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1.1 OBJECTIVES
1. Recognize a wide variety of sounds, comparing and contrasting them
using musical elements of pitch, volume, articulation, and timbre.
2. Aurally identify important performing forces (use of the voice and
instruments) of Western music.
3. Dene basic elements of melody, harmony, rhythm, and texture and
build a vocabulary for discussing them.
4. Identify basic principles and types of musical form.
5. Listen to music and describe its musical elements and form.
6. Compare and contrast categories of art music, folk music, and pop music.
7. Identify ways in which humans have used music for social and expressive
purposes.
1.2 KEY TERMS AND INDIVIDUALS
• Accidentals
• Acoustics
• Acoustical Engineer
• Acoustician
• Amplitude
• Beat
• Brass
• Chord
• Chord Progression
• Chromatic
• Composition
• Conjunct
• Consonant
• Cycles per Second (cps)
• Disjunct
• Dissonant
• Dynamics
• Equalization
• Form
• Frequency
1
Music Fundamentals
N. Alan Clark, Thomas Hein, Elizabeth Kramer
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
1.3 WHAT IS MUSIC?
Music moves through time; it is not static. In order to appreciate music we
must remember what sounds happened, and anticipate what sounds might come
next. Most of us would agree that not all sounds are music! Examples of sounds
not typically thought of as music include noises such as alarm sirens, dogs barking,
coughing, the rumble of heating and cooling systems, and the like. But, why? One
might say that these noises lack many of the qualities that we typically associate
with music.
We can dene music as the intentional organization of sounds in time by and
for human beings. Though not the only way to dene music, this denition uses
several concepts important to understandings of music around the world. “Sounds
in time” is the most essential aspect of the denition. Music is distinguished from
• Fundamental Pitch
• Guido of Arezzo
• Improvisation
• Instrumentation
• Interval
• Harmony
• Hertz (Hz)
• Homophonic
• Key
• Keyboard
• Measure
• Melody
• Meter
• Monophonic
• Motive
• Music
• Noise
• Octave
• Overtones
• Partials
• Percussion
• Performing Forces
• Phrase
• Pitch
• Polyphony
• Polyrhythm
• Range
• Register
• Rhythm
• Scale
• Sequence
• SeventhChord
• SineWave
• Sound
• SoundWaves
• Step
• Strings
• Syncopation
• Synthesizers
• Tempo
• Texture
• Timbre
• TimeSignature
• Tonic
• Triad
• Twelve‐BarBlues
• Vocal
• Woodwinds
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
many of the other arts by its temporal quality; its sounds unfold over and through
time, rather than being glimpsed in a moment, so to speak. They are also perceptions
of the ear rather than the eye and thus dicult to ignore; as one can do by closing his
or her eyes to avoid seeing something. It is more dicult for us to close our ears.
Sound moves through time in waves. A sound wave is generated when an object vi-
brates within some medium like air or water. When the wave is received by our ears
it triggers an eect known as sound, as can be seen in the following diagram:
As humans, we also tend to be interested
in music that has a plan, in other words, music
that has intentional organization. Most of us
would not associate coughing or sneezing or unintentionally resting our hand on
a keyboard as the creation of music. Although we may never know exactly what
any songwriter or composer meant by a song, most people think that the sounds of
music must show at least a degree of intentional foresight.
A nal aspect of the denition is its focus on humanity. Bird calls may sound
like music to us; generally the barking of dogs and hum of a heating unit do not.
In each of these cases, though, the sounds are produced by animals or inanimate
objects, rather than by human beings; therefore the focus of this text will only be on
sounds produced by humans.
1.3.1 Acoustics
Acoustics is essentially “the science of sound.” It investigates how sound is
produced and behaves, elements that are essential for the correct design of music
rehearsal spaces and performance venues. Acoustics is also essential for the design
and manufacture of musical instruments. The word itself derives from the Greek
word acoustikos which means “of hearing.” People who work in the eld of acous-
tics generally fall into one of two groups: Acousticians, those who study the the-
ory and science of acoustics, and acoustical engineers, those who work in the
area of acoustic technology. This technology ranges from the design of rooms, such
as classrooms, theatres, arenas, and stadiums, to devices such as microphones,
speakers, and sound generating synthesizers, to the design of musical instruments
like strings, keyboards, woodwinds, brass, and percussion.
1.3.2 Sound and Sound Waves
As early as the sixth century BCE (500 years before the birth of Christ), Pythag-
oras reasoned that strings of dierent lengths could create harmonious (pleasant)
sounds (or tones) when played together if their lengths were related by certain
ratios. Concurrent sounds in ratios of two to three, three to four, four to ve, etc.
Figure 1.1 | Movement of a sound wave
Author | Corey Parson
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
are said to be harmonious. Those not related by harmonious ratios are generally
referred to as noise. About 200 years after Pythagoras, Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
described how sound moves through the air—like the ripples that occur when we
drop a pebble in a pool of water—in what we now call waves. Sound is basically
the mechanical movement of an audible pressure wave through a solid, liquid, or
gas. In physiology and psychology, sound is further dened as the recognition of
the vibration caused by that movement. Sound waves are the rapid movements
back and forth of a vibrating medium—the gas, water, or solid—that has been made
to vibrate.
1.3.3 Properties of Sound: Pitch
Another element that we tend to look for in music is what we call “denite
pitch.” A denite pitch is a tone that is composed of an organized sound wave. A
note of denite pitch is one in which the listener can easily discern the pitch. For
instance, notes produced by a trumpet or piano are of denite pitch. An indenite
pitch is one that consists of a less organized wave and tends to be perceived by the
listener as noise. Examples are notes produced by percussion instruments such as
a snare drum.
Numerous types of music have a
combination of denite pitches, such as
those produced by keyboard and wind
instruments, and indenite pitches, such
as those produced by percussion instru-
ments. That said, most tunes, are com-
posed of denite pitches, and, as we will
see, melody is a key aspect of what most
people hear as music.
The sound waves of denite pitches
may come in many frequencies.
Frequency refers to the repetitions
of a wave pattern over time and is nor-
mally measured in Hertz or cycles per
second (cps). Humans normally detect
types of sound called musical
tones when the vibrations range
from about twenty vibrations
per second (anything slower
sounds like a bunch of clicks)
to about 20,000 vibrations
per second (anything faster is
too high for humans to hear.)
Watch the rst ve minutes of
this excellent explanation of
Figure 1.2 | Two sound waves, the rst an
indenite pitch and the second a denite pitch.
Author | Corey Parson
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
Figure 1.3 | Sine waves of varying frequencies
Author | Corey Parson
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
how dierent types of sounds result from the combination of the partials above
the basic tone. In actuality, all sounds result from dierent variations of this pro-
cess, as it naturally occurs in our environment.
Ex. 1.1: The Audio Kitchen; Sawtooth and Square Waves (2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1gwC8Y0yMU
In the Western world, musicians generally refer to denite pitches by the “mu-
sical alphabet.” The musical alphabet consists of the letters A-G, repeated over and
over again (…ABCDEFGABCDEFGABCDEFG…), as can be seen from this illustra-
tion of the notes on a keyboard. These
notes correspond to a particular frequen-
cy of the sound wave. A pitch with a
sound wave that vibrates 440 times each
second, for example, is what most musi-
cians would hear as an A above middle C.
(Middle C simply refers to the note C that
is located in the middle of the piano key-
board.) As you can see, each white key on
the keyboard is assigned a particular
note, each of which is named after the let-
ters A through G. Halfway between these
notes are black keys, which sound the
sharp and at notes used in Western mu-
sic. This pattern is repeated up and down
the entire keyboard.
SIDEBAR: How Waves Behave
Reection–soundwavesreectoffofhard
surfaces
Absorption–soundwavesareabsorbedby
poroussurfaces
Amplitude–referstohowhighawaveap-
pearsonanoscilloscope;i.e.,howmuchen-
ergyithasandthereforehowlouditis
Frequency – refers to how many times a
wave vibrates each second. This vibrating
speedis measuredusing cyclesper second
(cps)orthemoremodernHertz(Hz)
Figure 1.4 | The keyboard and the musical alphabet.
Author | Corey Parson
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
When a sound wave is generated, it often generates other waves or ripple ef-
fects, depending on the medium through which it travels. When a string of a cer-
tain length is set into motion, for example, its waves may also set other strings of
varying lengths into motion.
The vibration with the low-
est frequency is called the fun-
damental pitch. The addi-
tional denite pitches that are
produced are called overtones,
because they are heard above
or “over” the fundamental pitch
(tone). Our musical alphabet
consists of seven letters repeat-
ed over and over again in corre-
spondence with these overtones.
Please see Figure 1.6 for the par-
tials for the fundamental pitch C:
To return to the musical al-
phabet: the rst partial of the
overtone series is the loudest and
clearest overtone heard “over”
the fundamental pitch. In fact,
the sound wave of the rst overtone partial is vibrating exactly twice as fast as its fun-
damental tone. Because of this, the two tones sound similar, even though the rst
overtone partial is clearly higher in pitch than the fundamental pitch. If you follow the
overtone series, from one partial to the next, eventually you will see that all the other
pitches on the keyboard might be generated from the fundamental pitch and then dis-
placed by octaves to arrive at pitches that move by step (refer to Figure 1.6).
Watch these two videos for an excellent explanation of the harmonic series
from none other than Leonard Bernstein himself, famous conductor of the New
York Philharmonic and composer of the music of West Side Story.
Ex. 1.2: The Harmonic Series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n3qMB6AD_0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDTj6tBnHlA
Figure 1.5 | Overtones of a vibrating string
Author | User “Qef”
Source | Wikimedia Commons
License | Public Domain
Figure 1.6 | Partials of C
Author | User “MusicMaker5376”
Source | Wikimedia Commons
License | CC BY-SA 3.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
The distance between any two of these notes is called an interval. On the pi-
ano, the distance between two of the longer, white key pitches is that of a step.
The longer, white key pitches that are not adjacent are called leaps. The interval
between C and D is that of a second, C and E that of a third, the interval between
C and F that of a fourth, the interval between C and G that of a fth, the interval
of C to A is a sixth, the interval of C to B is a seventh, and the special relationship
between C and C is called an octave.
1.3.4 Other Properties of Sound: Dynamics, Articulation,
and Timbre
The volume of a sound is its dynamic; it corresponds with the amplitude
of the sound wave. The articulation of a sound refers to how it begins and ends,
for example, abruptly, smoothly, gradually, etc. The timbre of a sound is what
we mean when we talk about tone color or tone quality. Because sound is some-
what abstract, we tend to describe it with adjectives typically used for tactile ob-
jects, such as “gravelly” or “smooth,” or adjectives for visual descriptions, such as
“bright” or “metallic.” It is particularly aected by the ambience of the performing
space, that is, by how much echo occurs and where the sound comes from. Timbre
is also shaped by the equalization (EQ), or balance, of the fundamental pitch
and its overtones.
The video below is a great example of two singers whose voices have vastly
dierent timbres. How would you describe Louis Armstrong’s voice? Perhaps you
would call it “rough or “gravelly.” How would you describe Ella Fitzgerald’s voice?
Perhaps it could be called “smooth” or “silky.”
Ex. 1.3: Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2oEmPP5dTM
1.4 MUSIC NOTATION
The development of music notation was absolutely critical to the rise of mu-
sic that used more than just one melody. Everything that has developed in West-
ern music after 1040 CE—from music of many independent voices (polyphonic),
to solo voices with keyboard or group accompaniments, to the popular music we
enjoy today—grew from this development. Though modern scholars have found
examples of written musical symbols as far back as 900 CE, the sta notation sys-
tem developed by Guido of Arezzo and others who followed him allowed for
the accurate preservation and distribution of music. Music notation also greatly
contributed to the growth, development, and evolution of the many musical styles
over the past one thousand years.
Because of his contributions to the development of music notation, Guido of
Arezzo is arguably the most important gure in the development of written music
in the Western world. He developed a system of lines and spaces that enabled mu-
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
sicians to notate the specic notes in a melody. The development of music notation
made it possible for composers to notate their music accurately, allowing others to
perform the music exactly the way each composer intended. This ability allowed
polyphonic (many voiced) music to evolve rapidly after 1040 CE. The video linked
below is an excellent resource that explains Guido’s contributions in more detail.
Ex. 1.4: Guido of Arezzo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxkstaYPztM
The popularity of sta notation after Guido paved the way for the development
of a method to notate rhythm. The system of rhythmic notation we use today in
Western music has evolved over many years and is explained in the following link.
Ex. 1.5: Rhythmic Notation by Andrew Poushka (2003)
http://www.studybass.com/lessons/reading-music/rhythmic-notation
The following prepared college marching band arrangement is adapted from
DJ Khaled’s popular tune “All I Do is Win,” which shows an example of how sta
notation is used today.
1.5 PERFORMING FORCES FOR MUSIC
Music consists of the intentional organization of sounds by and for human be-
ings. In the broadest classication, these sounds are produced by people in three
ways: (1) through the human voice, the instrument with which most of us are born,
(2) by using musical instruments, or (3) by using electronic and digital equipment
to generate purely electronic sounds.
Figure 1.7 | “All I Do Is Win”
Author | N. Alan Clark
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
1.5.1 The Human Voice as a Performing Force
The human voice is the most intimate of all the music instruments in that it is
the one that most of us are innately equipped. We breathe in, and, as we exhale, air
rushes over the vocal chords causing them to vibrate. Depending on the length of
the vocal chords, they will tend to vibrate more slowly or more quickly, creating
pitches of lower or higher frequencies. The muscles in the larynx contract, causing
the vocal chords to close, and air pressure forces them open. This closing and
opening can happen hundreds of times a second. To reach a higher pitch vocal
chords vibrate more rapidly.
Changing the shape of your vocal
cavity allows for dierent timbres and
vowel sounds. Changing the position
of the mouth and lips allows for fur-
ther variety in sound and for the pro-
duction of consonants. Because men
tend to have thicker and longer vocal
chords, they tend to have lower voic-
es than women, whose vocal chords
tend to be shorter and slimmer.
The natural speaking voice ex-
hibits some variation in pitch. One’s
voice often rises at the end of a ques-
tion. When you have a cold and the
vocal chords are swollen, you often
speak in lower pitches than normal.
Singing generally diers from speak-
ing in that it uses a wider range of
denite pitches that often occur in a regular meter (discussed later). By range, we
mean the number of pitches, expressed as an intervallic distance. A trained opera
singer might have a range of three to four octaves, whereas the average person has
a range of a little over an octave.
Additionally, as we speak we generally focus on consonants, which articulate
the beginnings and ends of syllables and help make our meaning plain. In singing,
performers often focus on the vowels, as vowels tend to carry better than conso-
nants. Also, the meaning of the words is sometimes deemed less signicant than
the melodies themselves.
In Western music, voice ranges are typically split into four categories:
1. Bass: lowest male voices; sing in a low register, below middle C (middle
C being the C approximately in the middle of the range of the piano)
2. Tenor: highest male voices; sing in a register around and below middle C
3. Alto: lowest female voices; sing in a register around and above middle C
4. Soprano: highest female voices; sing almost exclusively above middle C
Figure 1.8 | Position of the larynx for various
vowel sounds.
Author | User “Badseed”
Source | Wikimedia Commons
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
Westernclassicalmusictendstouseallfouroftheseranges,whereasmelodicregister
andrangeinjazz,rock,andpoptendstobesomewhatmorelimited.Asyoulistentojazz,
rock,andpop,payattentiontorangesandregistersusedaswellasanytrends.Aremost
femalejazzvocalistsaltosorsopranos?Domostdoo‐wopgroupssinginhigherorlower
registers?Differentmusicalvoicesexhibitdifferentmusicaltimbresaswell,asyouheard
earlierwithLouisArmstrongandEllaFitzgerald.
1.5.2 Musical Instruments as Performing Forces
Humans have been making music with bone, stone, wood, textiles, pottery, and
metals for over 35,000 years. A musical instrument is any mechanism, other than
the voice, that produces musical sounds. As we study jazz, rock, and pop we will
be listening to two types of musical instruments, purely acoustic instruments and
electronic instruments.
A purely acoustic instrument is an instrument whose sound is created and pro-
jected through natural acoustic characteristics of its media. Thus, when one hits
wood or bone or stone or metal, one sends vibrations through it which might be
amplied by use of a small chamber like a sound box or a gourd. When one plucks a
string, one creates sound waves that might be amplied through a piece of wood or
box of wood, such as one nds in an acoustic guitar or violin. As with the voice, the
larger the instrument, the deeper the pitches it plays—consider for example, the
cello versus the violin. Instruments also dier in their ranges, some being able to
produce a wide variety of notes while others are much more restricted in the pitch-
es that they can play. (For example, the piano has a range of over seven octaves,
while the saxophone normally plays only two and a half).
The timbre of a sound coming from a musical instrument is aected by the
materials used and the way in which the sound is produced. Based on these two
characteristics, we categorize acoustic instruments into ve groups: strings, wood-
winds, brass, percussion, and keyboard.
1. Strings: instruments whose sound is produced by setting strings in motion.
These strings can be set in motion by plucking the strings with your nger,
or a pick (a piece of plastic). They can also be set in motion by bowing. In
bowing, the musician draws a bow across the string, creating friction and
resulting in a sustained note. Most bows consist of horse hair held together
on each end by a piece of wood. String examples: violins; violas; violoncellos;
string bass (also known as double bass or stand-up bass); classical, acoustic,
and bass guitars; harps. For more information and listening examples of the
Figure 1.9 | Horsehair Bow
Author | User “Feitscherg”
Source | Wikimedia Commons
License | CC BY-SA 3.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
dierent orchestral string instruments, go to http://www.philharmonia.
co.uk/explore/instruments. Click on the individual instruments for an
introduction and demonstration of the instrument.
2. Woodwinds: instruments traditionally made of wood whose sound
is generated by forcing air through a tube, thus creating a vibrating
air column. This can be done in one of several ways. The air can travel
directly through an opening in the instrument, as in a ute. The air
can pass through an opening between a reed and a wooden or metal
mouthpiece as in a saxophone or clarinet, or between two reeds as in
a bassoon or oboe. Although many woodwind instruments are in fact
made of wood, there are exceptions. Instruments such as the saxophone
and the modern ute are made of metal while some clarinets are made
of plastic. These instruments are still considered woodwinds because
the ute was traditionally made of wood and the saxophone and clarinet
still use a wooden reed to produce the tone. Woodwind examples: ute,
clarinet, oboe, bassoon. For more information and listening examples
of the dierent orchestral woodwind instruments, go to http://www.
philharmonia.co.uk/explore/instruments. Click on the individual
instruments for an introduction and demonstration of the instrument.
3. Brass: instruments traditionally made of brass or another metal (and
thus often producing a “bright” or “brassy” tone) whose sound is generated
by “buzzing” (vibrating the lips together) into a mouthpiece attached to
a coiled tube. This “buzzing” sets the air within the tube vibrating. The
pitches are normally amplied by a ared bell at the end of the tube.
Brass examples: trumpet, bugle, cornet, trombone, (French) horn, tuba,
and euphonium. For more information and listening examples of the
dierent orchestral brass instruments, go to http://www.philharmonia.
co.uk/explore/instruments. Click on the individual instruments for an
introduction and demonstration of the instrument.
4. Percussion: instruments that are typically hit or struck by the hand, with
sticks, or with hammers, or that are shaken or rubbed. Some percussion
instruments (such as the vibraphone) play denite pitches, but many play
indenite pitches. The standard drum set used in many jazz and rock
ensembles, for example, consists of mostly indenite-pitch instruments.
Percussion examples: drum set, agogo bells (double bells), glockenspiel,
xylophone, vibraphone, bass drum, snare or side drum, maracas, claves,
cymbals, gong, triangle, tambourine. For more information and listening
examples of the dierent orchestral percussion instruments, go to http://
www.philharmonia.co.uk/explore/instruments. Click on the individual
instruments for an introduction and demonstration of the instrument.
5. Keyboards: instruments that produce sound by pressing, or striking
keys on a keyboard. The keys set air moving by the hammering of a
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
string (in the case of the piano) or by the opening and closing of a pipe
through which air is pushed (as in the case of the vibraphone, organ,
and accordion). All of these instruments have the capacity of playing
more than one musical line at the same time. Keyboard examples: piano,
organ, vibraphone, and accordion. For more information and listening
examples of the dierent orchestral keyboard instruments, go to http://
www.philharmonia.co.uk/explore/instruments. The keyboard link is
found within the percussion instruments.
1.5.3 Non-acoustic instruments
Electric sounds and instruments: instruments can be electric in several
ways. In some cases, an acoustic instrument, such as the guitar, violin, or piano
may be played near a microphone that feeds into an amplier. In this case, the
instrument is not electric. In other cases, ampliers are embedded in or placed
onto the body of an acoustic instrument. In still other cases, acoustic instruments
are altered to facilitate the amplication of their music. Thus, solid body violins,
guitars, and basses may stand in for their hollow-bodied cousins.
Another category of electronic instru-
ments are those that produce sound through
purely electronic or digital means. Synthe-
sizers and the modern electric keyboard, as
well as beat boxes, are examples of electron-
ic instruments that use wave generators or
digital signals to produce tones.
Synthesizers are electronic instru-
ments (often in keyboard form) that create
sounds using basic wave forms in dierent
combinations. The rst commercially avail-
able compact synthesizers marketed for
musical performance were designed and
built by Dr. Robert Moog in the mid-1960s.
A staple of twenty-rst century music,
synthesizers are widely used in popular
music and movie music. Their sounds
are everywhere in our society. Synthe-
sizers are computers that combine tones of
dierent frequencies. These combinations of frequencies result in complex sounds
that do not exist in nature. Listen to the recording below of Bjork, which incorpo-
rates a live band with a variety of strange and interesting synthesized sounds.
Ex. 1.6: Björk – Voltaic Paris HD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeKAVX2s6hM
Figure 1.10 | Early Minimoog by R. A. Moog
Inc. (ca. 1970)
Author | User “glacial23”
Source | Wikimedia Commons
License | CC BY-SA 2.0
SIDEBAR: Moog - Inventor of
the Synthesizer
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=y5HRa9nEVVU
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
Solid-state electronics have enabled the synthesizer to shrink in size from its
early days in the 1970s. Compare the number of electronic components in the pho-
to of Keith Emerson’s “rig” with the much smaller keyboard synthesizers used by
Chick Corea linked below.
Ex. 1.7: Emerson, Lake, and Palmer – “Tarkus” 1971
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpvOVNfu4VQ
Ex. 1.8: Chick Corea, Live at North Sea Jazz 2003
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL34LYIWQ6M
Synthesizers can also be used to imitate the complex sounds of real instru-
ments, making it possible for a composer to create music and have it played with-
out having to hire a real orchestra. The video below features music created using
sample-based synthesis, a method that incorporates recorded audio “samples” to
approximate the sound of an orchestra through a computer.
Ex. 1.9: Vienna Symphonic Library
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwbgp26g-QQ
Many photographs of all dierent types of instruments may be found using
Google images.
1.6 NEW RECORDING TECHNOLOGIES
Today, the ability to make high quality recordings is within the reach of any-
one with a laptop and a microphone. But only a few years ago, recordings were an
expensive endeavor available only to those with the nancial backing of a record
label. Musicians of the twenty-rst century have access not only to recording tech-
nologies, but also to new and cutting-edge tools that are fundamentally changing
how music is created, enjoyed, and disseminated. The synthesizer discussed above
can be a recording technology, but there are others such as Auto-Tune.
1.6.1 Auto-Tune and
Looping
Auto-Tune is a technique
originally invented to correct
for intonation mistakes in vo-
cal performances. However, the
technique quickly evolved into
a new form of expression, al-
lowing singers to add expressive
ourishes to their singing. Even-
Figure 1.11 | Boss RC-50 Loop Station
Author | User “Massygo”
Source | Wikimedia Commons
License | CC BY 2.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
tually, the technique was used to turn regular speech into music, making it possi-
ble to create music out of everyday sounds. Listen to the clip below of the musical
group, the Gregory Brothers, who regularly use Auto-Tune to create songs from
viral Internet videos and news clips.
Ex. 1.10: Obama Mixtape: 1999 - Songify the News Special Edition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq1FIvUHtt0
Looping is another technique that musicians now use to create music on the
spot. The technique involves recording audio samples which are then repeated or
“looped” over and over again to a single beat. The performer then adds new loops
over the old ones to create complex musical backdrops. The clip below features a
street musician named Dub FX, who uses only his voice, a loop pedal, and some
audio eects to replicate the eect of a full band.
Ex. 1.11: Dub FX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvyDy15vW6U
1.7 MELODY
The melody of a song is often its most distinctive characteristic. The ancient
Greeks believed that melody spoke directly to the emotions. Melody is the part of
the song that we hum or whistle, the tune that might get stuck in our heads. A more
scientic denition of melody might go as follows: melody is the coherent suc-
cession of denite pitches in time. Any given melody has range, register, motion,
shape, and phrases. Often, the melody also has rhythmic organization.
The rst of these characteristics, range, is one that we’ve already encountered
as we talked about pitch. The range of a melody is the distance between its lowest
and highest notes. We talk about melodies having narrow or wide ranges. Register
is also a concept we discussed in relation to pitch. Melodies can be played at a va-
riety of registers: low, medium, high.
As melodies progress, they move through their given succession of pitches.
Each pitch is a certain distance from the previous one and the next. Melodies that
are meant to be sung tend to move by small intervals, especially by intervals of
seconds or steps. A tune that moves predominantly by step is a stepwise melody.
Other melodies have many larger intervals that we might describe as “skips” or
“leaps.” When these leaps are particularly wide and with rapid changes in direction
(that is, the melody ascends and then descends and then ascends and so forth), we
say that the melody is disjunct. Conversely, a melody that moves mostly by step,
in a smoother manner—perhaps gradually ascending and then gradually descend-
ing—might be called conjunct.
Shape is a visual metaphor that we apply to melodies. Think of a tune that you
know and like: it might be a pop tune, it might be from a musical, or it might be a song
you recall from childhood. Does it correspond with any of the shapes in Figure 1.12?
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
In other words, do the pitches of the melody primarily ascend; shape A? De-
scend; shape B? Oscillate, much like a wave; shape C? Ascend, arch up, and then
descend; shape D? These are shapes that we might hear unfolding over time. As
we think back to a melody that we know, we can replay it in our mind and visualize
the path that it traces.
Sing the childhood tune “Row, Row, Row Your
Boat” to yourself. Which shape from Figure 1.12 do you
think it is most like? “D” is the best answer. Now look
at the musical notation for “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”
Even if you can’t read music, hopefully you can see how the note heads trace an
arch-like shape, similar to the shape labeled “D” in Figure 1.12. Most melodies have
smaller sub-sections called phrases. These phrases function somewhat like phras-
es in a sentence. They are complete thoughts, although generally lacking a sense of
conclusion. In the song “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” the music corresponding with
the words “Row, row, row your boat,” might be heard as the rst phrase and “gently
down the stream,” as the second phrase. “Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,” com-
prises a third phrase, and “life is but a dream,” a fourth, and nal, phrase.
Melodies are also composed of motives. A motive is the smallest musical unit,
generally a single rhythm of two or three pitches. In “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,”
the music set to “merrily” might be heard as a motive. Motives repeat, often in se-
A
B
C
D
Figure 1.12 | Melodic Shapes
Author | Corey Parson
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
Figure 1.13 | “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”
Author | Arranged by N. Alan Clark
Source | Traditional Melody
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
quence. A sequence is a repetition of a motive or phrase at a dierent pitch level.
Thus, in “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” the rst time you hear “merrily” is when it
is at the top of the melody’s range. The next time, it is a bit lower in pitch, the next
time a bit lower still, and the nal time you hear the word, it is sung to the lowest
pitch of the melody. Another song that you might know that has sequences is “My
Country, ‘Tis of Thee.”
Ex. 1.12: Mormon Tabernacle Choir “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” (2014)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWJI0oA7fLM
1.8 HARMONY
Most simply put, harmony is the way a melody is accompanied. It refers to
the vertical aspect of music and is concerned with the dierent music sounds that
occur in the same moment. Western music culture has developed a complex sys-
tem to govern the simultaneous sounding of pitches. Some of its most complex
harmonies appear in jazz, while other forms of popular music tend to have fewer
and simpler harmonies.
We call the simultaneous sounding of three or more pitches a chord. Like in-
tervals, chords can be consonant or dissonant. Consonant intervals and chords
tend to sound sweet and pleasing to our ears. They also convey a sense of stability
in the music. Dissonant intervals and chords tend to sound harsher to our ears,
and often convey a sense of tension or instability. In general, dissonant intervals
and chords tend to resolve to consonant intervals and chords. Seconds, sevenths,
and tri-tones sound dissonant and resolve to consonance. While some of the most
consonant intervals are unisons, octaves, thirds, sixths, fourths, and fths. From
the perspective of physics, consonant intervals and chords are simpler than disso-
nant intervals and chords. However, the fact that most individuals in the Western
world hear consonance as sweet and dissonance as harsh probably has as much to
do with our musical socialization as with the physical properties of sound.
A listening example of consonance may be found at the following links:
http://real.darton.edu/faculty/kluball/MUSC1100/Question 11.mp3
http://real.darton.edu/faculty/kluball/MUSC1100/Question 23.mp3

An example of dissonance may be found at the following links:
http://real.darton.edu/faculty/kluball/MUSC1100/Question 9.mp3
http://real.darton.edu/faculty/kluball/MUSC1100/Question 10.mp3
The triad is a chord that has three pitches. On top of its root pitch is stacked
another pitch at the interval of a third higher than the root. On top of that second
pitch, another pitch is added, another third above. If you add a fourth pitch that is
a third above the previous pitch, you arrive at a seventh chord. (You may be
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
wondering why we call chords with three notes “triads” and notes with four chords
“seventh chords.” Why not “fourth chords?” The reason has to do with the fact that
the extra note is the “seventh” note in the scale from which the chord is derived.
(We will get to scales shortly.) Seventh chords are dissonant chords. They are so
common in jazz, however, that they do not always sound like they need to resolve
to consonant chords, as one might expect. One also nds chords with other addi-
tional tones in jazz: for example, ninth chords, eleventh chords, and thirteenth
chords. These chords are related by stacking additional thirds on top of the chord.
Key (sometimes called “tonality”) is closely related to both melody and har-
mony. The key of a song or composition refers to the pitches that it uses. A key is a
collection of pitches, much like you might have with a collection of stamps, bottles,
etc. The most important pitch of a key is its tonic, that is, the note from which the
other pitches are derived. For example, a composition in C major has C as its ton-
ic; a composition in A minor has A as its tonic; a blues in the key of G has G as its
tonic. A key is governed by its scale. A scale is a series of pitches, ordered by the
interval between its notes. There are a variety of types of scales. Every major scale,
whether it is D major or C major or G-sharp major, has pitches related by the same
intervals in the same order. Likewise, the pitches of every minor scale comprise
the same intervals in the same order. The same could be said for a variety of other
scales that are found in jazz, rock, and popular music, including the blues scale and
the pentatonic scale.
C-major scale C D E F G A B C
A-minor scale A B C D E F G A
Blues scale on A A C D E G A
(E-flat)
Table 1.1: C major scale, A minor scale, Blues scale on A
Major and minor scales are most often found in Western music today. The
dierence of sound in the major scale as opposed to the minor scale is in the per-
ception of the sound. Major sounds relatively bright and happy. “Happy birthday”
and “Joy to the World” (the Christmas Carol) are based on the major mode.
Figure 1.14 | Seventh, ninth, and eleventh chords in musical notation
Author | Corey Parson
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
Examples of Major scales excerpts may be heard at the following links:
http://real.darton.edu/faculty/kluball/MUSC1100/Question 14.mp3
http://real.darton.edu/faculty/kluball/MUSC1100/Question 3.mp3
Minor sounds relatively more subdued, sad, or melancholy. The Christmas
Carol “We Three Kings” is in the minor mode.
Examples of Minor mode excerpts may be heard at the following links:
http://real.darton.edu/faculty/kluball/MUSC1100/Question 24.mp3
http://real.darton.edu/faculty/kluball/MUSC1100/Question 16.mp3
You might note that the simplest form of the blues scale (Table 1.1) is a type
of pentatonic or ve-note scale. This reects the origins of the blues in folk music;
much of the folk music around the world uses pentatonic scales. You might also
note that the blues scale on A, has a note suspended below it, an E-at (a pitch
that is a half-step higher than D and a half-step lower than E). Otherwise, it is
devoid of its blue notes. Blue notes are pitches that are sometimes added to blues
scales and blues pieces. The most important blues note in the key of A is E-at. In
a sense, blues notes are examples of accidentals. Accidentals are notes that are
not normally found in a given key. For example, F-sharp and B-at are accidentals
in the key of C. Accidentals are sometimes called chromatic pitches: the word
chromatic comes from the ancient Greek word meaning color, and accidentals and
chromatic pitches add color and excitement to a composition.
Chords can be built on every pitch of a scale. See Table 1.2 for the triads of C
major.
C D E F G A B
E F g A B c D
G A b C D e F
I ii iii IV V vi vii
o
Table 1.2: Chords of C Major
One can build seventh chords on these same pitches, by simply adding pitches.
In the key of C major, the C major triad is considered the tonic triad (I), because it is
built on the tonic of the key. Every other chord in C major tends to resolve to the tonic
chord. The two next important chords are the F chord, which we call the IV chord or
subdominant, and the G chord, which we call the V chord or dominant. Popular music
also uses the VI chord a lot. The chords of a key tend to progress in an orderly fashion.
Certain chords tend to resolve to other chords. The dominant or V chord, normally re-
solves directly to the tonic or I chord. We call a series of chords a chord progression.
One of the most important chord progressions for jazz and rock is the blues
progression.
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
In the blues, the tonic chord (I) moves to the subdominant chord (IV) and then
back to the tonic chord (I) before moving to the dominant chord (V) and nally
back to the tonic (I). This often happens in the space of twelve bars or measures
and thus this progression is sometimes called the twelve-bar blues. In the key of
D, it would look like the following:
Root of the chord D G D A G
Chord Symbol I (IV) I V (IV)
Number of bars 4 2 2 2 2
Table1.3:Twelve-barbluesinthekeyofD
As you can see, sometimes the dominant chord (V) briey shifts back to the sub-
dominant chord (IV) before nally resolving to the tonic chord.
Chord progressions play a major role in structuring jazz, rock, and popular mu-
sic, cueing the listener to beginnings, middles, and ends of phrases and the song
as a whole. Chord progressions in particular, and harmony in general, may be the
most challenging aspects of music for the beginner. Hearing chords and chord pro-
gressions requires that one recognize several music phenomena at the same time.
Chords may change rapidly, and a listener has to be ready to move on to the next
chord as the music progresses.
The best way to learn to hear harmonies is to start with simple examples and
ask general questions. Listen to “Light My Fire” (1967) by the Doors, using the
link below. See if you can hear the general dierence between the verses, which
use mostly minor chords, and the chorus, which uses mostly major chords. If you
continue to listen, you will eventually be able to hear both.
Ex. 1.13: The Doors, “Light my Fire” (1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deB_u-to-IE
1.9 RHYTHM
When you think of the word rhythm, the rst thing that might pop into your
head is a drum beat. But rhythm goes much deeper than that. Earlier, we dened
music as intentional organization of sounds. Rhythm is the way the music is or-
ganized in respect to time. It works in tandem with melody and harmony to create
a feeling of order. The most fundamental aspect of rhythm is the beat, which is
the basic unit of time in music. It is the consistent pulse of the music, just like your
heartbeat creates a steady, underlying pulse within your body. The beat is what you
tap your feet to when you listen to music. Imagine the beat as a series of equidis-
tant dots passing through time as in the Figure 1.15.
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
It should be noted that the beat does not measure exact time like the second
hand on a clock. It is instead a uid unit that changes depending on the music
being played. The speed at which the beat is played is called the tempo. At quick
tempos, the beats pass by quickly, as represented by Figure 1.16 below showing our
beats pressed against each other in time.
At slow tempos, the beats pass by slowly, as seen in Figure 1.17 showing our
beats with plenty of space between them.
Composers often indicate tempo markings by writing musical terms such as
“allegro” which indicates that the piece should be played at a quick, or brisk, tem-
po. In other cases, composers will write the tempo markings in beats per minute
(BPM), when they want more precise tempos. Either way, the tempo is one of the
major factors in establishing the character of a piece. Slow tempos are used in ev-
erything from sweeping love songs to the dirges associated with sadness or death.
Take for example, Chopin’s famous funeral march:
Ex. 1.14: Chopin “Piano Sonata Op.35 No.2”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgw_RD_1_5I
Fast tempos can help to evoke anything from bouncy happiness to frenzied
madness. One memorable example of a fast tempo occurs in “Flight of the Bum-
blebee,” an orchestral interlude written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for his opera
The Tale of Tsar Saltan, which evokes the busy buzzing of a bee.
Ex. 1.15: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov “Flight of the Bumblebee”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYAJopwEYv8
Figure 1.15 | The Beat
Author | Thomas Hein
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
Figure 1.16 | Fast Tempos
Author | Thomas Hein
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
Figure 1.17 | Slow Tempos
Author | Thomas Hein
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
Beats are the underlying pulse behind music, while meter refers to the way in
which those beats are grouped together in a piece. Each individual grouping is
called a measure or a bar (referring to the bar lines that divide measures in writ-
ten music notation). Most music is written in either duple meter (groupings of
two), triple meter (groupings of three), or quadruple meter (groupings of four).
These meters are conveyed by stressing or “accenting” the rst beat of each group-
ing. In the gure below, you can see examples of triple and quadruple meter. The
rst beat of each bar is larger than the rest to indicate this accent. These larger
beats are often referred to as strong beats, while the smaller beats between them.
are referred to as weak beats.
To illustrate how vital rhythm is to a piece of music, let’s investigate the simple
melody “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Below, the melody and chords are conveyed
through standard musical notation. The meter is indicated by the two numbers
four over four. (This is known to music readers as the time signature.) This par-
ticular time signature is also known as “common time” due to the fact that it is so
widely used. The top number indicates the meter, or how many beats there are per
Triple Meter
Inmodernmusicalnotation:
Duple Meter
In modern musical notation:
Quadruple Meter
In modern musical notation:
Figure 1.18 | Meter
Author | Thomas Hein
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
measure. The bottom number indicates which type of note in modern musical no-
tation will represent that beat (in this case, it is the quarter note). The vertical lines
are there to indicate each individual measure. As you can see, the melody on the
top sta and the chords on the bottom sta line up correctly in time due to the fact
that they are grouped into measures together. In this way, rhythm is the element
that binds music together in time.
One way to add a sense of rhythmic variation to music is through the use of
syncopation. Syncopation refers to the act of shifting of the normal accent, usu-
ally by stressing the normally unaccented weak beats or placing the accent between
the beats themselves as illustrated in Figure 1.20.
Syncopation is one of the dening features of ragtime and jazz, and is one aspect of
rhythmic bounce associated with those genres of music. In Figure 1.21 below, it is the
circled notes on the weak beats which are accented or emphasized.
Figure 1.19 | “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
Author | Arranged by Thomas Hein
Source | Traditional Melody
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
Figure 1.20 | Syncopation
Author | Thomas Hein
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
Figure 1.21 | “The Entertainer” by Scott Joplin
Author | Corey Parson
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
In some cases, certain types of music may feature the use of a polyrhythm,
which simply refers to two or more dierent rhythms being played at the same
time. A common polyrhythm might pit a feeling of four against a feeling of three.
Polyrhythms are often associated with the music of Africa. However, they can be
found in American and European music of the twentieth century, such as jazz.
Listen to the example below of Duke Ellington playing his signature song, the
Billy Strayhorn composition “Take the A Train.” You will notice that the beats in
the piece are grouped as four beats per measure. Pay special attention to what
happens at 1:32 in the video. The horns begin to imply groupings of three beats
(or triple meter) on top of the existing four beat groupings (or quadruple meter).
These concurrent groupings create a sense of rhythmic tension that leads the band
into the next section of the piece at 1:38 in the video.
Ex. 1.16: Duke Ellington “Take the A Train”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRGFqSkNjHk
1.10 TEXTURE
Texture refers to the ways in which musical lines of a musical piece interact. We
use a variety of general adjectives to describe musical texture, words such as trans-
parent, dense, thin, thick, heavy, and light. We also use three specic musical terms
to describe texture: monophony, homophony, and polyphony. Of these three terms,
homophony and polyphony are most important for jazz, rock, and popular music.
Monophonic music is music that has one melodic line. This one melodic line
may be sung by one person or 100 people. The important thing is that they are all
singing the same melody, either in unison or in octaves. Monophony is rare in jazz,
rock, and popular music. An example would be a folk melody that is sung by one
person or a group of people without any accompaniment from instruments. Grego-
rian chant is another excellent example of monophonic music.
Ex. 1.17: Gregorian Chant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ElL8hdQD_4
Homophonic music is music that has one melodic line that is accompanied
by chords. A lot of rock and popular music has a homophonic texture. Anytime the
tune is the most important aspect of a song, it is likely to be in homophonic texture.
Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” (1956), The Carter Family’s version of “Can the Circle
Figure 1.22 | Polyrhythm
Author | Thomas Hein
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
be Unbroken” (1935), and Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” (1973), are relatively good ex-
amples of homophony.
Polyphony simultaneously features two or more relatively independent and
important melodic lines. Dixieland jazz and bebop are often polyphonic, as is the
music of jam bands such as the Allman Bros. “Anthropology” (ca. 1946) for exam-
ple, a jazz tune recorded by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and others reects the
busy polyphony typical in bebop. Some jazz played by larger ensembles, such as big
bands, is also polyphonic at points, although in this case, there is generally a strong
sense of a main melody. Much of the music that we will study in this text exists some-
where between homophony and polyphony. Some music will have a strong main
melody, suggesting homophony, and yet have interesting countermelodies that one
would expect in polyphony. Much rap is composed of many layers of sounds, but at
times those layers are not very transparent, as one would expect in polyphony.
1.11 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
1.11.1 Form in Music
When we talk about musical form, we are talking about the organization of musi-
cal elements—melody, harmony, rhythm, texture, timbre—in time. Because music is
a temporal art, memory plays an important role in how we experience musical form.
Memory allows us to hear repetition, contrast, and variation in music. And it is these
elements that provide structure, coherence, and shape to musical compositions.
A composer or songwriter brings myriad experiences of music, accumulated
over a lifetime, to the act of writing music. He or she has learned how to write music
by listening to, playing, and studying music. He or she has picked up, consciously
and/or unconsciously, a number of ways of structuring music. The composer may
intentionally write music modeled after another group’s music: this happens all of
the time in the world of popular music where the aim is to produce music that will
be disseminated to as many people as possible. In other situations, a composer
might use musical forms of an admired predecessor as an act of homage or simply
because that is “how it’s always been done.” We nd this happening a great deal
in the world of folk music, where a living tradition is of great importance. The mu-
sic of the “classical” period (1775-1825) is rich with musical forms as heard in the
works of masters such as Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In fact,
form plays a vital role in most Western art music (discussed later in the chapter) all
the way into the twenty-rst century. We will discuss these forms, such as the ron-
do and sonata-allegro, in later chapters, but for the purpose of this introduction,
we will focus on those that might be more familiar to the modern listener.
1.11.2 The Twelve-Bar Blues
Many compositions that on the surface sound very dierent use similar mu-
sical forms. A large number of jazz compositions, for example, follow either the
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
twelve-bar blues or an AABA form. The twelve-bar blues features a chord progres-
sion of I-IV-I-V-IV-I. Generally the lyrics follow an AAB pattern, that is, a line of
text (A) is stated once, repeated (A), and then followed by a response statement (B).
The melodic idea used for the statement (B) is generally slightly dierent from that
used for the opening a phrases (A). This entire verse is sung over the I-IV-I-V-IV-I
progression. The next verse is sung over the same pattern, generally to the same
melodic lines, although the singer may vary the notes in various places occasionally.
Listen to Elvis Presley’s version of “Hound Dog” (1956) using the link below, and
follow the chart below to hear the blues progression.
Ex. 1.18: Elvis Presley “Hound Dog” (1956)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZdC6oQKU-w
This blues format is one example of what we might call musical form. It should
be mentioned that the term “blues” is used somewhat loosely and is sometimes
used to describe a tune with a “bluesy” sound, even though it may not follow the
twelve-bar blues form. The blues is vitally important to American music because it
inuenced not only later jazz but also rhythm and blues and rock and roll.
1.11.3 AABA Form
Another important form to jazz and popular music is AABA form. Sometimes this
is also called thirty-two-bar form; in this case, the form has thirty-two measures or
bars, much like a twelve-bar blues has twelve measures or bars. This form was used
widely in songs written for Tin Pan Alley, Vaudeville, and musicals from the 1910s
through the 1950s. Many so-called jazz standards spring from that repertoire. Inter-
estingly, these popular songs generally had an opening verse and then a chorus. The
chorus was a section of thirty-two-bar form, and often the part that audiences remem-
bered. Thus, the chorus was what jazz artists took as the basis of their improvisations.
“(Somewhere) Over the Rainbow,” as sung by Judy Garland in 1939 (accompanied
by Victor Young and his Orchestra), is a well-known tune that is in thirty-two-bar form.
Chords:Lyrics:
You ain’t nothin but a hound dog,
cryin’ all the time
When they said you was high
classed, well that was just a lie.
You ain’t nothin but a hound dog,
cryin’ all the time
When they said you was high
classed, well that was just a lie.
Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit,
and you ain’t no friend of mine.
You ain’t never caught a rabbit and
you ain’t no friend of mine.
Figure 1.23 | Format Breakdown of Elvis’s “Hound Dog”
Author | Thomas Hein
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
Ex. 1.19: Judy Garland “(Somewhere) Over the Rainbow” (1939)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSZxmZmBfnU
After an introduction of four bars, Garland enters with the opening line of the
text, sung to melody A. “Somewhere over the rainbow way up high, there’s a land
that I heard of once in a lullaby.” This opening line and melody lasts for eight bars.
The next line of the text is sung to the same melody (still eight bars long) as the
rst line of text. “Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue, and the dreams that
you dare to dream really do come true.” The third part of the text is contrasting in
character. Where the rst two lines began with the word “somewhere,” the third
line begins with “someday.” Where the rst two lines spoke of a faraway place,
the third line focuses on what will happen to the singer. “Someday I’ll wish upon
a star, and wake up where the clouds are far, behind me. Where troubles melt like
lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that’s where you’ll nd me.” It is sung
to a contrasting melody B and is eight bars long. This B section is also sometimes
called the “bridge” of a song. The opening a melody returns for a nal time, with
words that begin by addressing that faraway place dreamed about in the rst two
A sections and that end in a more personal way, similar to the sentiments in the
B section. “Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds y. Birds y over the rainbow.
Why then, oh why can’t I?” This section is also eight bars long, adding up to a total
of thirty-two bars for the AABA form.
Although we’ve heard the entire thirty-two-bar form, the song is not over. The
arranger added a conclusion to the form that consists of one statement of the A
section, played by the orchestra (note the prominent clarinet solo); another re-
statement of the A section, this time with the words from the nal statement of the
A section the rst time; and four bars from the B section or bridge: “If happy little
bluebirds…Oh why can’t I.” This is a good example of one way in which musicians
have taken a standard form and varied it slightly to provide interest. Now listen to
the entire recording one more time, seeing if you can keep up with the form.
1.11.4 Verse and Chorus Forms
Most popular music features a mix of verses and choruses. A chorus is nor-
mally a set of lyrics that recur to the same music within a given song. A chorus is
sometimes called a refrain. A verse is a set of lyrics that are generally, although not
always, just heard once over the course of a song.
In a simple verse-chorus form, the same music is used for the chorus and for
each verse. “Can the Circle Be Unbroken” (1935) by The Carter Family is a good
example of a simple verse-chorus form. Many childhood songs and holiday songs
also use a simple verse-chorus song.
Ex. 1.20: The Carter Family “Can the Circle Be Unbroken” (1935)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjHjm5sRqSA
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
In a simple verse form, there are no choruses. Instead, there is a series of vers-
es, each sung to the same music. Hank Williams’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”
(1949) is one example of a simple verse form. After Williams sings two verses, each
sixteen bars long, there is an instrumental verse, played by guitar. Williams sings a
third verse followed by another instrumental verse, this time also played by guitar.
Williams then ends the song with a nal verse.
Ex. 1.21: Hank Williams: I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (1949)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyTOZCfp8OY
A contrasting verse-chorus form features dierent music for its chorus than for
the statement of its verse(s). “Light my Fire” by the Doors is a good example of a
contrasting verse-chorus form. In this case, each of the two verses are repeated one
time, meaning that the overall form looks something like: intro, verse 1, chorus,
verse 2, chorus, verse 2, chorus, verse 1, chorus. You can listen to “Light my Fire”
by clicking on the link below.
Ex. 1.22: The Doors, “Light my Fire” (1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deB_u-to-IE
Naturally, there are many other forms that music might take. As you listen to the
music you like, pay attention to its form. You might be surprised by what you hear!
1.11.5 Composition and Improvisation
Music from every culture is made up of some combination of the musical ele-
ments. Those elements may be combined using one of two major processes; com-
position and improvisation.
Composition
Composition is the process whereby a musician notates musical ideas using
a system of symbols or using some other form of recording. We call musicians who
use this process “composers.” When composers preserve their musical ideas using
notation or some form of recording, they intend for their music to be reproduced
the same way every time.
Listen to the recording of Mozart’s music linked below. Every element of the
music was carefully notated by Mozart so that each time the piece is performed, it
can be performed exactly the same way.
Ex. 1.23: Mozart “Piano Sonata K.457 in C minor” (1989)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrUH5VAetEg
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
Improvisation
Improvisation is a dierent process. It is the process whereby musicians
create music spontaneously using the elements of music. Improvisation still re-
quires the musician to follow a set of rules. Often the set of rules has to do with
the scale to be used, the rhythm to be used, or other musical requirements using
the musical elements.
Listen to the example of Louis Armstrong below. Armstrong is performing a style
of early New Orleans jazz in which the entire group improvises to varying degrees
over a set musical form and melody. The piece starts out with a statement of the
original melody by the trumpet, with Armstrong varying the rhythm of the original
written melody as well as adding melodic embellishments. At the same time, the
trombone improvises supporting notes that outline the harmony of the song and the
clarinet improvises a completely new melody designed to complement the main mel-
ody of the trumpet. The rhythm section of piano, bass, and drums are improvising
their accompaniment underneath the horn players, but are doing so within the strict
chord progression of the song. The overall eect is one in which you hear the indi-
vidual expressions of each player, but can still clearly recognize the song over which
they are improvising. This is followed by Armstrong interpreting the melody. Next
we hear individual solos improvised on the clarinet, the trombone, and the trumpet.
The piece ends when Armstrong sings the melody one last time.
Ex. 1.24: Louis Armstrong, “When the Saints Go Marching In” (1961)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WADCJ4_KmU
Composition and Improvisation Combined
In much of the popular music we hear today, like jazz and rock, both improvi-
sation and composition are combined. Listen to the example linked below of Miles
Davis playing “All Blues.” The trumpet and two saxophones play an arrangement
of a composed melody, then each player improvises using the scale from which the
melody is derived. This combined structure is one of the central features of the jazz
style and is also often used in many popular music compositions.
Ex. 1.25: Miles Davis “All Blues” (1949)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRBgy43gCoQ
1.11.6 Music and Categories
Categorizing anything can be dicult, as items often do not completely t
in the boxes we might design for them. Still, categorizing is a human exercise by
which we attempt to see the big picture and compare and contrast the phenome-
non we encounter, so that we can make larger generalizations. By categorizing mu-
sic we can attempt to better understand ways in which music has functioned in the
past and continues to function today. Three categories which are often used in
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
talking about music are (1) art music, (2) folk music, and (3) popular music. These
categories can be seen in the Venn diagram below:
Much of the music that we consider in this book falls into the sphere of art
music in some way or form. It is also sometimes referred to as classical music and
has a written musical tradition. Composers of art music typically hope that their
creative products will be played for many years. Art music is music that is nor-
mally learned through specialized training over a period of many years. It is often
described as music that stands the test of time. For example, today, if you go to a
symphony orchestra concert you will likely hear music composed over a hundred
years ago.
Folk music is another form of music that has withstood the test of time, but in
a dierent way. Folk music derives from a particular culture and is music that one
might be expected to learn from a family at a young age. Although one can study
folk music, the idea is that it is accessible to all; it generally is not written down in
musical notation until it becomes an object of scholarship. Lullabies, dance music,
work songs, and some worship music are often considered folk music as they are
integrated with daily life.
Popular music is marked by its dissemination to large groups of people. As
such, it is like folk music. But popular music is generally not expected to be passed
down from one generation to the next as happens with folk music. Instead, as its
name implies, it tends to appeal to the masses at one moment in time. To use twen-
Image 1.24 | Venn Diagram of the Three Categories of Music
Author | Elizabeth Kramer
Source | Original Work
License | CC BY-SA 4.0
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
tieth-century terminology, it often hits the charts in one month and then is sup-
planted by something new in the next month. Although one might nd examples of
popular music across history, popular music has been especially signicant since
the rise of mass media and recording technologies in the twentieth century. Today,
music can be put online and instantly go viral around the world. Some signicant
twentieth-century popular music is discussed in chapter eight.
1.12 CHAPTER SUMMARY
In this chapter, we learned a basic denition of music as well as denitions of
the basic elements of music. We also explored some basic facts about acoustics, in-
cluding the nature of sound. We learned how tones comprised of organized sound
waves sound to us like denite pitches, while disorganized sound waves are per-
ceived as noise. We briey touched on the harmonic series and how it inuenced
the nature of music, including properties of sound such as timbre.
Next, we explored how the development of musical notation made it possible to
organize sounds into a wide variety of congurations. There are an innite number
of possible performing forces, but the most common would have to be the hu-
man voice followed by a wide variety of instruments including strings, woodwinds,
brass, percussion, keyboards, and electric instruments.
Next we discussed the four main components of music: melody, harmony,
rhythm and texture. Melody is dened primarily by its shape, and can be broken
up into smaller components called motives. Harmony, which is the vertical aspect
of music, can be described in its most basic terms as dissonant or consonant. Har-
mony is often built in thirds through the use of three-note chords called triads or
four-note chords called seventh chords. Whole sequences of chords are known as
chord progressions. Compositions are harmonically grounded through the use of
key centers, tonic notes, and scales.
Rhythm is the way the music is organized in respect to time. The fundamen-
tal unit of time is the beat, which is further broken into groupings called measures.
These groupings are determined by the meter of the piece, which is often either du-
ple, triple, or quadruple. The speed at which these beats go by is known as the tempo.
Other rhythmic devices such as syncopation and polyrhythm can add further variety
to the music. On a larger scale, music is put together in terms of its form. We dis-
cussed three common song forms, the blues, AABA and the Verse and Chorus.
Texture refers to the ways in which musical lines of a musical piece interact.
Common textures include monophonic texture (one melodic line), homophonic
texture (accompanied by chords), and polyphonic texture (simultaneous melo-
dies). We also saw that composition and improvisation are the two major pro-
cesses used to combine the musical elements we discussed. They may be used in-
dependently or they may be combined within a composition. These topics are key
concepts to remember while reading the upcoming chapters where they are further
expanded upon.
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
1.13 GLOSSARY
Accidentals – notes that are not normally found in a given key
Acoustics – the study of how sound behaves in physical spaces
Acoustical Engineer – a person who works in the area of acoustic technology
Acoustician – a person who studies the theory and science of acoustics
Amplitude – refers to how high the wave form appears to vibrate above zero when seen
on an oscilloscope; louder sounds create higher oscilloscope amplitude readings
Bar – see measure
Beat – the basic unit of time in music
Brass – instruments traditionally made of brass or another metal (and thus often
producing a “bright” or “brassy” tone) whose sound is generated by blowing into a
mouthpiece that is attached to a coiled tube
Chord – the simultaneous sounding of three or more pitches; like intervals, chords can be
consonant or dissonant
Chord Progression – a series of chords
Chromatic – musical pitches which move up or down by successive half-steps
Composition – the process whereby a musician notates musical ideas using a system of
symbols or using some other form of recording
Conjunct – a melody that moves mostly by step, in a smooth manner
Consonant – (adjective) term used to describe intervals and chords that tend to sound
sweet and pleasing to our ears; consonance (noun), as opposed to dissonance, is
stable and needs no resolution.
Cycles per Second (cps) – a denition of frequency of vibration; replaced by Hertz in 1960
Disjunct – a melody with wide leaps and rapid changes in direction
Dissonant – (adjective) intervals and chords that tend to sound harsh to our ears;
dissonance (noun) is often used to create tension and instability, and the interplay
between dissonance and consonance provides a sense of harmonic and melodic
motion in music
Dynamic – the variation in the volume of musical sound (the amplitude of the sound waves)
Equalization (EQ) – the process of raising or lowering dierent frequencies of sound,
either in a recording, or within a tone (overtones)
Form – the structure of the phrases and sections within a musical composition (Does it repeat?)
Frequency – how quickly or slowly a medium (solid, liquid, gas) vibrates and produces
a sound
Fundamental Pitch – the lowest pitch in the harmonic series
Guido of Arezzo – a medieval music theorist who developed a system of lines and spaces
that enabled musicians to notate the specic notes in a melody
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Understanding MUsic MUsic FUndaMentals
Improvisation – the process whereby musicians create music spontaneously using the
elements of music as building blocks
Instrumentation – the instruments comprising a musical group (including the human voice)
Interval – the distance in pitch between any two notes
Harmony – any simultaneous combination of tones and the rules governing those
combinations (the way a melody is accompanied is also another way to dene
harmony)
Hertz (Hz) – the unit of frequency dened as one cycle per second and named after
Heinrich Hertz (1957-1894) in 1960
Homophonic – musical texture comprised of one melodic line accompanied by chords
Key – the set of pitches on which a composition is based
Keyboard – instruments that are characterized by keyboards, such as the piano, organ,
vibraphone, and accordion
Measure – a unit of time that contains a specic number of beats dened by the meter/
time signature
Melody – a succession of single tones in musical compositions
Meter – the way in which the beats are grouped together in a piece
Monophonic – musical texture comprised of one melodic line; a melodic line may be
sung by one person or 100 people
Motive – the smallest musical unit of a melody, generally a single rhythm of two or three
pitches
Music – sound and silence organized in time
Noise – a disorganized sound with no observable pitch
Octave – the distance between two musical pitches where the higher pitch vibrates exactly
twice as many times per second as the lower
Oscilloscope - an electronic device that displays a visual representation of the dierent
types of sound waves
Overtones (also known as harmonics) – a musical tone heard above a fundamental pitch
Partials – the sounds of dierent frequency that naturally occur above a fundamental
(primary) tone
Percussion – instruments that are typically hit or struck by the hand, with sticks, or with
hammers or that are shaken or rubbed by hand
Performing Forces – see instrumentation
Phrase – smaller sub-sections of a melody
Pitch – a tone that is composed of an organized sound wave
Polyphony – musical texture that simultaneously features two or more relatively
independent and important melodic lines
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Polyrhythm – two or more dierent rhythms played at the same time
Range – the number of pitches, expressed as an intervallic distance
Register – the low, medium, and high sections of an instrument or vocal range
Rhythm – the way the music is organized in respect to time
Scale – a series of pitches, ordered by the interval between its notes
Sequence – a repetition of a motive or phrase at a dierent pitch level
Seventh Chord – a chord that has four pitches stacked in intervals of thirds
Sine Wave – the simplest sound wave that occurs in nature. A pure sine wave contains
no partials and is perfectly smooth and rounded in appearance on an oscilloscope.
Sound – the mechanical movement of an audible pressure wave through a solid, liquid,
or gas
Sound Waves – longitudinal waves (compression and rarefaction waves) that travel
through a solid, liquid, or gas
Step – the distance between adjacent notes in a musical scale
Strings – instruments whose sound is produced by setting strings in motion
Syncopation – the act of shifting the normal accent, usually by stressing the normally
unaccented weak beats or placing the accent between the beats themselves
Synthesizers – electronic instruments (often in keyboard form) that create sounds using
basic wave forms in dierent combinations
Tempo –the speed at which the beat is played
Texture – the ways in which musical lines of a musical piece interact
Timbre – the tone color or tone quality of a sound
Time signature – the numeric notation at the beginning of a line of music where the top
number indicates how many beats are in each measure and the bottom number
indicates which type of note will represent that beat
Tonic – the most important pitch of a key; the note from which the other pitches are
derived
Triad – a chord that has three pitches stacked in intervals of thirds
Twelve-Bar Blues – a twelve-bar musical form commonly found in American music
Vocal – having to do with the human voice
Woodwinds – instruments traditionally made of wood whose sound is generated by
forcing air through a tube, thus creating a vibrating air column