Harmony and Melody and Rythem

Music is made out of three basic elements as melody, harmony and rythem. Melody is a group of notes played one after the other (monophonic), it is the basic tune of a song which can be hummed. (Jones, 2007). Harmony is a series of notes in combination (chords) which will be played simultaneously and can completely change the mood of the music. Rhythm is the beat of the music. Jesse Gress claims rhythm is the bonding agent that allows musical pitches to be organized in time. He further stated that rhythm can exsist without melody but melody cannot exsist without a rythem (Gress, 2001). Therefore it is essential to have a rythem in melody. Victor Zuckerkandl author of the book Sense of Music claims that melody can be defined melody as horizontal aspect of music and harmony, comprising of blocks of tones or chords that makes up the vertical aspect in music (Zuckerkandl, 1971).

MacPherson and Hunt state that melody is one of the prime factors in determining the choice of chords. Further they state that harmony must be used to fit the tune for a melody to be colourful (MacPherson & Hunt, 2003). On the other hand Cynthia explains that harmonic music consists of two or more notes played simultaneously. When three or more tones are sounded together, a chord is produced (Cynthia, 2001) therefore movement of chords can be represented the harmony which makes the music pollyphonic.

The evidence above suggests that melody is the basic tune of a song which is superimposed over a specific rhythm and harmony on the other hand harmony makes the melody rich and colorful by adding variations and moods. This further indicates that harmony strongly depends on its melody and harmonizing can vary according to the composer’s moods. Therefore one song can have more than one harmony and a harmony depends on the composer’s preference.