About Music

music

Introductioncan be defined as organized sound. It is a living language that has been developed over centuries and continues to be refined and reinvented by composers and musicians today. In various parts of the world, different musical languages and "dialects" are used. However, the music written in Europe during the "common practice" period from about 1650 - 1900 comprises a very large portion of our musical heritage, and includes such famous composers as Vivaldi, J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Verdi and Wagner. Most of the popular music of today still uses the syntax and musical "grammar" of that period. This type of music is based on both acoustic principles and tradition, constituting what we often refer to as "tonal" music. Just as words function a certain way within a sentence, chords and rhythms function a special way within tonal music. Even in other types of music - contemporary art, popular, jazz, eastern, Latin American, African, Native American - the principles used in western art music can help one to better understand and appreciate the beauty and structure found within each of these musics. So whether you are a performer, composer, or simply a person who likes listening to music, an understanding of how music works is a valuable and essential asset.

This is intended to be a course of study that will provide a solid and complete background of the basics of tonal music. Upon successful completion, it is hoped that you will have an understanding of the fundamentals of the language of tonal music. Although it is intended to be a preparation for students hoping to begin music studies at colleges and universities in the United States, it can be of use to anyone who wants to better understand the language of music.
Basic, we need to understand a few terms that are used to talk about music.

pitch - Pitch refers to what we perceive the frequency of a sound to be. For instance, the following example consists of three pitches. The first pitch, A3, has a frequency of 440 HZ (cycles per second. The second pitch, E4, has a higher frequency (660 HZ), and so we say it sounds "higher." The third pitch, A2, sounds "lower" because the frequency (220 HZ) is much lower than the first pitch. note - A note is a sound perceived to have a single, constant pitch. rhythm - this is a general term used to refer to when and how long notes occur in time. In the following example, there is a long note, followed by four, even notes, followed by a rhythmic pattern of varying lengths.

When we try to write down or notate these sounds, we need a system that will allow us to show both the pitch (how high or low the note sounds) and rhythm (how it is played in time). Just as an X-Y graph is used to show these relationships in math, music uses a notation system that notates pitch vertically (higher and lower) and rhythm horizontally (forward in time). Play the following example and listen to how the sounds are reflected in the notation. The following sections in Part One: Fundamentals show how music is notated and read.