The musical elements are the building blocks of music, describing the different aspects of musical sound that move through time. This page gives you a broad outline of these elements, and then the tutorials listed at the top and bottom go into greater depth with each of these separate elements and concepts.
TIME: Music moves through time, and thus interacts with time, and can be organized by time, so we use different words to describe different attributes of time.
- RHYTHM: the duration of the notes. Some notes are short and some are long. All music has rhythm since without duration we would not hear it.
- PULSE: the regular, recurring underlying even, consistent beat of a piece. Because it is predictable, we can clap to it and dance to it.
- METER: the grouping of the pulse. Our music tends to be grouped in twos (duple) or threes (triple), but pulses can be grouped in any arrangement.
- TEMPO: the speed of the pulse.
This example has one basic pattern that repeats. The tempo is fairly quick, and THE RHYTHM begins a long note followed by a short note, then two longer notes. THE PULSE, which is the even and consistent beat that you’d tap your foot or nod your head to, is grouped together in twos, or duple meter.
To describe aspects of time, we could talk about short and long notes, fast or slow tempos, even or uneven rhythms, just to get us started. Further detail would sound more like the above description of “one note followed by a short note followed by a long note” but for longer sections of music. Since different layers frequently have different rhythms, a full description would include details about every layer (see TEXTURE below).
Go to the detailed tutorial on time
MELODY: The tune. A succession of pitches that forms a recognizable unit and has meaning to its creator(s). The linear structure of music in which single notes follow one another.
- PITCH: A note or tone. The high-ness and low-ness of a single note.
- INTERVAL: the distance in pitch between two notes.
- SCALE: a collection of notes that form the basis of the melody.
In this example, you will first hear the set of notes – the scale- ascending from the bottom to the top, then descending again. Then you will hear the notes arranged in a tune (“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”). The tune starts with a repeated note, then a large interval moving up, a repetition of that note, a short interval up (then repetition) , the same small interval down, then more small intervals moving down to the first note played.
To describe melody, talk about how the melody moves. does it go from low to high? does it stay in the same general area? does it move mostly upwards? does it move mostly downward? is it smooth, moving with small intervals, or is it fairly jerky, moving with big intervals back and forth?
go to the detailed tutorial on Melody
TEXTURE: The vertical structure of the music: what is going on simultaneously. How many melodies are there? how many different layers are there sounding at the same time? what are the different melodies and layers doing all at the same time? Each LAYER is like a track – one horizontal unit. it could be melody, it could be a beat. Most of the music we hear has at least a couple of layers, frequently a melodic layer, a layer with a beat, and a layer with accompaniment that has chords.
- Monophony: One melody only, no other pitches.
- MONOPHONY WITH PERCUSSION: One melody only, with percussion but no other tunes or notes.
- Polyphony: more than one pitch or melody heard simultaneously. This is the most common kind of texture we hear in the United States.
- Heterophony: one melody played in different layers by different people simultaneously, all a bit different and individual.
In this example, we hear the “Twinkle Twinkle” melody all by itself – just one line, one pitch at a time. This is the song in MONOPHONY.
In this example, “Twinkle” is accompanied by a beat, so it has two layers, one melody, and one percussion.
This example of “Twinkle” has three layers, two of which have different pitches, and one which has a beat. This is POLYPHONY, because we can hear more than one pitch at the same time.
We hear heterophony when two different instruments play the same melody but in slightly different ways. In this example, the voice and the ‘Ud (a plucked stringed instrument) play the same melody but not always exactly alike.
To begin discussing texture, talk about how many layers there are and what is going on in each layer. Frequently, different layers may have different functions. For example, this song Shania Twain’s “Honey I’m Home”, starts with just a percussion layer to give the beat to the song, then the violins come in with a little tune that they repeat a lot that accompanies the main melody, then Twain comes in with the main melody. When she first starts singing, there are really only two layers – just her and the percussion, and then the violins join her again a bit later, for three layers. Finally, the guitars and the keyboards come in. From then on, the number of layers vary – dropping out and coming back in, with the audience participation adding another one, even, occasionally.
Go to the detailed tutorial on Texture
FORM: The horizontal structure of a piece: what happens when; the order of musical events through time. Structures can be either LINEAR or CYCLICAL. A linear structure has an obvious beginning and an obvious end with a clear, sequential structure. A cyclical structure is based on the repetition of patterns with little or no differentiation from start to finish.
The song “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” that you heard above, has two different smaller tunes in it. We hear the first small tune twice, then the second, shorter one, twice, then the first one again.
This is a linear type of repetition, because it has an obvious beginning, and an obvious ending, even with the repetition.
This example, a song from Ghana (a country in Africa) called “Kpatsa Toke” is made up of many different small patterns in an steady stream of cyclical repetition. It has many layers playing simultaneously that continue throughout over and over again.
To describe a sectional form, talk about the number of sections and the structure they fall in: which ones repeat how many times, what contrasts between sections. For cyclical forms, listen to what changes while the main elements repeat cyclically. Usually there are small but important changes in the texture and timbre, and sometimes the patterns themselves begin to vary a bit.
Go to the detailed tutorial on Form
HARMONY: The quality of the sounds of the notes played together. We discuss and describe the relative amount of tension that results from sounds being played together. The sound is consonant if there is little or no tension in the sound; the sound is dissonant if there is much tension in the sound. If only one pitch can be heard at any one time, there is no harmony at that moment, for harmony depends upon multiple pitches simultaneously.
This example begins with the repetition of a single pitch, so that has no harmony. Then there is a sound with much tension, it is dissonant. This is followed by a sound with little tension, so this is consonant. the dissonance then returns, followed by the consonance.
Many songs are a combination of consonance and dissonance to produce pleasing variety. To describe harmony, we talk about how much and where the dissonance is if a piece is mostly consonant, and we can describe how much and where consonance is if the piece is mostly dissonant.
Go to the detailed tutorial on harmony
Timbre: The tone quality – that which makes the particular type of sound identifiable. This is what makes a violin sound different from a trumpet, and my voice sound different from your voice.
To describe timbre, we can use adjectives from our non-musical vocabulary that help to talk about what we hear. Words like bright and dark, sharp and round can help communicate what a trumpet and tuba, or a violin and cello, might sound like.
Go to the detailed tutorial on timbre
Expression: The part of the musical performance that goes beyond the mere notes in order to express and communicate an emotion, state of mind, or idea. All of the elements described above are used for expression of course, as are the Text or words of a song (if any), Dynamics, or the volume – how loud and how soft – and Articulation. Articulation is the manner in which a note is hit – the attack and decay. is the note hit sharply and separately from other notes, or is it connected smoothly to the other notes around it?
Describing the expression is subjective in how you interpret the objective details of how dynamics, articulation, and the other elements are used to support the text, or make a statement on their own if there is no text. The connection between these elements and how the musicians use these elements for expression is the key to discussing the expression of the work.
Here is a live performance of “Por un amor”-sung here by Linda Ronstadt. Below the video, you will find a brief description of how she uses various musical elements to insure that her performance is appropriately expressive.
In “Por un Amor,” Linda Ronstadt uses a lot of vibrato (she varies the pitch of individual notes, especially long ones) in her melodic line in order to bring a greater level of expression to the song. Furthermore, she uses a vocal technique of sliding up or down to the next note, which creates a more flowing, smooth sound. Her articulation is also very smooth in both the way she moves between the notes and the way she shapes the words of the melody; she gives the consonants a softer sound, not punching them but barely placing them inside the words, so that the focus becomes on the open vowel sounds instead of the closed consonant sounds. The singer is also given the opportunity to be more expressive because the backup orchestra does not have a pivotal role in the melodic line; the guitar is the only other constant layer, and it is picking out a simple quarter note bass line, with other instruments only occasionally interjecting. This gives the vocalist more occasion to be free with the rhythms of the melodic line, as she does not have to line up exactly with her accompaniment. The words that the vocalist chooses to linger on or move quickly through is also an important part of this freedom of rhythm, as it allows her to choose certain words that she feels are important to the phrase to emphasize and elaborate on vocally, either through increasing her vibrato or performing a vocal trill around a certain word or note, usually near the end of a phrase.
MUSICAL STYLE
MUSICAL STYLE describes how the musical elements all work together, while MUSICAL GENRE describes the type of piece something is on a structural level. For example, a SONG is a genre; structurally it is a piece of music that someone sings, so it has a text. Different singers can sing the same song in different styles. The genre remains the same – its always a song – but the style can be country or R&B, or one of many different STYLES.
For example, Dolly Parton, a country singer wrote and recorded the song “I will always love you.”
Whitney Houston also recorded it, as did Melissa Etheridge.
Because the song is the same, the genre is the same (Song is the genre of this work) but the style of this song is different because each singer performs the song – and treats the musical elements in their performance – differently.
STYLE connects to time, place, and function. We can understand how function connects to style if we think about how a lullaby sounds, and how music at sports event sounds. A lullaby is soft because the function is to help someone sleep. Sports event music is loud, to help rouse the supporting crowd and inspire the athletes.
Style also connects to time and place, because frequently musicians working in the same time and place tend to use the musical elements in very similar ways, and musicians working in different times or places frequently produce music that sounds really different from each other. These examples that come from different times and places sound very different from each other.
Mid-twentieth century Ghana (Africa)
17th-century Japan
12th-century Europe
BASIC DESCRIPTION:
When we study music in culture and history, we need to understand these elements and terms so that we can connect the sounds to their cultural and historical contexts. To do that, we begin by describing what we hear.
Here is a short description (600 words) that will get you started by letting you see how one song “All that Jazz” can be described briefly but inclusively.
“All That Jazz” is probably one of the most easily recognized songs from the show Chicago. The character of the melody is extremely conjunct. There are only a few places throughout the melodic line, usually at the ends of phrases, where the line moves in anything but a stepwise (or very close to stepwise) motion. However, the range is very wide. This can most easily be demonstrated in the contour of the line, which moves from lower range to higher range over the course of the phrase. By using a smooth character and a wide range, the listener can hear a very consistent line upward to the end of the phrase. Phrases in this song tend to be grouped together as two four-bar phrases, followed by an eight bar phrase. The lyrics “all that jazz” usually denote the end of a phrase.
There are six layers throughout the piece. First is the drums, which have a high, thin timbre. There is heavy emphasis on the cymbals in this layer, and possibly a snare drum. There is no noticeable use of a bass drum. The function of the percussion is to keep time, as the layer rarely plays off the beat and keeps a steady pace of eighth notes throughout the song. Second, there is the low brass, which functions as the pulse. There is a bit of syncopation in this line when it reenters after pauses; however, it mainly keeps a steady pace of quarter notes throughout each verse. It has a very low, heavy timbre. Third, there is a layer of “high brass,” which mainly consists of a trumpet. The high brass has a very clear, brassy timbre, and functions as an accent during pauses in the vocal line. It is a very fast moving line, as it consists of flourishes like upward-moving glissandos. Fourth, there is a chorus that enters about halfway through the song, who mainly functions as the response half of a call-and-response with the soloist. They move from a very brash timbre to a more hushed one, then back again.
The relationship between these four layers and the melodic lines point to a harmonic character of melody with accompaniment polyphony. However, there are two layers who seem to be playing separate melody. First is the piano, who plays a fast-paced line with lots of syncopation. It has a very clear timbre. The second melodic layer is the soloist, who is singing a second, independent melody, with a slightly slower paced line. This layer also includes a great deal of syncopation, and the timbre is smoky and sultry. While the first four layers mentioned above accompany both of these lines, they play separate melodies, suggestion a non-imitative polyphonic relationship.
This piece is in duple meter, most closely resembling common time to the ear. It has a very upbeat tempo that stays consistent throughout the entire song. One interesting thing to note is that when you hear Roxie fire off three gunshots, they are on the beat precisely with the pulse that has remained consistent through the song. The dynamics also remain consistent, but only for the first half of the song; when the chorus enters, there is an increase in dynamics; then, when you hear the conversation between Roxie and Fred, the dynamics become very quiet, only to come back louder than ever as the song pushed to the end. The articulation encompasses both ends of the spectrum: the words that begin on the off-beat are accented, however, once the soloist is in a word she moves between notes very freely, as legato as a slide or glissando
ELEMENTS OF MUSIC 