Notes

pitches may go up or down slowly or quickly. One can picture a line that goes up steeply when the melody suddenly jumps to a much higher note, or that goes down slowly when the melody gently falls. Such a line gives the contour or shape of the melodic line

Range refers to the distance between the highest and lowest notes found in a given melody

When a piece of music has wide range, there is a great distance between the highest and lowest pitches heard. Conversely, when a piece of music has narrow range the distance between the highest and lowest pitches is relatively small.

When phrases come in pairs like this, the first phrase is called the antecedent phrase, and the second phrase is called the consequent phrase

motive or motif is a short musical idea – shorter than a phrase – that occurs often in a piece of music. A motive may only consist of a few pitches or maybe divided in smaller cells.

A leitmotif (whether it is a very short cell or a long phrase) is associated with a particular character, place, thing, or idea in the opera and may be heard whenever that character is on stage or that idea is an important part of the plot.

Harmony is the most emphasized and most highly developed element in Western music

“tertian” harmony, or chords built with the interval of thirds.

Unison is considered a harmonic interval, just like a fifth or a third. What’s unique about unison is that it is two identical notes being played or sung together

In the musical scale, there are twelve pitches; the names A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. When the intervals surpass the perfect Octave (12 semitones), these intervals are called compound intervals, which include particularly the 9th, 11th, and 13th intervals

2nd + Octave = 9th
3rd + octave = 10th
4th + Octave = 11th
5th + octave = 12th
6th + Octave = 13th
7th + octave = 14th

There are three types of clef used in modern music notation: F, C, and G.

A ledger line or ledger line is used in Western musical notation to notate pitches above or below the lines and spaces of the regular musical staff

accidental is a note whose pitch (or pitch class) is not a member of the scale or mode indicated by the most recently applied key signature.