Have you heard this phrase before but aren't sure what exactly it refers to? Well let me introduce you to the BEST world (in my opinion) you can stumble into!
Music
What is music? It might sound like a silly question, but really- what is it? Music comes from instruments like piano, guitar, organ, violin- there's a whole lot all around the world. But it's not just the instrument itself. If you leave a piano and just watch it, nothing happens. Someone has to manipulate it in order for any sound to come out of it. So music only comes from instruments if someone is using them in such a way that they produce sound. There's also voice- singing. Okay, so music is someone doing something that produces some kind of sounds. Now the sound- is any sound music?
That's a deep debate that we won't dive into right now, but I'll let you think about it on your own.
As for structured music- the kind you hear for example on the radio or through Spotify- music sounds like feelings, colors, stories, emotions. Sometimes it has lyrics, but sometimes it doesn't. Music is its own entire universal language, meaning that everywhere you visit in the world, there is some type of music that you can recognize even if you've never been there, never heard the song before, or don't speak the language of the place you're in. Think about the times you've been sad or happy or anything else and turned a song on that really spoke to you. Music has a magical way of connecting to our deepest emotions, the ones we can't always convey with words.
So, we've established that music is sound, music has structure of some kind, and it is played through a person.
Composition
Let's now discuss composition. As we decided above, music has structure. When you listen to a piece of music, you can follow where it's going and hear what it's doing. That's how it portrays certain emotions or tells stories. Composition is taking pieces of things and putting them together to create a whole. In music, there are multiple "pieces". There are chords, notes, key signatures, rhythms, pitches, scales, melodies, harmonies, instruments, and so many other elements that a person can take and put together to make a piece of music.
So, in conclusion, music composition is taking pieces of musical elements and putting them together to make music. Voila! If you have more questions, don't hesitate to reach out here or give feedback on what you would add to this article.