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Foundations of music theory

The seven building blocks that music is made of

At first glance music seems endlessly varied – from the simple nursery rhyme to the large-scale symphony. And yet every piece can be traced back to a manageable number of basic elements. Whoever understands these building blocks understands how music works – and from then on listens more consciously, plays more securely and composes more freely.

1 · The overview

Why exactly these seven?

The seven building blocks are the fundamental dials by which all music is built. You can picture them as the seven questions every piece answers: When does something sound? Which notes follow one another? What sounds at the same time? How loud? With which instrument? In what order? And how fast? Each of these questions belongs to a building block of its own.

They are deliberately chosen so that they do not overlap and together cover the whole. Other textbooks sometimes count a little differently – occasionally texture is added, occasionally rhythm and tempo are combined. For getting started, the following division has proved its worth, because it leads from the concrete and audible to the more abstract:

1 · Rhythm

The framework in time. It arranges the notes in time and gives music its pulse and its motion.

2 · Melody

The line you sing along to. A succession of notes experienced as one connected thought.

3 · Harmony

The sounding-together. What sounds at the same time: chords and their relationships to one another.

4 · Dynamics

Loud and soft. It shapes tension, expression and the contrasts of a piece.

5 · Timbre

Why violin and flute sound different even on the same note. The character of the sound itself.

6 · Form

The blueprint. How a piece is divided into sections and how these repeat and contrast.

7 · Tempo

The measure of time. How fast the pulse beats and how much it changes as the piece unfolds.
2 · Interplay

How the building blocks work together

No building block stands on its own – that is the decisive point. A melody needs a rhythm, otherwise its notes would be nothing but a list without any order in time. That melody rests on a harmony that gives it support and colour. Dynamics and timbre decide whether the same notes seem tender or powerful, warm or sharp. Form holds all of this together and makes sure that individual ideas become a whole. And tempo determines whether that whole is experienced as a calm nocturne or a driving dance.

A helpful image is the house: rhythm is the foundation and load-bearing structure, harmony is the walls, melody is the façade you see from outside, dynamics and timbre are the light and the material, and form is the floor plan by which everything is arranged. Change one building block and the experience of the whole "house" changes – even though the others stay the same. It is precisely this interplay that makes music so rich.

3 · How to read on

How to work with this chapter

Each of the seven building blocks has its own detailed reading. You can read them in order – the sequence leads from the tangible (rhythm, melody) to the overarching (form, tempo) – or dive in exactly where a question is on your mind right now. In every reading you will also find an interactive element to try out, so that what you have read becomes immediately audible and tangible.

It is best to begin with rhythm: it is the building block on which all the others are built – and the one you can grasp physically at once, even without any notation.