What Are The Four Basic Properties Of Music

Music is a very unique phenomenon embedded in human and animal value system. It is used by various sections of the society to express their thoughts, to appreciate, to communicate and to entertain. Animals and birds are also believed to use music in their daily activities for purposes of entertainment and search for food and prey. Some of the famous musical tones include John Cage’s 4’33, Schoenberg’s parrot Lunaire and Os Mustantes musical rock band. John Cage’s 4’33 is a musical composition comprising of a pianist who goes to a Piano and refrains from hitting any of its keys for four minutes and thirty three seconds. The entire piece was comprised of silences in different lengths. On the other hand, Os Mustantes was comprised of Brazilian

Every aspect of music is explained through the five propositions. The first proposition says that the basic property of all music is sound. All over the world, music is distinguished by the sound emanating from the singers. In other word, there can be no music without an aspect of sound. Not all sounds can be music sounds. A musical sound is a sound whose principal identity is a musical identity and is normally referred to as a tone. Other sounds such as noise, ambient and speech sounds are excluded from the musical sounds. For every musical tone, there are four basic properties. These are the frequency, duration, aptitude and the timbre. In musical terms the four properties are referred to as pitch, length, loudness and sound quality respectively. It is also important to note that the tones are defined by the surrounding musical environment. The relationship between tones and musical environment bring about Chords, Melodies, textures and rhythms.

Tones have different meanings depending on their cultural significance. For instance, one piece of music has a different cultural meaning when used in a fast food commercial than when used in a religious setting. Such music captures different set of imaginations of the listeners. All sounds have a potential of becoming musical tones if they are assorted and arranged in a systematic way. A good example of such music is John Cage’s 4’33 whose absence of sound led to the assortment of chair squeaks, coughs, and air conditioning hums generated a musical