Sound

■ a mechanical disturbance that propagates through a medium

■ e.g. a local fluctuation in pressure and density

■ the fluctuation is what is moving

■ the air molecules only travel a small distance

Difficult to answer this questions

Focus on western music in this lecture

Important features of music for the lecture:

• music is an art form (everything goes)

• music is categorized as a performing art

• the medium of music is sound

• music is a perceived phenomenon

• music can be divided in genres

• ranges from strictly organized to aleatoric forms

• important musical elements are pitch, rhythm, tempo, meter,

  timbre and texture

The presence of tone

Music is built from a combination of tones

Pitch, intensity, timbre

• perception of frequency of sounds

• frequency inversely proportional to wavelength

  • e.g. low pitch -> low frequencies and long wavelength

  • high pitch -> high frequencies and short wavelength

What is perceived as the loudness and volume

It depends on the amplitude of the sound wave

e.g. low amplitude has soft volume

measured in decibel (dB)

Also called tone quality