Elements of Music: Key Concepts

Elements of Music

• Melody: The basic element of music, a tune.
• Harmony: Blending of chords (three or more notes played together) and arpeggios (notes played one by one).
• Rhythm: Duration and essential element of music, the heartbeat.
• Pitch: Highness or lowness of sound, using scales (ascending or descending sequences of notes). Common scales include the major scale (W,W,H,W,W,W,H) and minor scale (W,H,W,W,H,W,W).
• Tempo: Speed of the music, ranging from very slow (grave, largo, lento) to fast (allegro, vivace, presto).
• Timbre: The quality of a sound or voice (e.g., nasal, head voice, chest voice, guttural).
• Dynamics: Loudness and softness of sound; forte (loud), mezzo-forte (moderately loud), fortissimo (very loud), piano (soft), mezzo-piano (moderately soft), pianissimo (very soft), crescendo (gradually increasing volume) , decrescendo (gradually decreasing volume).
• Musical Notation (Time Values):
  • Whole note/rest = 4 beats
  • Half note/rest = 2 beats
  • Quarter note/rest = 1 beat
  • Eighth note/rest = 1/2 beat
  • Sixteenth note/rest = 1/4 beat
  • Dotted half note = 3 beats
  • Dotted quarter = 1 1/2 beats

Elements of Arts

• Line: Basic elements of art (vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curved).
• Shape: 2-dimensional (height and width), examples include squares, triangles.
• Form: 3-dimensional (height, width, depth), examples include spheres and cones.
• Space: Creating optical illusions, positive space (subject) and negative space (background).
• Texture: Quality of an object (smooth, rough, hairy).
• Value: Lightness and darkness of colors (tinting - adding white, shading - adding black).
• Color: Properties of light, warm colors (ROY), cool colors (GBV), hue, and intensity (brightness/darkness). Describes primary, secondary, and intermediate colors and their combinations.

Principles of Design

• Harmony (Unity): Unity of the elements
• Rhythm: Movement in design
• Balance: Sense of equilibrium, either formal (equal elements on both sides) or informal (unequal elements balanced, with one side being heavier than the other).

Asian Art

• Batik: Dotted clothing, dyeing cloth in Indonesia.
• Calligraphy: Beautiful hand writing in China.
• Wat: Religious complex with multiple buildings in Cambodia.
• Stupa: Burial marker, and storage of relics.
• Taj Mahal: Burial marker created for wife Mumtaz-I Mahal in India.
• Pagoda: Tiered tower with several eaves, originated from India.
• Wayang Kulit: Shadow puppetry in Indonesia.
• Naga: Snake or serpent motif.
• Apsara: Spirit of clouds, and water, style of painting in Japan.
• Ukiyo-e: Woodblock printing in Japan.
• Ikebana: Flower arrangements.
• Origami: Folding paper.
• Bunraku: Puppetry in Japan.
• Kabuki: Drama in Japan that uses makeup.
• Noh: Oldest Japanese drama that uses masks.

Emphasis, Proportion, Variety and Unity

• Emphasis: Center of interest to capture attention (e.g., using a contrasting color).
• Proportion: Comparing size of objects relative to each other or to the whole.
• Variety: Use of varied shapes, colors, and elements.
• Unity: Seeing the elements of art as a whole.