Chapter 2: Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony

1. Chapter 2: Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony

2. Rhythm • Rhythm: the organization of time in music • Gives shape or profile to the melody • Provides vitality and definition to a melody • Divides long spans of time into smaller, more easily comprehendible units • Rhythm is the most fundamental element of music • Watch Christopher Walken in action

3. Elements of Rhythm • Beat: a regularly recurring sound that divides the passing to time into equal units;the basic pulse of music • Tempo: speed at which the beat sounds • Allegro, Presto; Lento, Grave • Accelerando: speeding up • Ritardando (Ritard): slowing down • Meter: organizing beats into groups • Measure: each group of beats • Downbeat: first beat in each unit • Accent: emphasis or stress places on a beat

4. Rhythmic Notation • Music notation began in 13th-century Paris

5. Meter/Time Signatures • Duple (2/4) meter: two beats per measure

6. Meter/Time Signatures • Duple (3/4) meter: two beats per measure

7. Hearing Meters • Tap your foot on the downbeat • Practice your conducting:

8. Syncopation • Syncopation: when the accent is on the weak beat or between beats • Creates a feeling of being “off beat” • Often heard in jazz, Latin music, and hip-hop

9. Melody • Melody: a series of notes arranged in order to form a distinctive, recognizable musical unit; the “tune” • Pitch: the relative position (high or low) of a musical sound • Octave: Span between the first note and the eighth note of a scale • Interval: the distance between any two pitches

10. Listening to Melodies • Listen for the melodic contour

11. Melodic Notation • Musical notation began around the year 1000 CE • Staff: Gridwork of line and spaces where music is written • Noteheads and flags show different durations and rhythms

12. A clef indicates the range of pitches • Grand Staff:

13. Scales, Mode, Tonality, and Key • Scale: • A sequential arrangement of pitches • Ascend and descend in an unvarying pattern • Mode: term describing a general type of scale: major, minor, etc. • Major and minor scales used in almost all Western melodies • Chromatic Scale: Uses all twelve pitches equally divided within the octave

14. Scales • Major • A seven-note scale • Order of whole and half steps: 1-1-1/2-1-1-1-1/2 • Usually associated with joy, confidence, tranquility, etc. • Minor • A seven-note scale • Order of whole and half steps: 1-1/2-1-1-1/2-1-1 • Usually associated with fear, anxiety, sorrow, despair, etc.

15. Tonality • Tonality(or Key): The organization of music around a central pitch (the tonic) • Modulation: a musical move to a different tonal center • Planets rotate around and are pulled towards the sun, just as outlying pitches are pulled toward the tonic pitch

16. Hearing Melodies and Phrases • Melodies are composed on smaller segments called phrases • We usually follow along with the phrases when we listen to music

17. Harmony • Harmony: sounds that provide the support and enrichment - an accompaniment – for melody • Built on chords: a group of two or more pitches that sound at the same time • Triad: the basic chord in Western music • Tonic: first note of the scale • Dominant: fifth note of the scale • Chord Progression: a succession of chords moving forward in a purposeful fashion • Cadence: the end of a chord progression

18. Consonance and Dissonance • Consonance: pitches sounding agreeable and stable • Creates a sense of calm • Dissonance: pitches sounding momentarily disagreeable unstable • Creates a sense of tension and anxiety • Consonance and Dissonance allows music to convey a wide range of emotion