The Three Pillars: How Music (and This Book) Fits Together

Before we start, here is the whole map on one page. Aaron Copland (whom I mentioned a moment ago) named four elements of music: rhythm, melody, harmony, and tone color (timbre). This book focuses on these three elements:

Harmony, Melody, and Rhythm.

Everything in this book serves one of those three. And each pillar breaks down into three simple parts:

Harmony — notes played together (the chords under a song)

• Chord construction — what notes make a chord. We start with the simplest one possible: the power chord (just two notes!). In level 2, we’ll tackle three note chords (triads, etc).
• Chords in a key — which chords naturally “go together”.
• Chords from two keys — how to sound like Nirvana and other great bands.

Melody — notes played in sequence (the part you sing)

• Phrasing — where a musical line breathes; where it begins and ends.
• Melodic shape — the contour of a line, its rise and fall.
• Note choice — which notes you pick against the underlying harmony.

Rhythm — where every note sits in time (the pillar the other two stand on)

• Beat & tempo — the pulse, and how fast it goes.
• Note duration — how long each note is held; long notes versus short ones.
• Meter — how beats group together (time signatures, and counting along).

Why we start with power chords

Most theory books begin harmony with the triad (a three-note chord). We start one rung lower, with the power chord because it’s a very common chord and there are only two notes to worry about. It is the simplest possible chord, and you can play real songs with it almost immediately.

Keep these three pillars in the back of your mind as you read. Every chapter is a tool for, or a piece of, Harmony, Melody, or Rhythm.