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Elements of Music and Sound
Introduction
Written texts, pictorial representations, and folklore sources provide evidence that people from all over the world and from the beginnings of recorded history have created and performed music for the following purposes:
religious rituals
civil ceremonies
social functions
story telling
self-expression.
From the perspective of a musician, anything that can make a sound has potential to be a musical instrument.
Elements of Sound
Sounds: vibrations (sound waves) traveling through a medium.
They’re captured by the ear and converted into electrochemical signals that are sent to the brain to be processed.
Since sound is a wave, it has all of the properties attributed to any wave, and these attributes are the four elements that define any and all sounds.
Those elements are frequency, amplitude, wave form and duration. In musical terms, they’re pitch, dynamic, timber (tone color), and duration.
Element | Musical Term | Definition |
|---|---|---|
frequency | pitch | how high or low |
amplitude | dynamic | how loud or soft |
wave form | timbre | unique tone color |
duration | duration | how long or short |
Frequency (pitch): how high or low the sound is
It’s the element of sound that we are best able to distinguish.
Hertz: the derived unit of frequency and is defined as one cycle per second
Melody: a succession of pitches
Harmony: when two or more pitches are played at the same time
Octave: when the ratio between two notes, in terms of frequency, is 2:1
If a note vibrates at 400 Hz, the pitch an octave higher vibrates at 800 Hz (2 x 400 Hz). The pitch an octave lower than 400 Hz has a frequency of 200 Hz (400 Hz / 2).
Frequency is determined by the length and thickness of the vibrating object.
Longer and thicker objects vibrate more slowly and produce lower pitches than shorter and thinner ones
One approach to classifying pitch material is to construct a scale, an arrangement of the pitch material of a piece of music in order from low to high or vice versa.
Step: each element of a scale
Interval: the distance between steps; the difference between pitch in two sounds.
Keynote: starting pitch of the scale
Amplitude: the amount of energy contained in a sound wave and is perceived as being either loud or soft.
Amplitude is measured in decibels (dB) but our perception of loud and soft changes depending on the sounds around us.
Wave form: determines the tone color, or timbre that we hear and is how we differentiate between sounds
The simplest wave form is the sine wave. Pure sine waves rarely occur in nature but they can easily be created through electronic means.
Duration: how long or short the sound is (depends on the context)
Several durations, one after another, create the rhythm of a piece.
Elements of Music
Rhythm: the time pattern of the attack points of a sequence of sounds (think of syllables)
Meter: recurrent groupings of beats by two’s, three’s, or some combination of two’s and three’s
Rhythmic pattern: a distinctive sequence of long rhythms and short rhythms that recurs throughout an individual work or groups of works
Syncopation: irregular or unexpected stresses in the rhythmic flow.
Texture: can be dense or transparent, thick or thin, heavy or light; how many different layers of sound are heard simultaneously, whether these layers have a primarily melodic or an accompaniment function, and how the layers relate to each other
Monophony: a texture of a single, unaccompanied melodic line
Heterophony: spontaneous variations of two or more performers producing different versions of the same melody at the same time.
Polyphony: the simultaneous combination of two or more independent melodies is classified as polyphony.
Homophony: one dominant melody with accompaniment.
Polyrhythm: the combination of two or more simultaneous rhythmic lines is classified as polyrhythm.
Tone: the distinctive quality of a voice or instrument caused by overtones.
Elements of Music and Sound
Introduction
Written texts, pictorial representations, and folklore sources provide evidence that people from all over the world and from the beginnings of recorded history have created and performed music for the following purposes:
religious rituals
civil ceremonies
social functions
story telling
self-expression.
From the perspective of a musician, anything that can make a sound has potential to be a musical instrument.
Elements of Sound
Sounds: vibrations (sound waves) traveling through a medium.
They’re captured by the ear and converted into electrochemical signals that are sent to the brain to be processed.
Since sound is a wave, it has all of the properties attributed to any wave, and these attributes are the four elements that define any and all sounds.
Those elements are frequency, amplitude, wave form and duration. In musical terms, they’re pitch, dynamic, timber (tone color), and duration.
Element | Musical Term | Definition |
|---|---|---|
frequency | pitch | how high or low |
amplitude | dynamic | how loud or soft |
wave form | timbre | unique tone color |
duration | duration | how long or short |
Frequency (pitch): how high or low the sound is
It’s the element of sound that we are best able to distinguish.
Hertz: the derived unit of frequency and is defined as one cycle per second
Melody: a succession of pitches
Harmony: when two or more pitches are played at the same time
Octave: when the ratio between two notes, in terms of frequency, is 2:1
If a note vibrates at 400 Hz, the pitch an octave higher vibrates at 800 Hz (2 x 400 Hz). The pitch an octave lower than 400 Hz has a frequency of 200 Hz (400 Hz / 2).
Frequency is determined by the length and thickness of the vibrating object.
Longer and thicker objects vibrate more slowly and produce lower pitches than shorter and thinner ones
One approach to classifying pitch material is to construct a scale, an arrangement of the pitch material of a piece of music in order from low to high or vice versa.
Step: each element of a scale
Interval: the distance between steps; the difference between pitch in two sounds.
Keynote: starting pitch of the scale
Amplitude: the amount of energy contained in a sound wave and is perceived as being either loud or soft.
Amplitude is measured in decibels (dB) but our perception of loud and soft changes depending on the sounds around us.
Wave form: determines the tone color, or timbre that we hear and is how we differentiate between sounds
The simplest wave form is the sine wave. Pure sine waves rarely occur in nature but they can easily be created through electronic means.
Duration: how long or short the sound is (depends on the context)
Several durations, one after another, create the rhythm of a piece.
Elements of Music
Rhythm: the time pattern of the attack points of a sequence of sounds (think of syllables)
Meter: recurrent groupings of beats by two’s, three’s, or some combination of two’s and three’s
Rhythmic pattern: a distinctive sequence of long rhythms and short rhythms that recurs throughout an individual work or groups of works
Syncopation: irregular or unexpected stresses in the rhythmic flow.
Texture: can be dense or transparent, thick or thin, heavy or light; how many different layers of sound are heard simultaneously, whether these layers have a primarily melodic or an accompaniment function, and how the layers relate to each other
Monophony: a texture of a single, unaccompanied melodic line
Heterophony: spontaneous variations of two or more performers producing different versions of the same melody at the same time.
Polyphony: the simultaneous combination of two or more independent melodies is classified as polyphony.
Homophony: one dominant melody with accompaniment.
Polyrhythm: the combination of two or more simultaneous rhythmic lines is classified as polyrhythm.
Tone: the distinctive quality of a voice or instrument caused by overtones.
