Let's Talk about Music

Listen as Jonathan Taylor explains the basic words we use to talk about music, melody and rhythm. With subtitles. There is also a transcript below.

Transcript: Let's Talk About Music

Hello everybody!

Let’s talk about music, melody and rhythm.

Music is a series of musical notes that agree with each other and "sound nice".

If the notes are random, without musical structure, and do not make sense, we call this noise.

Melody is often called the tune. We make a tune using the notes of a scale.

This is a note—middle C.

These are the notes we can use—A, B, C, D, E, F and G.

In European music a scale has eight notes.

This is the scale of C.

We start with C, and end with C.

We start with bottom C, and end with top C.

If we play notes from a scale together, at the same time, we call this a chord.

This is the chord of C played on the piano.

We can play the same chord on the guitar.

The rhythm is the speed to which we play the melody, and the time we take in between each note. We often call this the beat.

Listen to the beat of this bass drum.

Now hear how it changes when I change the rhythm.

When we add words to the music it becomes a song. The words are called the lyrics.

Shall we put all of this together now and make a new song, using the new words we have learnt today?

I've got rhythm, I've got beat
That's why I tap my feet

I've got a chord and some notes
And lyrics in my throat

I've got a melody and a tune
I'm dancing in my room

I've got a scale that I play
On my piano every day

-

I've got rhythm, I've got beat
That's why I tap my feet

I've got a chord and some notes
And lyrics in my throat

I've got a melody and a tune
I'm dancing in my room

I've got a scale that I play
On my piano every day

-

I've got rhythm, I've got beat
That's why I tap my feet

I've got a chord and some notes
And lyrics in my throat

I've got a melody and a tune
I'm dancing in my room

I've got a scale that I play
On my piano every day