Loud or soft. This has to do with the size of vibration, not the speed. A large
vibration moves more air, and we perceive it as loud. This affects us as well. Loud music can sound
triumphant, powerful, majestic, frightening. Soft music can be peaceful, lovely, sad, mysterious, etc.
In the past, it took a lot of musical instruments to make loud music. Now we only need big speakers
and a lot of electrical power.
So this brings us to another aspect of music – music is made of sounds organized in time, but it
conveys meaning. It says something. Sometimes it says a lot! Isn’t it amazing that sounds can say so
much to us.
So as we explore music in this class, and as you listen to your favourite music away from class, think
about what it is saying to you. What is it saying that you like, or do not like? Just think about it…
HOMEWORK for the week: Think about the music you hear – what is it saying, do you like what it is
saying or not, and what about the music enables it to say what it says?