Music has many different fundamentals or elements. These include but are not limited to: pitch, beat or pulse, rhythm, melody, harmony, texture, allocation of voices, timbre or color, expressive qualities (dynamics and articulation), and form or structure. In addition to these "fundamentals" there are other important concepts employed in music both in Western and non-Western cultures including "Scales and/or Modes" and "Consonance vs. Dissonance".
Pitch is a subjective sensation, reflecting generally the lowness or highness of a sound. In a musical context, some people have what is called perfect pitch and can assign an isolated tone to its place on a musical scale. Human perception of pitch can be comprehensively fooled to create auditory illusions. Perceived pitch is closely connected with the fundamental frequency of a note. In general, the higher the frequency of vibration, the higher the perceived pitch is, and lower the frequency, the lower the pitch.
At and below about 1,000 Hz, the perceived pitch of a tone gets lower as sound pressure increases, but above approximately 2,000 Hz, the pitch increases as the sound gets louder.
In Western music, there have long been several competing pitch standards defining tuning systems.
In addition, fixing notes to standard frequencies has varied as well. "Concert A" was set at 435 Hz by France in 1859 while in England, concert A varied between 439 and 452 Hz. A frequency of 440 Hz was recommended as the standard in 1939, and in 1955 the International Organization for Standardization affirmed the choice. A 440 is now widely, though not exclusively, used as the A above middle C.
The difference in frequency between two pitches is called an interval. The most basic interval is the unison, which is simply two of the same pitch, followed by the slightly more complex octave, which indicates either a doubling or halving of the fundamental frequency.
Rhythm is the arrangement of sounds and silences in time. Meter animates time in regular pulse groupings, called measures or bars. The time signature or meter signature specifies how many beats are in a measure, and which value of written note is counted and felt as a single beat. Through increased stress and attack particular tones may be accented.
Syncopated rhythms are rhythms that accent unexpected parts of the beat. Playing simultaneous rhythms in more than one time signature is called polymeter.
A melody is a series of notes sounding in succession. The notes of a melody are typically created with respect to pitch systems such as scales or modes. The rhythm of a melody is often based on the inflections of language, the physical rhythms of dance, or simply periodic pulsation. Melody is typically divided into phrases within a larger overarching structure. The elements of a melody are pitch, duration, dynamics, and timbre.
Harmony is the study of vertical sonorities in music. Vertical sonority refers to considering the relationships between pitches that occur together; usually this means at the same time, although harmony can also be implied by a melody that outlines a harmonic structure.
The relationship between two pitches is referred to as an interval. A larger structure involving more than two pitches is called a chord. In Common practice and Popular music, harmonies are generally tertian. This means that the interval of which the chords are composed is a third. Therefore, a root-position triad consists of the root note, a note a third above, and a note a third above that (a fifth above the root). Seventh chords add a third above the top note of a triad (a seventh above the root). The perception of pitch within harmony depends on a number of factors including the interaction of frequencies within the harmony and the roughness produced by the fast beating of nearby partials.