Whether you are excited, apprehensive, reluctant, eager or intimidated at the prospect of learning some music theory, you can rest assured of two things: (1.) Spending a moment exploring the concepts that make music work are only going to make you stronger. And (2.) in the short chapters below, we are only going to be able to scratch the surface. So don’t worry. This won’t hurt a bit.
This chapter is related to all things temporal. That’s just a fancy word for time. If you prefer, you could think of this chapter as being about counting. In music, there is an awful lot of that. Think about it. We count measures when we need to figure out how our song goes — from verse to chorus to middle-eight (a.k.a., form). We count the beats within those measures when we discuss time signatures (meter). We divide those beats into halves, quarters, eights, sixteenths (note value). Counting gives music its structure. Without it, there is no form. Without form, there is no variation. Time and counting account for the backbone of music’s narrative. Let’s look at some of the key elements.
