Dynamics (music) in the context of "Serialism"

Musical expression is the art of playing or singing with a personal response to the music.

At a practical level, this means making appropriate use of dynamics, phrasing, timbre and articulation to bring the music to life. Composers may specify these aspects of expression to a greater or lesser extent in the notation of their musical score.

Music can be analysed by considering a variety of its elements, or parts (aspects, characteristics, features), individually or together. A commonly used list of the main elements includes pitch, timbre, texture, volume, duration, and form. The elements of music may be compared to the elements of art or design.

In music, notes are distinct and isolatable sounds that act as the most basic building blocks for nearly all of music. This discretization facilitates performance, comprehension, and analysis. Notes may be visually communicated by writing them in musical notation.

Notes can distinguish the general pitch class or the specific pitch played by a pitched instrument. Although this article focuses on pitch, notes for unpitched percussion instruments distinguish between different percussion instruments (and/or different manners to sound them) instead of pitch. Note value expresses the relative duration of the note in time. Dynamics for a note indicate how loud to play them. Articulations may further indicate how performers should shape the attack and decay of the note and express fluctuations in a note's timbre and pitch. Notes may even distinguish the use of different extended techniques by using special symbols.

A refrain (from Vulgar Latin: refringere, "to repeat", through Old French: refraindre) is the line or lines that are repeated in poetry or in music—the "chorus" of a song. Poetic fixed forms that feature refrains include the villanelle, the virelay, and the sestina.

In popular music, the refrain or chorus may contrast with the verse melodically, rhythmically, and harmonically; it may assume a higher level of dynamics and activity, often with added instrumentation. Chorus form, or strophic form, is a sectional and/or additive way of structuring a piece of music based on the repetition of one formal section or block played

Articulation is a musical parameter that determines how a single note or other discrete event is sounded. Articulations primarily structure an event's start and end, determining the length of its sound and the shape of its attack and decay. They can also modify an event's timbre, dynamics, and pitch. Musical articulation is analogous to the articulation of speech, and during the Baroque and Classical periods it was taught by comparison to oratory.

Western music has a set of traditional articulations that were standardized in the 19th century and remain widely used. Composers are not limited to these, however, and may invent new articulations as a piece requires. When writing electronic and computer music, composers can design articulations from the ground up.

In music, tension is the anticipation music creates in a listener's mind for relaxation or release. For example, tension may be produced through reiteration, increase in dynamic level, gradual motion to a higher or lower pitch, or (partial) syncopations between consonance and dissonance.

Experiments in music perception have explored perceived tension in music, and perceived emotional intensity.

Musical phrasing is the method by which a musician shapes a sequence of notes in a passage of music to allow expression, much like when speaking English a phrase may be written identically but may be spoken differently, and is named for the interpretation of small units of time known as phrases (half of a period). A musician accomplishes this by interpreting the music—from memory or sheet music—by altering tone, tempo, dynamics, articulation, inflection, and other characteristics. Phrasing can emphasise a concept in the music or a message in the lyrics, or it can digress from the composer's intention, aspects of which are commonly indicated in musical notation called phrase marks or phrase markings. For example, accelerating the tempo or prolonging a note may add tension.

Giuseppe Cambini—a composer, violinist, and music teacher of the Classical period—had this to say about bowed string instruments, specifically violin, phrasing:

Verse–chorus form is a musical form going back to the 1840s, in such songs as "Oh! Susanna", "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze", and many others. It became passé in the early 1900s, with advent of the AABA (with verse) form in the Tin Pan Alley days. It became commonly used in blues and rock and roll in the 1950s, and predominant in rock music since the 1960s. In contrast to 32-bar form, which is focused on the refrain (contrasted and prepared by the B section), in verse–chorus form the chorus is highlighted (prepared and contrasted with the verse).

The chorus often sharply contrasts the verse melodically, rhythmically, and harmonically, and assumes a higher level of dynamics and activity, often with added instrumentation. This is referred to as a "breakout chorus". See: arrangement.