1.3. Music and Sound Basic Concepts¶
1.3.1. Melody¶
Definition
A melody is a rhythmical succession of single tones producing a distinct musical phrase or idea.
Notes
Notes are the lowest level in music. Notes denote the pitch and duration of a sound.
Fig. 1.1 Music notes in the piano¶
Accidentals (Alteraciones)
Accidentals are …
In traditional music notation, the symbols that denote the accidentals are:
Sharp ♯ (sostenido): It increases the pitch of the note one semitone.
Flat ♭ (bemol): It decreases the pitch of the note one semitone.
Natural ♮ (becuadro): It overrides the accidental of the note if it has one (due to the key…).
Pentagram
In sheet music which is the basic form in which Western classical music is notated, notes are written on the pentagram. A pentagram is composed by 5 parallel horizontal lines that leave 4 spaces between them.
Fig. 1.2 Pentagram¶
Intervals
Intervals are the way to measure the distance between 2 notes. Normally, we give first the distance (2nd, 3rd…) and then the type of the interval quality (minor, major…).
Interval quality types are [Pis89]:
Minor
m:Major
M:Augmented
A:Diminished
d:Perfect
P:
The only distance that can be augmented, diminished or perfect are 4ths and 5ths.
The complete interval notations are:
Interval (American) |
Abbreviation |
Distance (Semitones) |
Example |
|---|---|---|---|
P1 |
Unison |
0 |
|
m2 |
Minor 2nd |
1 |
|
M2 |
Major 2nd |
2 |
|
A2 |
Augmented 2nd |
3 |
|
m3 |
Minor 3rd |
3 |
|
M3 |
Major 3rd |
4 |
|
d4 |
Diminished 4th |
4 |
|
P4 |
Perfect 4th |
5 |
|
A4 |
Augmented 4th |
6 |
|
d5 |
Diminished 5th |
6 |
|
P5 |
Perfect 5th |
7 |
|
A5 |
Augmented 5th |
8 |
|
6m |
Minor 6th |
8 |
|
M6 |
Major 6th |
9 |
|
m7 |
Minor 7th |
10 |
|
M7 |
Major 7th |
11 |
|
P8 |
Perfect 8ve |
12 |
Bars
1.3.2. Harmony¶
Definition
It is the superposition of notes that form chords which compose a chord progression.
Key or Tonality
Circle of Fifths
Chord
A chord is any harmonic set of pitches/frequencies consisting of multiple notes (also called “pitches”) that are heard as if sounding simultaneously [Ben14].
Tonic…Inversions…
There are some ways to characterize chords regarding the symbology used. There’s the American notation or the Baroque notation. For more information visit this wkipedia page
Chord Progresion or Harmonic Progression
Here’s a link to a website to learn more about harmony (web in spanish).
from music21 import musicxml, note, stream
import os
us = music21.environment.UserSettings()
us_path = us.getSettingsPath()
if not os.path.exists(us_path):
us.create()
print('Path to music21 environment', us_path)
us['musescoreDirectPNGPath'] = r'C:\\Program Files\\MuseScore 3\\bin\\MuseScore3.exe'
us['musicxmlPath'] = r'C:\\Program Files\\MuseScore 3\\bin\\MuseScore3.exe'
s = stream.Stream()
s.insert(0, note.Note("C4"))
s.insert(0, note.Note("C8"))
s.show()
1.3.3. Rhythm¶
1.3.4. Form or Structure¶
Definition
…
Motif
Phrase or Theme
This is the high-level structure that music presents and it is related with the time dimension. The smallest part of a music piece is the motif which is developed in a music phrase and the combination of music phrases form a section. Sections in music are ordered depending on the music style such as intro-verse-chorus-verse-outro for some pop songs (also represented as ABCBA) or exposition-developmentrecapitulation or ABA for Sonatas. The concatenation of sections which can be in different scales and modes gives us the entire composition.
1.3.5. Texture¶
Music can be monophonic or polyphonic depending on the notes that are played at the same time step, homophonic or heterophonic depending on the melody, if it has or not accompaniment.
Definition
Texture in music terms refers to the melodic, rhythmic and harmonic contents that have to be combined in a composition in order to form the music piece