Intro to Music Theory

When listening to music there are four main elements that the listener should become familiar with. These elements are rhythm, melody, harmony, and tone color. These factors along with the creation of structure and musical texture make up the music that we listen to on a day to day basis. Without these musical features music would not be as complex and dynamic as it has grown to be. Depending on how they are arranged and utilized determines what we take away for music after we have listened to it. What we bring to the music is a significant factor as well. Considering all of these components, how we listen to music and how we should listen to music are distinctively different.
Historians believe that when music was first created thousands of years ago, it was merely a simple beat. This element of music soon evolved into what we all recognize now as rhythm. It wasn’t until about 1150 that musical rhythm was formally written down. Even the systems that we have adopted ...