The four basic elements of music are rhythm, melody, harmony and timbre.

Rhythm

The rhythm of music refers to the length and strength of the musical movement. The rhythm of music is often compared to the skeleton of music. Beat is the periodic and regular repetition of heavy beats and weak beats in music. Traditional Chinese music calls the beat "banyan", "ban" is equivalent to the strong beat; "eye" is equivalent to the sub-strong beat (middle eye) or weak beat.

Melody

A horizontal single-part progression with many independent tones that embodies the main idea or all the ideas of music, is organized using mode relationships and rhythmic relationships, is called a melody. Melody is the soul and foundation of music.

Melody can be divided into two types: vocal music and instrumental music. Vocal melodies are sung for the human voice. Therefore, it is very closely related to human voice and language. Its characteristics are: relatively narrow range, relatively simple rhythm, rich in singing and lyricism; instrumental melody is played for the instrument, and it is directly related to the structure of the instrument. Generally speaking, instrumental music melodies have a wider range, greater changes in rhythm, speed, and intensity, and are full of technical skills. For example, the piano has the widest range.

Harmony

Harmony is the pitch organization form of multi-part music and one of the basic means of expression of music. Harmony: a sound combination formed by two or more different tones sounding at the same time according to certain rules. It includes: 1. Chords are the basic material of harmony. They are composed of 3 or more different tones, which are combined simultaneously according to the superposition of thirds or other methods. This is the longitudinal structure of harmony. 2. Harmonic progression refers to the sequential connection of chords, which is the horizontal movement of harmony.

Timbre

Timbre refers to the sensory characteristics of sound. The frequency determines the pitch of the sound, and the amplitude determines the loudness of the sound. However, we can still distinguish the sounds emitted by different objects through the timbre. The materials and structures of the different objects are different, and the timbre of the sound is also different. Timbre is the characteristic of sound. According to different timbres, even in the case of the same pitch and the same sound intensity, different instruments or human voices can be distinguished.