Music

Music is an art that presents itself over a period of time. In this it is unlike sculpture and painting, which are complete at one time and unchanging. Music is more like theater and cinema and dance, which also develop over a period of time. In fact, these time-dependent arts frequently involve music.

What characterizes a phenomenon that requires time for its existence? Fundamental is change. Something must change from one moment to the next in order to mark the passage of time. Motion, change of position, characterize theater, cinema, and dance. (The word “cinema” comes from the Greek for motion, κίνηση, kinese.) In music, what changes is sound. All three of the properties of sound, loudness, pitch, and timbre, can change in music. We will examine each of these in turn to see how their variations are used in music.