With this letter, we
will start to examine the elements that make up a piece of
music. As a house is constructed with bricks and mortar,
music is also constructed with basic materials. The study of
the elementary forms of these materials can help the composer
to understand how to assemble them into a music composition.
The theory that
follows is an approach I developed out of many existing
theories and also out of some personal ideas as how to
combine these many theories together.
It exposes the present
status of my research into a better understanding of music
and composition for everyone. Some concepts may at first
sound a bit "mathematical" or esoteric for you. But
I will try to develop them with very practical examples and
applications, so that you will be able to understand them.
The purpose of this
theory is to apply it to music composition, not to become a
theoretician. Anyway, if you feel you miss something in what
I explain in a letter, just tell me at info@arpegemusic.com and I will try to give more
examples in the next letter.
The six basic
ingredients of music
To analyze a complex
phenomenon, we need to discover the ingredients of its
mixture. For this purpose, let us consider music as being the
combination of six simple phenomena. These phenomena are very
objective and are observable by anybody who cares to listen
to music. They are observable in every kind of music I can
think of.
At this lowest level
of music, we do not mean "emotion",
"aesthetic" or any other subjective concept
generally associated to music. We just mean basic, simple,
physical phenomena that can be produced and recognized easily
and methodically. This is the structural part of music. Here
is a short review of these six elements.
Rhythm
is obviously present in any music. It consists of the time
intervals between two musical events and also of the duration
of a musical event (a note for instance). The way notes are
structured in time plays an important role in the final
result of a composition. Rhythm gives life to music. As a
house is built by assembling bricks according to their
positions in space, then music is built by placing notes
according to their positions in time.
Drums and similar
percussive instruments mostly expresses the rhythmic aspect
of music. Listen to the example and notice that various
sounds are used to create a more complex rhythmic pattern:
Listen to the example...
Melody
is the succession of notes that is so specific as to be
recognized as an entity. Most of the time, we think about a
tune by remembering its main melody. It often implies rhythm,
as each note of the melody is remembered with a duration in
relationship to the other notes. But when I say melody in
this context, I mainly refer to the art of finding a series
of notes played in sequence, that has its own personality and
feel.
Listen to the example...
Harmony
is basically the way to combine two or more melodies together
so as to reach another dimension in music. It is the art to
combine several notes played simultaneously to create
specific atmospheres. A chord is a set of notes played
together and it is the basis around which harmony is built.
Counterpoint is more related to analyzing the way several
melodies go together while keeping their own melodic lines
independent. Harmony looks at the problem in a more vertical
way by analyzing which notes can go together
"harmoniously". We will resume this aspect by the
word "harmony" and by that, we mean any and all
cases when two or more notes are played together.
Listen to the example...
In the example, you
hear string instruments that play together. This kind of
arrangement is mainly used to create a specific atmosphere,
but you can easily hear the melodies that are created by the
lower and higher notes of this chord progression. Each time a
chord is changed, at least one note moves to another
position, creating a simple form of melody.
Sound
is the air vibration that makes up a single note. A sound may
have so many different characteristics that it is a whole
subject of study in itself. All natural instruments have
different sounds. With synthesizers, even more different
sounds can be used in music. The human voice can be a very
rich and expressive sound. Selecting a sound to play a
melody, a rhythm or an harmony has obviously a great impact
on the final result of a composition. Often called
'orchestration', the art of mastering the selection of sounds
to play the various parts of a music composition is
definitely an ability that the composer needs to develop.
Listen to the example...
Form
is the way a music composition is organized in different
sections. It is the way the different parts of a composition
are assembled and made coherent as a whole. It has some
similarity with rhythm, but on a larger time scale. A
simplified form example would be: introduction - chorus -
verse - chorus - ending.
Here is a very short
example of a melody. It consists of 4 small musical phrases.
You can easily notice that the first and third phrases are
the same. The second and last phrases start the same way, but
their endings are different. The form of a melody or
composition is often expressed with a series of letters that
show how the different sections are sequenced. In this
example, you have A - B - A - C.
Listen to the example...
Effects
cover any alteration that affects any aspect of the above
five elements. Tempo variation (accelerando, ralentendo,...)
is a way to affect rhythm. Glissando (going smoothly from one
note to the other) will affect the rendering of a melody.
Accents, nuances will affect rhythm, melody and harmony.
Reverberation, equalizer will affect the sound rendering.
There are many possible classes of effects, but we define
them very precisely. They are labeled "effects" as
soon as they modify the rendering of one of more of the other
five elements of music.
The example contains a
series of piano notes. You can hear a volume variation, then
a tempo variation followed by a glissando (impossible to play
that on a real piano: it is created synthetically).
Listen to the example...
So we have Rhythm,
Melody, Harmony, Sound,
Form and Effects. Any
composer would agree that music consists of at least these
six elements. So mastering them is part of the road that
leads to becoming a composer. This does not mean that
somebody mastering these six elements will automatically be a
composer, as there is much more to music than just these
basic elements. You need to be able to use and combine these
elements together so as to express what you feel deep inside
yourself. Only then would you become a real composer. But as
far as these six elements are concerned, you should
understand them very well separately.
These elements are
mutually dependent. Each one provides a specific viewpoint on
music. You cannot isolate one of them as an absolute quality,
except as a concept. Whenever you have rhythm in a music, you
have at least a sound that transmits that rhythm to your ear.
Melody and harmony also need sound and rhythm to express
themselves. Effects can only be perceived through the
variation it creates on rhythm, melody or sound. So in any
small section of music, you will have many elements present
at the same time. They form a series of tools to help you
analyze or create music.
The common
denominator of the six elements
Incidentally, there is
a more basic element behind these six elements. Rhythm,
melody, harmony, sound, form and effects have something in
common. They represent different aspects of the same physical
element.
This element is time.
Time is the essence of
music. Without time, you would not be able to listen to
music. Music is a dynamic structure built on time, as opposed
to more static art forms like painting or sculpture.
The simplest rhythm
that you can think of is a regular beat. It defines a time
interval and that time interval is repeated over and over.
Melody and harmony are
both based on combining air vibrations together so that they
make a whole that is harmonious to the ear. The speed of the
vibrations and the ratio between these vibrations are all
concerned with time.
The characteristics of
a sound is also a set of vibrations that make up a single
sound. Again, time is the key to understand these vibrations.
Form is of course the
way a piece of music evolves through time.
Effects is the
variation (variation implies time) of the other five elements
(each one being based on time).
So music is basically
just something built on time phenomena evolving with time...!
This is just an
observation to keep in mind, but to really start analyzing
and creating music, the understanding of these six elements
is a practical way to start acquiring composition skills.
Recognizing
the six elements
I suggest you to
listen to several pieces of music that you like and notice
the presence of the six elements described in this letter. To
help you in doing that, ask yourself the following questions:
- In this section,
what are the elements that are predominant?
- What instrument
imposes the rhythm?
- What is the
predominant melody and which instrument is playing
it?
- What are the
instruments that create the harmony?
- How does tempo
evolve?
- How does the
global volume evolve with time?
- What is the form
of this music? Try to recognize several parts and
write the form on a piece of paper, like A-B-A-C,...
The following links
give you some suggestions to start with. You can find many
music pieces from all styles on YouTube, at www.youtube.com
Of course, each one of
these pieces have the six elements, but focus on the given
elements, as an exercise.
What is next?
The next step in this
approach of music is to analyze these six elements through
different viewpoints that are more related to the subjective
side of music.
At least 9 different
criteria may help you to influence the 6 elements. We will
explain them in the next newsletter.
Dominique
Vandenneucker
Designer of Pizzicato
