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Music theory is a field of study that investigates the nature or mechanics of music. It often involves identifying patterns that govern composers' techniques. In a more general sense, music theory also often distills and analyzes the elements of music – rhythm, harmony (harmonic function), melody, structure, and texture. People who study these properties are known as music theorists. For other uses, see Music (disambiguation). ...
A composer is a person who writes music. ...
Rhythm (Greek = flow, or in Modern Greek, style) is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events. ...
Harmony is the use and study of pitch simultaneity, and therefore chords, actual or implied, in music. ...
Look up melody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Look up Structure in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
In music texture is the overall quality of sound of a piece, most often indicated by the number of voices in the music and to the relationship between these voices (see below). ...
Melody A melody is a series of pitches sounding in succession. In Western music, the notes of a melody are typically created with respect to scales or modes. The rhythm of a melody is often based on the inflections of language or the physical rhythms of dance. It is typically divided into phrases within a larger overarching structure. Look up melody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Pitch is the perceived fundamental frequency of a sound. ...
Western music is the genres of music originating in the Western world (Europe and its former colonies) including Western classical music, American Jazz, Country and Western, pop music and rock and roll. ...
In music, a scale is a collection of musical notes that provides material for part or all of a musical work. ...
In music, a mode is an ordered series of musical intervals, which, along with the key or tonic, define the pitches. ...
Inflection of the Spanish lexeme for cat, with blue representing the masculine gender, pink representing the feminine gender, grey representing the form used for mixed-gender, and green representing the plural number. ...
Dance (from French danser, perhaps from Frankish) generally refers to movement used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting. ...
Pitch Musical sounds are composed of pitch, duration, and timbre. Pitch is determined by the sound's frequency of vibration, such as the note A which at modern concert pitch is defined to be 440 Hz. Tuning is the process of assigning pitches to notes. The difference in pitch between two notes is called an interval. The most basic interval is the octave; a note and another note with twice its frequency form an octave. For example, if the pitch with frequency 440 Hz is A, then the pitches with frequency 880 Hz, 1760 Hz as well as 220 Hz, 110 Hz, and 55 Hz are also A's. Notes can be arranged into different scales and modes. In western music theory, the octave is divided into 12 notes, each called a half-step or semitone. Patterns of half and whole steps (2 half steps, or a tone) make up a scale in that octave. The scales most commonly encountered are the major, the harmonic minor, the melodic minor, and the natural minor. Pitch is the perceived fundamental frequency of a sound. ...
In music, timbre, also timber (from Fr. ...
In music, there are two common meanings for tuning: Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice. ...
In music theory, the term interval describes the difference in pitch between two notes. ...
In music, an octave (sometimes abbreviated 8ve) is the interval between one musical note and another with half or double its frequency. ...
In music, a scale is a set of musical notes that provides material for part or all of a musical work. ...
In music, a mode is an ordered series of musical intervals, which, along with the key or tonic, define the pitches. ...
In music, an octave (sometimes abbreviated 8ve) is the interval between one musical note and another with half or double its frequency. ...
In music, an octave (sometimes abbreviated 8ve) is the interval between one musical note and another with half or double its frequency. ...
In music theory, the major scale is one of the diatonic scales. ...
A minor scale in musical theory can be viewed as the sixth mode of the major scale. ...
A minor scale in musical theory can be viewed as the sixth mode of the major scale. ...
A minor scale in musical theory can be viewed as the sixth mode of the major scale. ...
In music written using the system of major-minor tonality, the key of a piece determines the scale used. Transposing a piece from C major to D major will make all the notes two semitones higher. Even in modern equal temperament, changing the key can change the feel of a piece of music, because it changes the relationship of the composition's pitches to the pitch range of the instruments on which the piece is being performed. This often affects the music's timbre, as well as having technical implications for the performers. However, changing the key in which a piece is performed may go unrecognized by the listener, since changing the key does not change the relationship of the individual pitches to each other.
Therefore, different keys are often considered equivalent and a matter of choice on the part of performers. This is especially true for popular and folk songs. Tonality is a system of writing music according to certain hierarchical pitch relationships around a key center or tonic. ...
An equal temperament is a musical temperament -- that is, a system of tuning intended to approximate some form of just intonation -- in which an interval, usually the octave, is divided into a series of equal steps (equal frequency ratios). ...
Rhythm Rhythm is the arrangement of sounds in time. Meter animates time in regular pulse groupings, called measures or bars. The time signature or meter signature specifies how many beats are in a measure, and which value of written note is counted and felt as a single beat. Through increased stress and attack (and subtle variations in duration), particular tones may be accented. There are conventions in most musical traditions for a regular and hierarchical accentuation of beats to reinforce the meter. Syncopated rhythms are rhythms that accent unexpected parts of the beat. Playing simultaneous rhythms in more than one time signature is called polymeter. See also polyrhythm. Rhythm (Greek = flow, or in Modern Greek, style) is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events. ...
A pocket watch, a device used to tell time Look up time in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Metre or meter (US) is the measurement of a musical line into measures of stressed and unstressed beats, indicated in Western music notation by a symbol called a time signature. ...
In musical notation, a bar or measure is a segment of time defined as a given number of beats of a given duration. ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
See also the beat disambiguation page. ...
In music, syncopation is when a stressing of a normally unstressed beat in a bar or failure to sound a tone on an accented beat occurs. ...
Metre is the measurement of a musical line into measures of stressed and unstressed beats, indicated in Western notation by a symbol called a time signature. ...
Polyrhythm is the simultaneous sounding of two or more independent rhythms. ...
In recent years, rhythm and meter have become an important area of research among music scholars. Recent work in these areas includes books by Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, Jonathan Kramer, Christopher Hasty, William Rothstein, and Joel Lester. Fred Lerdahl, Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University, is a composer and music theorist, best known for his work on pitch space and cognitive constraints on compositional systems or musical grammars. ...
Ray Jackendoff (born 1945) is an influential contemporary linguist who has always straddled the boundary between generative linguistics and cognitive linguistics, committed as he is both to the existence of an innate Universal Grammar (an all-important thesis of generative linguistics) and to giving an account of language that meshes...
Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Conn. ...
Harmony Harmony occurs when two or more tones are sounded simultaneously, although harmony can be implied when pitches are sounded successively rather than simultaneously (as in arpeggiation). Two simultaneous pitches form a dyad. Three or more different tones sounded simultaneously are called chords. The name of the chord depends on what scale degrees are used in the construction of the chords. Three note chords are called "triads", four note chords are "seventh chords" (also known as "tetrachords") and 5 note chords include (but are not limited to) "ninth" chords. In jazz music, thirteenth chords are found mostly in the lydian and mixolydian modes, but are still built from 5 note chords.
Harmonies are sometimes difficult to hear in pieces, but on most sheet music, it is noticeable which part is the harmony and which is the melody. Harmony is the use and study of pitch simultaneity, and therefore chords, actual or implied, in music. ...
Various arpeggi as seen on a staff In music, an arpeggio (plural, arpeggi) is a spread chord played top-to-bottom or vice versa in sheet music, or rather the sounding of the tones of a chord in rapid succession rather than simultaneously. ...
Guide Tones in music are the tones or scale degrees in a given scale that determine the quality and function of a chord. In western music, the guide tones are the 3rd & 7th of any given mode or scale.
For example, in the key of "C" with no sharps or flats (all the white keys on a piano) the notes are: C, D, E, F, G, A, B. Each chord in this key is taken from the root, or first note, and every other note. A "seventh chord" therefore contains 4 notes: C, E, G, B = C Major7; D, F, A, C = D minor 7; etc. In these two examples, the chord is made up of the 1st, 3rd, 5th, & 7th tone, starting with the root.
The distance between the root and the 3rd determines the quality; whether a chord is major or minor. The distance between the root and the 7th determines the function of the chord; whether a chord gravitates towards another chord within the context of a progression.
When playing music with 7th chords, one can play only the 3rd and 7th tones to convey the quality and function. Because these two tones are the only ones needed in western or tertial harmony, they are referred to as "guide tones".
Consonance and Dissonance Consonance can be roughly defined as harmonies whose tones complement and increase each others' resonance, and dissonance as those which create more complex acoustical interactions (called 'beats'). A simplistic example is that of "pleasant" sounds versus "unpleasant" ones. Another manner of thinking about the relationship regards stability; dissonant harmonies are sometimes considered to be unstable and to "want to move" or "resolve" toward consonance. However, this is not to say that dissonance is undesirable. A composition made entirely of consonant harmonies may be pleasing to the ear and yet boring because there are no instabilities to be resolved. In music, a consonance (Latin consonare, sounding together) is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance, which is considered unstable. ...
Melody is often organized so as to interact with changing harmonies (sometimes called a chord progression) that accompany it, setting up consonance and dissonance. The art of melody writing depends heavily upon the choices of tones for their nonharmonic or harmonic character. A chord progression (also chord sequence and harmonic progression or sequence), as its name implies, is a series of chords played in order. ...
"Harmony" as used by music theorists can refer to any kind of simultaneity without a value judgment, in contrast with a more common usage of "in harmony" or "harmonious", which in technical language might be described as consonance. In music, a consonance (Latin consonare, sounding together) is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance, which is considered unstable. ...
Four-part writing An exercise often set to develop and test a student's grasp of the workings of harmonic conventions is the writing of four-part harmony. This exercise is often given bass line or a given melody.
Four-part writing can be used to write for a vocal quartet, or an instrumental quartet. Vocal four-part harmonies usually consist of a soprano, an alto, a tenor, and a bass. The soprano and alto are usually female parts and the tenor and bass are most often male, although some female vocalists may sing tenor and male singers may carry the alto voice.
Other common four-part writings consist of a brass quartet with a trumpet, a french horn, a trombone, and a tuba, or a string quartet consisting of two violin parts, a viola part, and a cello part.
Texture Musical texture is the overall sound of a piece of music commonly described according to the number of and relationship between parts or lines of music: monophony, heterophony, polyphony, homophony, or monody. The perceived texture of a piece may also be affected by the timbre of the instruments, the number of instruments used, and the interval between each musical line, among other things. In music, the word texture is often used in a rather vague way in reference to the overall sound of a piece of music. ...
In music, the word texture is often used in a rather vague way in reference to the overall sound of a piece of music. ...
Look up heterophony in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Polyphony is a musical texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony). ...
Homophony is a musical term that describes the texture of two or more instruments or parts moving together and using the same rhythm. ...
Caccini, Le Nuove musiche, 1601, title page In poetry, monody is a poem in which one person laments anothers death. ...
Monophony is the texture of a melody heard only by itself. If a melody is accompanied by chords, the texture is homophony. In homophony, the melody is usually but not always voiced in the highest notes. A third texture, called polyphony, consists of several simultaneous melodies of equal importance.
Structure Musical structure refers to the overarching form of a piece of music. Examples of popular Western structures include the fugue, the invention, sonata-allegro, canon, strophic, theme and variations, and rondo. In music, a fugue (IPA: ) is a type of contrapuntal composition or technique of composition, for a fixed number of parts or voices (referred to as voices regardless of whether the work is vocal or instrumental). ...
In music, an invention is a short composition (usually for a keyboard instrument) with two-part counterpoint. ...
Sonata form is a musical form that has been used widely since the early Classical period. ...
In music, a canon is a contrapuntal composition that employs a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration (e. ...
Strophic form, or chorus form, is a sectional and/or additive way of structuring a piece of music based on the repetition of one formal section or block played repeatedly. ...
In music, variation is a formal technique where material is altered during repetition; reiteration with changes. ...
a rondo is played between episode which are played by non solo people Rondo, and its French equivalent rondeau, is a word that has been used in music in a number of ways, most often in reference to a musical form, but also in reference to a character-type that...
The form of a piece of music can be reduced to sections, and those sections can be reduced to musical phrases. Typically, a pause or strong sense of resolution indicates the end of a section, whereas smaller pauses and lesser sense of resolution indicate the ends of phrases within a section.
Notation Music notation is the graphical representation of music. In standard Western notation, pitches are represented on the vertical axis and time is represented by notation symbols on the horizontal axis. Thus, notes are properly placed on the musical staff with appropriate time values to show musicians what note to play and when to play it. Music notation is a system of writing for music. ...
Such notation makes up the contents of the musical staff, along with directions indicating the key, tempo, dynamics, accents, and rests, etc. In musical notation, the staff or stave is a set of five horizontal lines on which note symbols are placed to indicate pitch and time. ...
In music theory, the key identifies the tonic triad, the chord, major or minor, which represents the final point of rest for a piece, or the focal point of a section. ...
The first two measures of Mozarts Sonata XI, which indicates the tempo as Andante grazioso and the metronome marking as = 120. (Metronome markings were not used in Mozarts day. ...
In music, dynamics normally refers to the softness or loudness of a sound or note, but also to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic (staccato, legato etc. ...
Music and mathematics -
Music has been susceptible to analysis by mathematics, ever since Pythagoras noticed the relationships between the frequencies of different pitches. There are arguments that mathematics can be used to analyse and understand music, and at its core, to compose the music itself. ...
Pythagoras of Samos (Greek: ; between 580 and 572 BC–between 500 BC and 490 BC) was an Ionian (Greek) philosopher[1] and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. ...
Analysis -
Analysis attempts to answer the question "how does this music work". Musical analysis can be defined as a process attempting to answer the question how does this music work?. The method employed to answer this question, and indeed exactly what is meant by the question, differs from analyst to analyst. ...
Schenkerian analysis is an approach to musical analysis devised by Heinrich Schenker. ...
Music perception and cognition - Further information: Music cognition, Fred Lerdahl, and Ray Jackendoff
Music cognition is an interdisciplinary field involving such disparate areas as cognitive science, music theory, psychology, musicology, neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, psychoacoustics, etc. ...
Fred Lerdahl, Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University, is a composer and music theorist, best known for his work on pitch space and cognitive constraints on compositional systems or musical grammars. ...
Ray Jackendoff (born 1945) is an influential contemporary linguist who has always straddled the boundary between generative linguistics and cognitive linguistics, committed as he is both to the existence of an innate Universal Grammar (an all-important thesis of generative linguistics) and to giving an account of language that meshes...
12-tone and set theory - Further information: serialism, set theory (music), Arnold Schoenberg, Milton Babbitt, David Lewin, and Allen Forte
Serialism is a technique for composing music that uses sets to describe musical elements, and allows the composer manipulations of those sets to create music. ...
Musical set theory is a atonal or post-tonal method of musical analysis and composition which is based on explaining and proving musical phenomena, taken as sets and subsets, using mathematical rules and notation and using that information to gain insight to compositions or their creation. ...
Schoenberg redirects here. ...
Milton Byron Babbitt (born May 10, 1916) is an American composer. ...
David Lewin (July 2, 1933-May 5, 2003) was an American music theorist and composer. ...
Allen Forte (born December 23, 1926) is a music theorist and musicologist. ...
Musical semiotics - Further information: music semiology and Jean-Jacques Nattiez
Music semiology, the semiology of music, is the study of music and musicology as symbols, their meaning, and their effects on human behaviour. ...
Jean-Jacques Nattiez is a musical semiologist or semiotician and professor of Musicology at the University of Montreal. ...
Ear training -
Aural skills — the ability to identify musical patterns by ear, as opposed to by the reading of notation — form a key part of a musician's craft and are usually taught alongside music theory. Most aural skills courses train the perception of relative pitch (the ability to determine pitch in an established context) and rhythm. Sight-singing — the ability to sing unfamiliar music without assistance — is generally an important component of aural skills courses. Ear training is what musicians do to improve their ability to identify, relatively, chords, intervals, rhythms, and other elements of music. ...
The term relative pitch may denote: the distance of a musical note from a set point of reference, e. ...
Source - Boretz, Benjamin (1995) Meta-Variations: Studies in the Foundations of Musical Thought. Red Hook, New York: Open Space.
Benjamin Boretz is a twentieth- and twenty-first-century music theorist and composer. ...
Further reading - Taylor, Eric. AB Guide to Music. Vol 1. England. Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, 1989. ISBN 1-854-72446-0
- Taylor, Eric. AB Guide to Music. Vol 2. England. Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, 1991. ISBN 1-854-72447-9
- Apel, Willi & Daniel, Ralph T. "The Harvard Brief Dictionary of Music". New York, NY. Simon & Schuster Inc, 1960. ISBN 0-671-73747-3
- Sorce, Richard. "Music Theory for the Music Professional". Ardsley House, 1995. ISBN 1-880-15720-9
- Lawn, Richard J. & Hellmer, Jeffrey L. "Jazz Theory and Practice". Alfred Publishing Co. 1996. ISBN 0-882-84722-8 (book)
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