Music & Sound Basics

The ideas behind sound and music that the sound tools assume: pitch and frequency, rhythm, the harmonic series, timbre, scales and what “in key” means. None of it needs an instrument.

Key ideas in plain terms

• Pitch and frequency: pitch is how high or low a note sounds. It follows frequency, the number of vibrations per second, in hertz (Hz). The note A above middle C is 440 Hz. Doubling the frequency raises a note by one octave.
• Rhythm: the pattern of sounds in time. The beat is the steady pulse, tempo is its speed, and meter is how beats group (for example, in fours).
• Harmonic series: a played note is a stack of frequencies. The lowest is the fundamental (f), and above it sit multiples: 2f, 3f, 4f and so on. These are the harmonics.
• Timbre: why a flute and a guitar playing the same note sound different. It comes from how strong each harmonic is. A sine wave has only the fundamental. A saw wave has all the harmonics.
• Scale and key: a scale is a chosen set of pitches. The major scale follows the step pattern whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. A key is built on one scale, and notes are “in key” when they belong to that scale.

Suggested progression

1. Hear and make it. Interactive · Learning Music - Ableton. Make beats, then melodies and chords, in the browser. Covers beats and tempo, pitch, keys and scales, chords, basslines, melodies and song structure.
2. Put names to it. Read and practice · musictheory.net - free lessons, exercises and ear trainers on notation, rhythm and meter, scales, key signatures, intervals and chords.
3. See what sound is made of. Interactive · Fourier: Making Waves - University of Colorado’s PhET simulation. Add harmonics one by one, hear the sound change, and watch the waveform. Runs in the browser. Read · Electronic Music Interactive, lesson 11: Harmonics - University of Oregon. The harmonic series and the harmonic spectrum of a waveform.
4. How synthesizers shape it. Interactive · Learning Synths - Ableton. Learn the parts of a synth by playing with one in the page.
5. Go further (optional). Read · Open Music Theory - a free, complete online text, written for undergraduate courses. Use it as a reference, not a starting point.

Next

• Sound tools - VCV Rack, Strudel, SuperCollider and Pure Data.