3Basic Music Theory

3.1 Introduction to Compositional Elements

Like most elements of life, sound and music can be broken down into mathematics. Just like with decibels in Chapter 1: Production Philosophies, Your Ears and Critical Listening, humans have, over time, developed systems to help express music in ways that are more easily comprehensible to the task we are trying to achieve than numbers alone would be. Over the course of the next pages, we will come to understand why we find the interaction between specific tones pleasing or displeasing. For now, though, let’s concentrate on the key elements that help us to express music.

To properly dissect music, we need to be aware of three elements: rhythm, melody and harmony.

  • Rhythm is the name ...

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