Rudiments (Elements of Music), Study notes of Music

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Music evolved in numerous variations which sometimes defined by

the perspective of a person, however despite of these variations,

music dwells in common elements which generally make the

message more touching and meaningful. Continuing, in this module

you will learn the different Elements of music that probably new to

you. It helps you understand the world of music and perhaps you

would realized that waving your voice while singing is part of these

elements

“Music” is one of the most difficult terms to define, partially because

beliefs about music have changed dramatically over time just in

Western culture alone. If we look at music in different parts of the

world, we find even more variations and ideas about what music is.

As musicologist Charles Seeger notes, “Music is a system of

communication involving structured sounds produced by members

of a community that communicate with other members” (1992,

p.89).

Ethnomusicologist John Blacking declares that “we can go further to

say that music is sound that is humanly patterned or organized”

(1973), covering all of the bases with a very broad stroke. Some

theorists even believe that there can be no universal definition of

music because it is so culturally specific.

Although the exact definition of music varies widely, music contains

melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, pitch, silence, and form or

structure. What we know about music so far

A working definition of music for our purposes might be as follows:

music is an intentionally organized art form whose medium is sound

and silence, with core elements of pitch (melody and harmony),

rhythm (meter, tempo, and articulation), dynamics, and the qualities

of timbre and texture.

1. Rhythm - The organization of music in time. Also closely related

to meter.

Music cannot happen without time. The placement of the sounds in

time is the rhythm of a piece of music. Because music must be heard

over a period of time, rhythm is one of the most basic elements of

music. In some pieces of music, the rhythm is simply a “placement

in time” that cannot be assigned a beat or meter, but most rhythm

terms concern more familiar types of music with a steady beat.

2. Dynamic - In music, we use the word dynamics to describe the

volume of music.

But, rather than using words like loud and quiet, we use different

Italian terms and symbols to describe the volume of the piece.

We group the musical terms for dynamics into two different

categories

Static dynamics

 (^) Changing dynamics

2.1. Static Dynamic

Static dynamics are musical instructions that tell us to play the music at a

certain volume that doesn’t change.

We use three Italian terms to describe static dynamics:

• (^) Piano

Forte

Mezzo

 (^) Piano

The first dynamic we’ll look at is piano , which is pronounced ‘pi-ah-no’.

Piano is the word we use to describe quiet or soft in music.

When reading music you’ll typically see a letter p which is telling the

musician to play this part of the piece quietly.

Pianissimo and fortissimo

We can also add the suffix ‘ issimo ’ which essentially means ‘very’ on

to the end of piano and forte. We just take off the last letter o from

piano and e from forte.

This then gives us pianissimo which means ‘ very quiet ‘and fortissimo

which means ‘ very loud ‘.

Pianississimo and fortississimo

Not as common but still worth mentioning is that we can have very, very

loud and very, very quiet dynamics.

We just add an extra ‘iss’ to get pianississimo and fortississimo

2.2. Changing Dynamic

This is where the music isn’t staying at one volume but gradually (or

suddenly) increasing or decreasing in volume.

 (^) Crescendo

Italian word crescendo (pronounced ‘kruh-shen-doh.’) which means to

‘ gradually get louder ’. It comes from the Italian word for increasing. t

is often abbreviated to ‘ cresc ’ in a piece of music but you can also

draw a hairpin sign.

Decrescendo and Diminuendo

The opposite of crescendo is decrescendo which means to ‘ gradually get

quieter ’. It comes from the Italian word for decreasing. It gets

abbreviated to ‘ decresc ‘but we can also use a hairpin symbol pointing

the other way.

3. Melody - Melody is a linear sequence of notes the listener hears as a

single entity. The melody of a song is the foreground to the backing

elements and is a combination of pitch and rhythm.

Melodies are produced through the human voice and any other instrument

that produces pitches––marimbas, flutes, synthesizers, glockenspiels,

guitars, etc

 (^) Pitch - The words ‘frequency’ and ‘pitch ‘

are basically two words for the

same thing as far as sound is

concerned. They both

represent the concept of how high or how

low a note is. The only difference really

is that

frequency is more literal in a scientific

sense and ‘pitch’ is more

Example:

Let’s write C as major Triad.

Chord Progression - The term chord progression simply refers

to the order in which chords are

played in a song/piece of music.

Consonance and Dissonance - Intervals are traditionally considered

either consonant or dissonant.

Consonant intervals are usually

described as pleasant and agreeable. Dissonant intervals are those

that cause tension and desire to be resolved