BATANGAS PROVINCE HIGH SCHOOL FOR

CULTURE AND ARTS – MUSIC  Monophonic: Single melody, unison, no

accompaniment
FUNDAMENTALS OF MUSIC THEORY  Homophonic: Single melody with
chordal accompaniment (two voices).
I. ELEMENTS OF MUSIC Common of church hymns.
 Polyphonic: Two or more melodies at
1. Rhythm – the duration of sound the same time.

 Beat: The pulse. A rhythmic unit of time. 7. Dynamics – the volume of the sound i.e. the
 Tempo: The speed of the beat. How fast loudness or softness
or slow the music is.
 Meter: The organization of strong and II. MUSICAL TERMINOLOGIES &
weak beats. Indicated by measures & SYMBOLS
time signatures.

2. Melody – the tune; an organized sequenced

of pitches.

 Conjunct: easy to sing, notes are right

next to one another.
 Disjunct: not easy to sing, there are large
leaps or skips between notes.

3. Harmony – the combination of two or more

*pitches

 Consonance: combination of two or

more pitches which are harmoniously
pleasing
 Dissonance: combination of two or more
pitches which are not harmoniously
pleasing.

*Pitch: means how high or low a note is.

4. Timbre – tone color/tone quality

e.g. the difference between a guitar and a

piano playing the same note at the same
volume and duration.

5. Form – the structure of music

 Binary: AB scheme (each section may be

repeated)
 Ternary: ABA scheme (e.g. Twinkle,
Twinkle Little Star)
 Theme & Variation: Principal theme is
clearly stated at the beginning and goes
through a series of variations over the rest
of the piece. (e.g. Ah, vous dirai-je, TIME SIGNATURES
Maman by Mozart)
 Popular Song: several different forms:
a) AABA, where B is often the bridge
b) Verse-Chrous-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-
Chorus
 The TOP NUMBER tells you how many
6. Texture – overall quality of the piece, most counts per measure
often indicated by the number of voices in  The BOTTOM NUMBER tells you what
the music and by relationship among these kind of note gets one count
voices.
 ACCIDENTALS TEMPO MARKINGS

REPEAT SIGNS

ARTICULATIONS

KEY SIGNATURES

DYNAMICS EXPRESSIVE TEXTS

 Accelerando: gradually faster
 A tempo: in time
 Cantabile: in a singing time
 Crescendo (cresc.): gradually louder
 Diminuendo (dim.): gradually softer
 Dolce: sweetly
 Grazioso: gracefully
 Legato: smoothly
 Marcato: marked
 Rallentando (rall.): gradually slower
 Vivace: excitedly; animated