by Rainier Wong

Created on: March 18, 2009   Last Updated: April 21, 2009

What is music? This is one question that I believe no one can give a straight forward answer to. If someone would ask me what a CD player is, I would gladly tell him or her that it is a device to play CDs. However, this is not so easy in terms of music. At first, I thought music was only restricted to anything that contained at least a melody. Later, I discovered in a music appreciation class I took while at university that this was not necessary so. Anything that sounds pleasant to the person listening to it can be considered as music by that person. For example, the sound of the engine of an automobile may be awful to a person, but pleasant to another person. Therefore, the sound of the engine is music to the person who enjoys it. The types of music can range from something with a melody to something that has no melody at all. There was one incident where a pianist deliberately sat at his piano at a concert without stricking a single note for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. The sound produced by the audience including conversations while waiting for the pianist to struck the first note, became part of the music.

Many musical pieces have been composed based on a string of tones known as scales. Each tone is represented by a note. There are many types of scales and the most common one is the major scale. If you have watched "The Sound of Music", you would have noticed Julie Andrews telling the children a piece of music was based on the scales in the famous song, "Do Re Me". Music can also composed on minor, whole-tone, and pantatonic scales. An example of a minor scale piece is the famous Romanian waltz, Waves of the Danube. You might have listen or played this piece yourself.

Pantatonic scales are common in music from China, especially the traditional ones and certain parts of Europe which include Ireland and Hungary. Whole-tone scales are used for compositions during the Impressionalist era. An example of an Impressionist piece is Claire De Lune by Claude Debussy. You might also have listen or played it yourself.

Let's now look at the important elements of music which include beat, rhythm, texture, dynamics and timbre. Let's examine each of the elements.

Timing is important in music. The beat is what helps the musician to keep time. In modern music, the drummer is used most of the time to help provide the beat to other musicians. If you have seen a music score, you would have noticed a digit written above another digit at the beginning of it, for example,

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