MUSIC

1.1 MELODY
A melody, also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of
musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity.
➢ In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of pitch and
rhythm, while more figuratively, the term can include
successions of other musical elements such as tonal color.
o A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, melōidía, "singing, chanting"), also
tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the
listener perceives as a single entity.
o a melody is a combination of pitch and rhythm, while more
figuratively, the term can include successions of other musical
elements such as tonal color. It may be considered the foreground
to the background accompaniment.
o Melodies often consist of one or more musical phrases or motifs,
and are usually repeated throughout a composition in various
forms.
o Melodies may also be described by their melodic motion or the
pitches or the intervals between pitches (predominantly conjunct or
disjunct or with further restrictions), pitch range, tension and
release, continuity and coherence, cadence, and shape.
Treble Clef Lines:
Every Good Boy Does Fine
Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge
Every Good Boy Deserves Football
Empty Garbage Before Dad Flips
Treble Clef Spaces:
FACE
Understanding Accidentals

➢ Accidentals are signs or symbols placed to the left side of a note to

Bass Clef Lines: indicate that the pitch is to be altered.
Good Boys Do Fine Always

Good Boys Deserve Fudge Always
Good Burritos Don’t Fall Apart
Bass Clef Spaces:
All Cows Eat Grass
✓ The sharp (#) raises the pitch of the note by a semitone.
✓ The flat (b) lowers the pitch of a note by a semitone.
✓ The natural ( ) cancels the effects of either the sharp or the flat.
✓ The double sharp (x) raises a note already sharpened by another
semitone.
✓ The double flat (bb) lowers a note already flattened by another
semitone.
 The KEY SIGNATURE is composed by the number of sharps or flats A WHOLE TONE or WHOLE STEP is made up of two semitones. On the
placed immediately after the clef right before the time signature. The keyboard, a whole tone is any two keys with one key, white or black, in
key signature can be altered within a musical piece. between.

An INTERVAL in music is the distance in pitch between two notes.

The size of an interval is measured by the number of letter names

contained in the interval including both the bottom and top notes.
Accidentals are not included when counting the numerical distance
between the notes. The accidentals will only determine the nature of
the interval which will be discussed in the coming levels.
The Whole Step

An interval is always calculated from bottom to top with the lower note The whole step is a distance of two half steps. This is sometimes referred to
counted as 1 An interval that passes an octave is considered compound. as a whole tone. This would make a whole step any two notes with only one
note between them. Below is an illustration of some whole steps on the piano
keyboard.

✓ Always remember that the C is always found on a white key before 2

black keys. This memory aide will help you locate the other notes.
The F is always found on a white key before 3 black keys.

A SEMITONE or HALF STEP is the smallest distance between any two

adjacent keys on the keyboard whether it is black and white or white
and white.

e.g. E and F B and C, D and D, etc. are all semitones apart.

Melodic Scales
Scale - are orderly arranged combinations of pitches from low to high or
from high to low.

• Diatonic Scale - any heptatonic scale that includes five whole steps
(whole tones) and two half steps (semitones) in an octave.

SHARP KEYS

Go 1#

Down 2#S
• Pentatonic Scale- a musical scale with five notes per octave.
And 3#S

Eat

Banana
• Whole Tone Scale- a scale in which each note is separated from its F#rom
neighbors by the interval of a whole tone.
C#arbon

FLAT KEYS

1b - Fat F

2bs - Boy Bb

3bs - Eats Eb

4bs - Apple Ab

5bs - During Db

6bs -Good Gb

7bs - Climate Cb
2. TEXTURE
2.1 HARMONY
2.1 MAJOR CHORD

Interval from Root to the Third - called Major third

count of five keys, example if

C is the root, count it as

1 is C - ROOT
2 is C#,
3 is D,
4 is D#, and
5 is E) - MAJOR THIRD (from C)
Interval from ROOT to FIFTH - called Perfect Fifth
count 8 keys from the ROOT to FIFTH, since you already know that C to E
you counted 5, just simply proceed to the next key as count 6 to 8, like this:
2.2 TEXTURE
In music, texture is how the melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic materials are
combined in a composition, thus determining the overall quality of the
sound in a piece.

Texture is often described in regard to the density, or thickness, and range,

or width, between lowest and highest pitches, in relative terms as well as
more specifically distinguished according to the number of voices, or parts,
and the relationship between these voices.

For example, a thick texture contains many “layers” of instruments.

➢ Monophonic texture consists of one layer: a single melody. This is

called singing or playing in unison. Recall the example from the
Hallelujah Chorus of F. Handel, in the Baroque Period, where the
voices and the instruments as well played exactly the same, single
tune or melody.

Therefore, monophonic texture can be created by one or many musicians,

as long as they are all singing or playing the exact same note at the same
time.
 ➢ Monophonic music has only one melodic line, with no harmony or
counterpoint. Monophonic music can also be called monophony.
It is sometimes called monody, although the term “monody” can also refer
to a particular type of solo song (with instrumental accompaniment which is
the same as the melody that was very popular in the 1600s.
Examples of Monophony
• One person whistling a tune
• A single bugle sounding “Taps”
• A group of people all singing a song together, without harmonies or
instruments
• A fife and drum corp, with all the fifes playing the same melody
1. HOMOPHONY
Ex: Homophonic Hippos, Bahay Kubo - CNU Chorale (cover)
❖ Homophonic music can also be called homophony. Describing
homophonic music, you may hear such terms as chords,
accompaniment, harmony, or harmonies.
Examples of Homophony:
• Choral music in which the parts have mostly the same rhythms at the
same time is homophonic. Most traditional Protestant hymns and most
“barbershop quartet” music is in this category.
• A singer accompanied by a guitar picking or strumming chords.
• A small jazz combo with a bass, a piano, and a drum set providing the
“rhythm” background for a trumpet improvising a solo.
• A single bagpipes or accordion player playing a melody with drones or
chords
2. POLYPHONY
Ex: Polyphonic parrots
❖ Polyphonic music can also be called polyphony, counterpoint, or
contrapuntal music. If more than one independent melody is occurring
at the same time, the music is polyphonic.
3. FORM OR STRUCTURE IN MUSIC
➢ The term “form” depicts something concrete however music is
something abstract, we cannot see nor touch it, we can only hear it.
➢ Some songs just simply look like these pictures. Some have several
parts while others have few.
➢ In music, form refers to the structure and organization of a musical
composition.
Ex: Leron-Leron Sinta, Paro Parong Bukid
❖ A motif is a short musical idea—shorter than a phrase—that occurs
often in a piece of music.
❖ A short melodic idea may also be called a motif, a motive, a cell, or a
figure. These small pieces of melody will appear again and again in a
piece of music, sometimes exactly the same and sometimes changed.
PHRASE which is defined above as a complete musical utterance, unlike
literary art where a phrase still expresses incomplete thought, in music it is
complete.
A melody, then, ordinarily consists of a succession of phrases. There are
different kinds of phrases as discussed above but for this analysis let us
focus on these two: the antecedent and consequent phrases or “question
and answer.”
➢ Cadence ends on the tonic chord. A cadence gives the impression of a
conclusion or end.
Both stanzas use the same melody. So, the musical form is labelled as A A.
There are 4 stanzas in the song Leron-leron Sinta, and each stanza uses the
same music or melody. Therefore, the form is A A A A, 4 stanzas of the lyrics
are set to one music - A. This form is called a strophic form.
 ❖ The strophic type is seen in hymns and traditional ballads, in which In music theory of musical form, through-composed music is relatively
different poetic strophes are set to the same melody. Thus, while continuous, non-sectional, or non-repetitive music.
the melody of a single stanza may accord with one of the reverting
types, the hymn or ballad as a whole is strophic; this also applies to
the fixed forms of medieval music and to many other types of song, A song is said to be through-composed if it has different music for each
simple and complex. stanza of the lyrics.
❖ In Music, strophic form is also known as a unitary form which has
the same melody over different song stanzas that have different
lyrics. Moreover, a song is unitary in its form if it has this
“repetitive” nature. Some examples of these songs are the
following:
1. Silent Night
2. Old Macdonald
3. Mary Had a Little Lamb

BINARY FORM
➢ Binary Form describes the structure of a piece of music which is divided
into 2 different sections. The 2 sections are usually labeled A and B.

➢ The key concept to grasp is that there is some sort of contrast between
the A section and the B section.

TERNARY FORM

➢ A musical structure where the piece is divided into 3 distinct

sections. The 1st and last sections are exactly the same as each
other and so the form can be written A – B – A.

RONDO FORM

➢ Rondo Form is a natural extension of the 2 forms we have looked at

already – Binary Form and Ternary Form. If Binary Form is A-B and
Ternary Form is A-B-A then Rondo Form is A-B-A-C-A-D-A.
➢ The main section or theme (known as “A”) alternates with
contrasting themes (you will hear these called various names such
as “episodes”, “couplets” or “digressions”). These contrasting
themes are labelled B, C, D, etc. So, a typical Rondo Form