The Craft of Contemporary Commercial Music

Chapter 1

Introduction to Pitch

Even the most complex subjects can be reduced to a series of far less intricate components. In learning to read and write in English, you first learned the letters of the alphabet, how these letters combine to form words, how words combine to form sentences, how sentences combine to form paragraphs, and how paragraphs combine to form compositions. The same process applies to the study of music. In this chapter, you will concentrate on the smallest elements of the Western musical language, and these elements will be combined in later chapters to form more elaborate structures.

Music is often described as being composed of four major elements: melody, harmony, rhythm, and form. In order to discuss melody and harmony, ...