The Elements

Pitch: the highness or lowness of a sound. The result of the number of vibrations made by the sound-making instrument. The greater the number of vibrations (frequency), the higher the sound.

Tone: a sound that has a definite pitch.
Interval: the distance between any two tones
Range: the distance between the lowest and highest tones that a voice or an instrument can produce.
Dynamics: degree of loudness or softness (volume) in music. Can occur suddenly or gradually.
Accent: emphasis
Tone color: timbre. The unique quality every sound has.

Performing Media:

Voices--Variety of types and styles according to range, quality, and type of music.
Instruments: Any mechanism, besides the voice, that produces musical sounds.
Register: a part of an instrument's total range, usually referred has high, middle, or low.
Strings: violin, viola, cello, and bass. Bowed or plucked. Harp, guitar.
Woodwinds:
No reed: piccolo, flute
Single reed: clarinet, saxophone
Double reed: oboe, bassoon
Brass: trumpet, French horn, trombone, tuba

-Valves and slides change length of tubing

Percussion: struck, shaken, rubbed.

- Some have definite pitch, and others have indefinite pitch.

Keyboard: piano, harpsichord, organ
Electronic instruments

Rhythm: flow of music through time.

Beat: regular pulse found in most music.
Measure: group containing a fixed number of beats. The downbeat is the first, or stressed, beat.
Duple, triple, quadruple, and sextuple meters are fairly common.
Less common, until the 20th century, are quintuple and septuple meters.
Accent: stress, or emphasis.
Syncopation: stress, or accent, on an unexpected beat, or part of a beat.
Tempo: speed of the beat

Melody: a series of single notes which add up to a recognizable whole, a cohesive entity. The rise and fall of the pitches form the melodic curve, or contour.

Step: interval between two adjacent tones, like scale steps.
Leap: interval larger than a step; narrow or wide.
Climax: emotional focal point; often the highest tone of a melody.
Phrases: parts of melodies that form a unit; often marked by a breathing point. Small case letters are used to analyze phrases. Identical, or similar, phrases are given the same letter. Differing phrases are given a new letter. Twinkle, Twinkle consists of three phrases analyzed as a b a. Amazing Grace is a a' b a''. The prime marks indicate slight differences.
Sequence: repetition of a melodic pattern at a higher or lower pitch. A good example is the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony
Theme: the main melody of a extended piece of music.

Harmony: the way chords are constructed and how they follow each other.

Chord: combination of three or more tones sounded at once.
Progression: series of chords.
Consonance: stable, restful tone combination
Dissonance: unstable, tense tone combination.
Triad: a three-tone chord created by alternate tones of the scale.

--Tonic: triad built on the first tone of the scale.

--Dominant: triad built on fifth tone of the scale.

--Subdominant: triad build on fourth tone of the scale.

Arpeggio: individual chord tones are sounded one after another. Term comes from arpa, the Italian word for harp.
Block chord: chord tones sounded simultaneously.
Key: the centering of pitches around a particular pitch; tonality.
Keynote, tonic: central tone.
Scale: pitches arranged from low to high.
Major and minor scales: an arrangement of whole and half steps.
Chromatic scale: scale made entirely of half steps.
Modulation: a shift from one key to another with a composition.
Tonic key: the main key of a composition, even when there are modulations.

Texture: how the different layers of sound are related to each other.

Monophonic texture: single unaccompanied melodic line, or unison singing or playing.
Polyphonic texture: two or more melodic lines of approximately equal importance are sounded at the same time. Imitation occurs when a melodic idea is presented by one voice or instrument and then restated immediately by another.
Homophonic texture: one main melody accompanied by chords. If all the parts move in the same, or close to the same, rhythm, the texture may be termed homorhythmic--a type of homophony.

Form: the organization of musical elements in time.

Repetition: repetition of melodies or extended sections.
Contrast: different melodies or extended sections.
Variation: melody is repeated with some of its features changed.
Ternary form: statement, contrast, return--A B A (')
Binary from: statement and counterstatement--A B