THE MUSICAL ELEMENTS
The next step in devising a system for analysis is to define the
musical elements to be considered the three analytical levels. They are
(1)rhythm, (2) melody, (3) harmony, and (4) sound.All musical events
in a piece of music are combinations of these elements.Rhythm,the first
element, includes not only matters of durations, accents, tempos, and meters
but also finite formal units such as phrase and periods. The second element,
melody, includes every aspect of both rhythmic and pitch relationships in
any single line. Harmony, the third element, includes not only chordal analysis
and harmonic relationships, but also counterpoint or polyphony. The
fourth element, called sound for want of a better term, includes timbre
(and thus orchestration), dynamics, and texture. Again, as in the case of
the tree analytical levels, these your elements inevitably overlap.