12 Chapter 12: Introduction to Music
Introduction to the Elements of Music
Before we begin our first historical periods, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it will be important that you become familiar with some of the basic elements of music. The next few readings will focus on those basic elements. This information is vital to your understanding of the genres and styles we’ll be studying over the course of the semester.
This section includes the following pages:
- Slideshow: The Elements of Music
- Slideshow: Form
- A Historical Approach to the Elements of Music
- Melody
- Rhythm
- Meter in Music
- Yale Lecture on Rhythm and Meter
- Texture
Slideshow: Form
This slideshow introduces some of the basic concepts involved in musical structure or form. This slideshow does not get into the subject of specific large-scale forms, such as sonata allegro or theme and variations, because we won’t encounter those structures until we study the Classical era. These foundational concepts will set you up with the basics you need for the first portion of the semester.
A Historical Approach to the Elements of Music
While there are many different approaches to describing the building blocks of music, we often break music down into five basic elements: melody, texture, rhythm, form, and harmony. While it’s true that not every piece of music contains all of those elements, it is very likely that every piece of music you have listened to recently does.
Of these five elements, there are two that almost always come first: melody and rhythm. They are not only the two most fundamental parts of music, but they are very probably the very first components of music experienced by human beings. It is a matter of pure speculation whether the first music involved a melody being sung or a rhythm being tapped, but it is easy to imagine that these two experiences were some of the earliest human musical creations.
Melody
Let’s begin our brief study of these elements with melody—not because it is more important than rhythm but because the first music we will study in the Middle Ages will be Gregorian chant. Also known as plainsong or plainchant, Gregorian chant is a musical genre that emphasizes the element of melody, often to the exclusion of any other elements.
Texture
We will continue to let history guide our survey of musical elements by moving to texture next. One of the most significant musical developments was the medieval experiment of adding a new melodic line to an existing Gregorian chant melody. As you’ll soon learn, this practice was called organum, and it introduced a new texture, known as polyphony, to the sacred music of the Middle Ages that had been dominated by the monophonic texture of plainchant.
Rhythm
As far as we can tell from the sparse historical record, Gregorian chant was sung without a regular beat. This gives plainchant a flowing freedom that can be loosely described as having no rhythm. This is certainly the way we most commonly hear chant performed t