Download 1 Elements of Music Olli F16

Elements of Music
David Scoggin
OLLI – Understanding Jazz – Fall 2016
The two most fundamental dimensions of music are rhythm (time) and pitch. In
fact, every staff of written music is essentially an X-Y coordinate system where
the horizontal axis is rhythm and the vertical axis is pitch. Notes occurring at the
same time – chords - are stacked vertically on top of each other because they
have the same horizontal position.
Besides these two most fundamental dimensions, there are many other attributes
that are notated in other ways: loudness with p, m, and f symbols, release times
with slurs and staccato markings, timbre by labeling each staff with an instrument
name, and so on.
Here are what are commonly defined to be the most fundamental elements of
music: rhythm, pitch, melody, harmony, and timbre.
Rhythm
Rhythm is when events, such as notes, chords, and rests, happen in time. In
Western music, time is divided and subdivided into small, equal increments.
The main units of time, or rhythm, are called measures or bars. Each bar
contains a small number of beats, usually 4, 3, or 6. The number of beats per
bar is usually set for an entire piece of music by the time signature at the
beginning of the piece. Each beat within a bar can be further subdivided.
In 4/4 time, also called common time, there are four beats in each measure. The
kind of note whose rhythm takes up one beat, or a quarter of the measure, is
called a quarter note. A half note takes up two beats, or half the measure. A
whole note takes up the whole measure, or four beats.
The beat is also subdivided. An eighth note takes up a half a beat; 1/8 of the
measure. A 16th note is a fourth of a beat; 1/16 of a measure. A beat divided
into thirds is called a “1/8 note triplet”.
On instruments on which a sound can be sustained, it is not only important when
the attack time of the note is, but also when the release time is. Varying
release times within a piece is a big part of musical expression. Releasing notes
on precise rhythmic boundaries can add a lot of feel and rhythm to the music.
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Pitch
The pitch of a note is the quality that makes it sound higher or lower. Pitch is
determined by the frequency at which something is vibrating – how fast it’s
vibrating – which is measured in hertz (hz.), or cycles per second. Notes are
given letter names A-G that designate their pitch, along with sharp and flat
symbols, b and #. A flat moves the note a half step lower. A sharp raises the
note a half step.
A note that is double the frequency of another note sounds so similar, just higher,
that we give them the same letter name. These are called octaves. The first two
notes of the melody to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” are an octave apart.
There are only 12 note names before they start repeating in another octave: A,
Bb B, C, C#, D, Eb, E, F, F#, G, G#
The distance between two notes’ pitches is called an interval. The smallest
interval is a half step, or a minor 2nd, such as C to C#. There are Intervals of
unisons, 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 6ths, 7ths, octaves, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths. Each
of these intervals can also be flatted or sharped, so you have a b9 (flat 9) or a #5
(sharp 5).
The distance between two notes’ pitches in a melody (or two notes in a chord) is called
an interval. Intervals can be 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 6ths, 7ths… the eighth interval is
called an octave and sounds so much like the bottom note that they are given the same
name: C to a higher C is an octave. Frequency-wise, when you double a frequency, you
get an octave. They sound like “the same note only higher”. The first two notes of the
melody to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” are an octave apart.
Melody
The melody is the "featured line" in music. It is what gets sung if there is a singer.
For many people it is regarded as the ”Identity” of a tune; that is, if you want to
describe a particular song to someone, you would usually sing the melody; not
the chords, not the bass part, not the drums’ rhythm.
Melodies are monophonic, single-note lines, meaning only one note is played at
a time. Many melody instruments are strictly monophonic, such as saxophone,
trumpet, and the human voice.
Notes in a melody have both a pitch and a rhythm, and must also "fit" with
harmony (the chord progression). Its rhythms fit into the rhythmic framework of
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the tune, and its pitches fit into the harmonic framework of the tune; that is, the
pitches in the melody are notes that agree with the current chord in the tune.
Melodic lines tend to come in phrases, like sentences in English, with a space
(rests) in between. A melody with no phrase breaks is like a run-on sentence. A
phrase should have a beginning and an ending.
Many melodies contain melodic fragments, called motifs, that are repeated, or
modified or moved and repeated.
When there is more than one melody played simultaneous, the way they work
together and against each other is called counterpoint.
Harmony
Harmony is chords. Chords are groups of notes played simultaneously. There
is an elaborate system of scales, chords, and chord progressions that has
developed in the west over the last 600 years, called “diatonic harmony”.
Whereas scales move in the interval of ‘2nds’, chords are built by “stacking 3rds”,
or playing every other note in a scale. The simplest chords, called triads, consist
of the 1st – 3rd – 5th notes of the current scale, which is dictated by the
composer of the song. When you lower the 3rd to the next nearest note (flat the
3rd), you get a minor triad.
Particular groups of notes have been given names that are expressed in chord
symbols, such as C7, Fmin9, Eb13, C#sus7, Dm7b5, C7#9, Db13b9#11.
As a song goes by, the chords change, at specific places in bars. The
progression of chords, which is part of each song’s identity, is called a chord
progression.
Chords usually last for a whole bar (4 beats in 4/4 time), or a half a measure (2
beats), or two measures, for four measures. There are also songs where some
chords will last for just one beat, or for 16 or more bars.
The chords of a song dictate the scale choices that can be used for melodies,
bass lines, and other monophonic lines that can be played against those chords.
The way chords move within a key (signature) is not random. There are
extensive and complex harmonic systems that have developed since the middle
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ages in Europe. One of the most common systems is called diatonic harmony.
Other common systems are blues-based harmony and modal harmony. We
will not talk about atonal harmonic systems such as 12-tone, serialism (Arnold
Schoenberg), or Harmolodics (Ornette Coleman).
Timbre (tam-ber)
Timbre is also known as tone color, or just tone. It is the sound of a specific
instrument without regard to pitch. It is the quality of sound that distinguishes
instruments from one another when they play the same note, such as a
saxophone and a flute both playing middle C.
Some instruments can have a variety of timbres, depending on the player and
their style or “sound”. Some players on certain instruments will change their
timbre within the same piece; sometimes note-by-note.
Saxophones and electric guitar are examples of instruments whose timbre can
be varied extensively, and used for artistic expression. A saxophonist can
change his tone or get louder or softer while he sustains a note. A guitarist can
add distortion with his amplifier or effects pedal and can change his sound
(timbre) many other ways.
Piano and vibraphone are examples of instruments that have limited timbral
variety, and nothing can be done to change the timbre of the note after it is
played and is decaying. But they can play lots of notes at once!
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