1. Learning to describe what we hear.
ELEMENTS OF MUSIC
Learning to describe what we hear.

2. Why talk about the elements?
To learn terminology that we can use when describing music we will listen to in this course.
To learn the language musicians use.
To introduce you to some of the terms you will learn throughout your music education.

3. Melody
What are the catchiest songs you can think of? The ones that always get stuck in your head?

4. Melody: What is it?
A melody is a succession of single pitches that we perceive as a recognizable whole.
We relate to the pitches of a melody in the same way we hear the words of a sentence— not singly but as an entire cohesive thought.
Melody is the LINEAR/HORIZANTAL presentation of pitch.

5. Horizontal Movement

6. Let’s Listen How are these melodies different? Minuet in G (Bach)
I Love It (Icona Pop)

7. Melody: Related terminology
Pitch, intervals, steps, leaps, phrase, cadence, conjunct, disjunct, countour, range, theme.

8. Harmony Combinations of pitches sounding simultaneously.
Harmony is the VERTICALIZATION of pitch.

9. Harmony

10. Harmony
Diggin on James Brown (Tower of Power)
Quality (Paul Simon)

11. Related Terminology
chord, interval, consonance, dissonance, key, tonality, atonality

12. Rhythm Organization of sound in music.
Patterns of long and short sounds and silences.

13. Rhyhtm
Clayton Cameron

14. Related Terminology
Beat, pulse, meter, time signature, note lengths, rests, percussion, strong and weak beats, syncopation, tempo

15. Texture The fabric or layering of sound.
The number of individual musical lines and the relationship these lines have to one another.

16. Let’s Listen Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (Bach)
Just For Now (Imogen Heap)

17. Related Terminology
Monophonic, Homophonic, Polyphonic

18. Timbre
The unique qualities of sounds that allow us to distinguish between them.
The “tone colouring” of an instrument.

19. More on timbre
We will be learning about the different instruments of the orchestra.
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20. Related terminology
Different instrument families, different instruments within the families.
Example of description words:
Rich, dark, bright, brassy, shrill, mellow, full, thin, reedy, clear, breathy, resonant, warm, harsh, heavy, light, muddy.

21. Dynamics
The volume of the sound, as well as the style in which the performer plays the instrument/music.

22. Let’s Listen
Symphony No.5 (Beethoven)

23. Related Terminology
Dynamic markings (ppp, fff), markings referring to the style of playing (staccato), markings to indicate varying volume (Cresc).

24. FOrm
The structure of a piece of music, the way a piece of music is organized.

25. Let’s Listen
Top 40

26. Related Terminology
Repetition, contrast, binary, ternary, 32-bar form, chorus, verse, bridge