• Dynamics
• Rythm/meter
• Pitch/Melody/Harmony
• Instrumentation/Timbre
• Tescture
• Tempo
• Structutre/Form

Change in volume, musical expression, determining partly the mood of the piece. This indicates the loudness/softness of a piece of music, and the way to attack certain notes (ie. Accents). These are notated using abbreviations or symbols. 

ppp- pianissinissmo

pp-pianissimo (softer than piano)

p-piano (soft)

Rhythm/Meter 

Definition: The arrangement of musical time. Music is arranged in beats grouped into measures (bars). Meter is the grouping of strong and weak beats. Rhythm is the arrangement of note lengths in a piece of music.

"Rhythm is shaped by meter"

Pitch/Melody/Harmony/Tonality

Pitch

Music s produced through vibrations. The frequency of these vibrations produce sounds of varying lowness or highness. 

Slowly vibrations/bigger objects:

Faster vibrations/smaller objects:

Melody

This is the arrangement of a series of pitches in musical time. This can be considered the recognisable 'tune' of the piece.

Harmony

This is a group of notes (chords) played together and the relationship between a series of chords. This usually supports the melody, played simultaneously or as broken chords, giving music its texture.

Tonality

Also known as the key. A piece can be centered around a certain set of pitches.

Instrumentation/Timbre

What is producing the music. This describes what instruments or voices are heard. This will greatly affect the mood of the piece. 

Timbre is also known as Tone Color which is the quality of sound that is used to distinguish between instruments.

Texture

This describes the layers in music and how they relate to each other. This is also related to the vertical aspect of music

Thick/thin

Monophonic

homophonic

polyphonic

Tempo

How fast or slow music is played. THis is usually marked using with symbols or Italian terms

Some Common Tempo Markings

Largo

Andante

Allegro

Structure

This explains how music is organised into sections. The structure of the piece is an overall picture of how the piece progresses (in sections, using repetition, phrase structure etc).

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Born - January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria
Died - December 5, 1791 at the age of 35
Birthplace - Salzburg, Austria


Mozart was one of seven children however, only one other sibling survived, his older sister, Maryanne. Both exhibited unusual musical abilities at an early age and, with guidance and instruction from their father, Leopold, performed regularly in front of royalty. Another important force in Mozart's life was his mother Anna Maria. History suggest an alert, intelligent woman, earthy, and sensible, but profoundly torn by the power struggle between her husband and her son.

Mozart was known as a child prodigy. A prodigy is a person with exceptional talents far beyond what is normal for someone of that age. At three years old he began to experiment with sounds on the piano. At age five he wrote his first piece of music. By the age six he had taken up the violin. By the age eight, he wrote his first symphony. Then by the age of twelve he wrote his first opera. In his lifetime, he wrote 616 pieces of music. He was able to write this incredible amount of music because he was born with 2 special gifts; perfect pitch and photographic memory. As Wolfgang was growing up, his father took him and his sister Maryanne on tours of Europe. Eventually, they went to Italy, the center of musical activity in the 1700's. As Mozart reached his 20's, he grew apart from his father. As Mozart reached his 20s, he grew apart from his father. At the age of 26, he married Constanze Weber. They had 6 children, but only two sons survived past childhood.

He was commissioned and payed to write a requiem. He had a feeling that if he finished he requiem he will die and it will be his requiem.


Notes:

• He learned to speak 15 different languages throughout his lifetime.
• Perfect pitch is the ability to name the letter of a pitch simply by hearing it, or the ability to produce any pitch referred to by name. 
• Photographic memory tis the ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with great accuracy and in seemingly unlimited volume.