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The Fundamentals of Music

How do we define music? We all know what it is when we hear it, but how do we describe what we hear, and how do we learn more about music to understand it better?

This website is dedicated to answering those questions, and providing simple explanations of the fundamental aspects of music and music theory. Many musicians and listeners have offered different definitions of music, but in its most basic terms music is the creative organization of sounds.

That “creative organization” involves managing five basic elements of music:

Sound - Rhythm - Melody - Harmony - Form

I created a word to help students remember those elements: Sormelharf
We can understand and appreciate music much better by studying each of these elements. We can also become better musicians by taking an elemental approach to our practice.

Follow the links to learn about each element of music.

Visit the Practice Exercise page for free printable PDFs of music fundamentals exercises and assignments. Music and theory teachers -- feel free to link to these pages for your students.