• 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).