Music Theory

Music is an arrangement of tones in a rhythmic pattern.

This is in contrast to noise, which consists of sounds that do not have a specific pattern.

Terms to know

• Pitch: A specific frequency, corresponding to a note. The pitch is what you play when you press a note.
• Note: A note is a named pitch. It can also refer to the occurrence of such a pitch as well. Note comes from notation, so it is something you write.
• Octave: An octave is the interval between two notes whose frequencies differ by twice
• Interval: It is the difference in pitch between two notes
• Step: It is the interval between two adjacent notes in a scale. A half step is the distance between a white note and the adjacent black note
• Scale: It is a set of notes ordered by the fundamental frequencies. A scale spans an octave
• Skip (or Leap): It is an interval of two or more steps in a scale
• Melody: The sequence of single pitch notes across time
• Chord Progression: The sequence of chords across time. Chord progressions are the foundation of western music from the era of classical music.
• Chord: A combination of notes in the same instant
  • A major chord is happy
  • A minor chord is sad.
  • Diminished chord: They give a tense sound
  • Augmented chord: They also give a tense sound
• Triad: It's a three note chord
  • Inverted Triad: It is when you take the lowest frequency note in a triad and move it up an octave. A triad can have two inversions, before it repeats, but at the next octave.
• Harmony: The set of notes, viewed without considering the progress of time, that is, stacked vertically. They are the accompanying notes to a melody. Two notes played together in a harmony should sound good together. A chord is an example of a harmony. A harmony also considers the general aspect of both chords and progressions. A chord progression can be seen as a harmony progression. But a harmony by itself is just the horizontal component.
• Harmonic Rhythm: It is the duration of harmonies in a harmonic progression
• Rhythm: It is the general repeating flow of music, or words in poetry
• Metre: It is the systematic measurement of how often the flow repeats in a track or in poetry
• BPM: Beats Per Minute, a measure of tempo
• Tempo: How fast the beats progress in a track
• Note duration: One full note has a duration of 4 beats
• Measure: A measure is the length of a repeating set of chords
• Overtones: Playing a note on an instrument (other than electronically generated) plays some higher frequencies along with the note's fundamental frequency. It helps determine the timbre of the sound.
• Harmonics: They are overtones which are integer multiples of the fundamental frequency
• Timbre (or Texture): It is the perceived quality of the tone when multiple frequencies are played together. One sound may have more 880 Hz than another, for example. It is how we can tell the same note played on different instruments apart.
• Tone: It is the perceived sound. It may mean a note along with its overtones, or it may mean just a single pitch. It can also mean a step, such a a half-tone can mean a half-step. It depends on the context, since it describes what is perceived.
• Microtone: They are intervals smaller than a half-tone.
• Partial: It is any pitch or simple tone of which a complex tone is composed, and is not necessarily an integer multiple of the fundamental.
• Inharmonic partial: It is a partial that does not match an ideal harmonic.
• Inharmonicity: It is a measure of the deviation of a partial from its closest ideal harmonic, typically measured in cents for each partial.
• Standard Tuning: The standard matching of a note to its fundamental frequency
• Scordatura (or Alternative Tuning): A mistuning done intentionally to produce a different kind of sound
• Dropped Tuning: A type of alternate tuning where a single key is lowered in pitch

To do: Key, Conjunct-Disjunct melodies, Consonance and Dissonance

If a sound consists of multiple pitches, it could either be multiple notes played at once (like a chord) or a single note with overtones.