Intro: Pitch and Harmony

# Pitch and Harmony

![BGSU](/assets/bgsu.png)

### Christopher Witulski, Ph.D.

### College of Musical Arts

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# Outline

* Pitch and frequency
* Melody
* Scales
* Chords and harmonies
* Consonance and dissonance

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# Pitch

* Frequency
	* Rate of vibration in a sound wave
	* Higher the frequency, higher the pitch
* Can be measured by a number or letter
	* Measured in hertz (Hz, kHz, etc.)
	* Speakers often go from 20Hz to 20kHz
	* In letters: A through G, not specific
* Range...

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### Johnny Cash: "Ring of Fire"

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### The Weeknd: "Can't Feel My Face"

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# Pitch

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# Features of a Melody

* Characteristics of melody
	* Contour (draw!)
	* Range: distance between lowest to highest pitches
	* Direction: ascending, descending, etc
* “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” “Eagle Dance”
	* Is the range large or small?
	* What is the direction? Contour?

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<audio controls="controls">
	<source src="/assets/eagle-dance.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
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# Scales in Western Music

* A, B, C, D, E, F, G and all sharps and flats
	* Pitch vs. note
* Scale
	* Ascending/descending series of notes of different pitches
	* Basis of songs/pieces
	* Usually within an octave
	* Steps, or scale degrees
* Chromatic scale
	* Scale using all 12 notes in an octave

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# Scales in Western Music

* 7 note scales: major, minor, others
	* Basic scale determines the key, or the tonic/root
* Pentatonic (major, minor, others)
	* Any five note scale is pentatonic
	* In Bali, pentatonic scales are 5 equidistant notes
* Blues scale: “blue notes”
	* You are *not responsible* for building scales or chords

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# Scales in Western Music

* Repetition at the octave
	* Jazz and Arabic music, for example, do not necessarily repeat at the octave!
	* This makes them different than Western classical scales
* Modulation
	* Moving from one key, or scale, to another
	* Can be sudden or developed over an ambiguous section

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# In Non-Western Music

* May divide scales in entirely different ways
	* India: 22 microtones per octave
	* Arabic classical music: 24 quarter tones
	* "Samaʾi Bayatti al-ʿAryan"

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	<source src="/assets/sama'i-bayatti-al-'aryan.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
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* Modes (*maqam*, *raga*, etc)
	* Ornamentation, contour, modulation can be internal
	* Can contain extra-musical characteristics
	* A complete “road map” of sorts
* Pitch as a musical and cultural value
	* How important is it, after all?

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# Pitch and Harmony

* Chord (and chord progressions)
	* Two or more notes of different pitches sounded simultaneously, or conceived of harmonically
	* Arpeggio: “broken chord”

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### Rewo, MiniBrute (1:30ish)
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# Pitch and Harmony

* Chord (and chord progressions)
	* Two or more notes of different pitches sounded simultaneously, or conceived of harmonically
	* Arpeggio: “broken chord”
* Harmony has two meanings
	* The material that accompanies the melodic ideas
	* How that material works within the context (function)
* Harmonization
	* One common definition: chords built from the melody line itself
	* Another: two related musical lines, like the voice in Beethoven 9 and the Louvin Brothers

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<audio controls="controls">
	<source src="/assets/ode-to-joy.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
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### Louvin Brothers: "I Can't Keep You in Love with Me" (1961)

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# Consonance and Dissonance

* Consonance
	* Harmonic rest
* Dissonance
	* Has a need to move
	* Based on expectations, culturally specific
* With repetition…
	* Dissonance can become stable
	* Dominant seventh chords throughout the blues

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### B.B. King

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# Pitch and Harmony

![BGSU](/assets/bgsu.png)

### Christopher Witulski, Ph.D.

### College of Musical Arts