The Five Elements of Music

Video Transcript

"Hello! My name is Duane Carter and on behalf of Expert Village, I am going to be talking today learning how to listen to and appreciate music. One way to enhance your listening experience is to understand the elements of music. There are five elements of music; melody, harmony, rhythm, pitch and timbre. Even as a passive listener, you probably recognize the first three melody, harmony and rhythm and whether you realize it or not, you are actually conscious of the other two pitch and timbre. Timbre is thought of as the color of music. It is often thought in terms of warm and shrill or light and dark. A flute for instance is thought of having a night timbre whereas a tuba is considered dark. But this shouldn't be confused with pitch. Pitch is the highs and lows of music. Timbre deals with color so you can have two instruments of the same pitch that has different colors. For instance, a flute and a violin playing the same exact note has a different coloring to the sound. Pitch can be thought of in two ways The highs and lows like we've already said. For instance, the flute and the tuba and also the pitch of a particular note. One note can be slightly higher or slightly lower than the norm. "