The 3 most common Building blocks (Elements) of Music are :
- Rhythm
- Melody
- Harmony
Music isn’t really complete without all these elements. If anything is missing, I will call it ill-music. But for real, healthy music must contain all these elements.
Let’s explain each element:
- Rhythm: Rhythm is simply a music’s pattern in time. Every song you hear has it’s timing pattern whether Regular or Irregular. It enables you to replicate it’s timing accurately and to able to clap or dance to it where applicable.
- Melody: The tune of a song is it’s melody. Even without singing the lyrics of a song I can “humm” it and people will recognize it almost immediately. The melody is usually the most recognized element of music by all.
- Harmony: Yet another but very powerful feature in music. Harmony simply means a combination of notes from the scale, which also means chords. The reason it’s called harmony is because these combinations are pleasant to the ears. It’s very true that you might combine notes together and the sound will be ugly, but that’s why I’m here for you to show you how to play sweet stuff. Well-combined notes create harmony.
Understanding each element of music and effectively applying in your music gives you leverage over others who learn the piano.
You also have to understand that we have other elements of music such as Timbre, Dynamics, Texture, and Form.
For the purpose of this course we will focus mainly on Rhythm , Melody & Harmony. However, as we progress we will examine the others too.