MUSIC THEORY

'Music theory' encompasses the nature and 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.

Elements of Music

Music has many different elements. The main elements are: rhythm, melody, harmony, structure, timbre and texture. Each element -- and its sub-elements, if any -- is discussed below.

Melody

A melody is a series of pitches sounding in succession. In Western music, the pitches 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, the physical rhythms of dance, or simply periodic pulsation. Melody is typically divided into phrases within a larger overarching structure. The elements of a melody are composed of pitch, duration, and timbre.

Pitch

Pitch is determined by the sound's frequency of vibration, such as the note modern concert A is defined to be 440 Hz. Put differently, pitch is the relative aural highness or lowness of a given tone: the greater the frequency, the higher sounding the pitch.
The process of assigning pitches to note names is called Tuning. So 440 Hz is assigned to modern concert A.
The difference in frequency between two pitches 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. Western music theory traditionally has 12 notes that might be included in a piece of music. In a scale, each note is 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.
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.

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.
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.

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 by thirds are called "triads", four-note chords by thirds are "seventh chords" (also known as "tetrads") and 5 note chords by thirds include (but are not limited to) "ninth" chords. Music consisting mostly of small chords by thirds, especially triads and seventh chords, is referred to as "triadic". In jazz music, thirteenth chords are found mostly in the lydian and mixolydian modes, but are still built from 5 note chords. In general, harmonies are hard to recognize by ear but it is quite easy to do so on paper (for example, in sheet music). In 20th century music, chords are often not constructed using the interval of the third as is traditional, often resulting in secundal or quartal harmony. It is important to realize that the "rules" of harmony are in actuality only a set of conventions; even the discussion on guide tones in the paragraph below is heavily dependent on context.
''Guide tones'' in music are the tones or ''scale degrees'' in a given scale that determine the quality and function of a chord. 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, and high C. Each chord in this key is taken from the root, or first note, and any other chord. A ''major seventh chord'' therefore contains 4 notes: C, E, G, & B. In these two examples, the chord is made up of the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 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".
These guide tones, as mentioned previously, are still dependent on context, due to the wonderful ambiguities and symmetries of our system of tonality. For example, the notes F and B, together, can be interpreted as the 7th and 3rd of the G dominant seventh chord, to resolve to E and C, respectively. They can also, if B is interpreted as C-flat, be the 3rd and 7th of the D-flat dominant seventh chord, to resolve to G-flat and B-flat, respectively. Additionally, F and B can be interpreted as the 3rd and augmented 6th of the D-flat augmented 6th chord, to resolve to either E and C or, also commonly, to E and B-flat. This ambiguity with respect to guide tones is the basis of a jazz arrangement technique known as tritone substitution. In certain contexts, a chord containing these guide tones may not even be heard as requiring a resolution. Part of the interest in studying harmony within the field of music theory is in understanding how these ambiguities can be perceived by the ear differently at different times.

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.
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.
"Harmony" as used by music theorists can refer to any kind of simultaneity without a value judgement, in contrast with a more common usage of "in harmony" or "harmonious", which in technical language might be described as consonance.

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.
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.
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.

Theories of Harmonization

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 a 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 horn, a trombone, and a tuba, or a string quartet consisting of two violin parts, a viola part, and a cello part.

Music perception and cognition

12-tone and set theory

Musical semiotics

Music Subjects

Notation

Main articles: Music 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.
Such notation makes up the contents of the musical staff, along with directions indicating the key, tempo, dynamics, accents, and rests, etc.

Mathematics

Main articles: Music and mathematics

Music has been susceptible to analysis by mathematics, ever since Pythagoras noticed the relationships between the frequencies of different pitches. Mathematics has also been used as the basis for compositions, as in some 20th century styles.

Analysis

Main articles: Musical analysis, Schenkerian analysis

Analysis attempts to answer the question "how does this music ''work''".

Ear training

Main articles: 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.

Source

★ Boretz, Benjamin (1995) ''Meta-Variations: Studies in the Foundations of Musical Thought''. Red Hook, New York: Open Space.

External links

★ Advice to Young Musicians Schumann's thoughts on (studying) music. Antique edition of 1859, with translations by Liszt and Pierson.

★ [1] Joe Raciti's unique and understandable music theory lessons.]

★ [2] Music theory clearly explained.]

★ Ricci Adam's Music Theory

★ Greg Jones' Music Theory Web Site

★ Tonal Music Theory Examples 1105 animated scores and sound files]

★ Music Theory & History Online

★ Music Theory Online

★ Computing in Musicology

★ Journal of the Royal Musical Association

★ NewMusicBox.org Theory Issue 48 - Vol.4, No.12

★ '''teoría''' - a music theory web

★ Glossary of US and British English musical terms

★ Application of virtual pitch theory in music analysis - pdf

★ Contemporary Impressionalistic Music Theory and Composition

★ GOSK.com Explanation of the seven musical modes for guitarists

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