Discussion of pitch, tone, melody, harmony, tempo, and dynamics

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 | Author: sharlene

Pitch

The pitch of a sound refers to its “high” or “low” quality (or frequency). In written piano music, the pitch of a note is expressed by the position of the note on the staff, and the clef that is used.

Tone (or timbre)

In music, the word tone has several different meanings. The tone of a sound refers to its quality. Think of the expression “tone of voice”. The same concept applies to this musical term. The tone of an instrument can be full and rich, or thin and whiny. Each different instrument has an inherent tone or quality that is defined by its architecture. Using different building material, material quality, and design will result in different tones.

The word ‘tone’ can also refer to a musical interval or step. This is beyond the scope of this article, and will be discussed further in a future post.

Melody

The melody of a piece of music can also be called the tune. It is a linear succession of notes that form the distinctive part of the piece of music. It has also been described as the main sound movement in a piece of music.

Harmony

In music, the term harmony refers to the use of different pitches simultaneously. It is the supporting infrastructure for the melody, often chordal – the vertical structure of a piece of music.

Tempo

Tempo refers to how fast or how slow a piece of music should be played. You may know some Italian terms such as largo, adagio, andante, or presto. These tempo markings define whether the music is to be played fast (presto) or slow (largo). There are also terms to define gradual changes in tempo. For example, the word rallentando means “gradually getting slower”.

Dynamics

The dynamics in a piece of music define how loud or how soft the notes should be played. Some example dynamics are: pianissimo (pp), piano(p), mezzo forte(mf), forte(f) and fortissimo(ff). To indicate gradual changes in volume a crescendo or decrescendo symbol is used.

This gives you a basic understanding of common musical terms. In future lessons, we will follow up on many of these terms in order to expand your understanding of them.

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