MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

What Are the 3 Elements of Music

Whenever I get asked to teach a workshop or a clinic, one of the things that I always like to talk
about, at least a little bit in each class, is what I call the 3 Elements of Music.

The three most important, fundamental items that any musician needs to be successful, plus a
fourth that I add in at the end of the talk.

These three items are so important to any musical genre or performer that I would argue any
music that is lacking one or more of these elements is unlistenable, or at the very least, almost
totally ignored by the concert-going public.

So what exactly are the 3 Elements of Music?

Whenever we get to a point in the class where students are leaning towards one or two of the
elements and ignoring the others Ill stop the class and say, OK, lets name the 3 Elements of
Music.

At rst I usually get blank stares, but then the students will catch on and usually suggest
Harmony, followed by Melody and nally, and usually with a little nudging, Rhythm.

These are the Three Elements of Music, just not in what I would consider the proper order of
importance.

The three things that every musician and piece of music needs to engage their audience in a
deep and meaningful way.

Think about it.

Would you want to listen to music that didnt have good rhythm and/or time?

Would you buy a record full of unmemorable melodies?

Would you pay money to see a concert where there was no sense of harmony, either between
the musicians on stage, within the music or both?

Most people would answer no to all of these questions, at least most people I know.

So, lets take a look at how we can ensure that as guitarists we are practicing the 3 Elements of
Music every day, staring with the most important element, rhythm.


Matt Warnock Trio in Curitiba Photo: Priscilla Fiedler

The 3 Elements of Music Rhythm

Why would I say that rhythm is the most important element of music?

Its because anybody can understand and enjoy rhythm.

If we can walk in pace and have a heartbeat we can feel a pulse and groove along to our favorite
song.

Not everyone can sing in tune or understand harmony, but we all get rhythm.

Yet, when I ask students How do you practice rhythm? they often answer, Well, I dont.

This is a problem, because if you have great time, then you can get away with a lot in your
melodic and harmonic playing.

But, if you dont have good time, you can play the same notes and subs as John Coltrane would
and sound awful. Rhythm is that important.

So, exactly how do we practice rhythm?

Well, there are far too many ways to do this than I could list here, but the rst step is to
understand that rhythm is a thing, like a scale or a chord or a lick, that can be isolated and
practiced.

One of the biggest problems that I nd with students is that they dont have command over
rhythmic groupings, yet they can play scales and arpeggios at a million miles an hour.

For me, its not enough to just play fast and slow, or double-time or half-time.

These are good adjectives for certain tempos, but they arent specic enough to matter when it
comes to our playing.

As guitarists,we need to be more specic when it comes to their rhythm control and application.

We need to play quarter-notes, half-notes, sixteenth-note triplets, quintuplets and any other
rhythmic group we can think of, but thats the key.

They need to be specic rhythmic durations.

When Im soloing, I am constantly thinking of the rhythms I am using, what I just used and what I
want to use in the next part of the solo-just as I would any scale, lick, phrase, arpeggio,
substitution or any other melodic and harmonic device I have in my bag at any given time.

This is something that a lot of people ignore in their practicing, isolating specic rhythms and
perfecting them, as we would any scale ngering.

So, the rst thing that we need to make sure that we can do is to be able to play specic
rhythms, at various tempos, and nail them every time. Dont aim for fast and slow.

Be able to play sixteenth notesand even whole noteswith precision.

Here is a great way to develop our sense of rhythm and begin to perfect these specic rhythms:

Pick a tune

Pick a rhythm

Set the metronome at 40 bpm

Solo using only that rhythm until youre comfortable at that tempo

Raise the metronome 10 clicks

Repeat until its too fast to control

Repeat this process with another rhythm

The important thing is to stick with a rhythm, especially at the slow tempos, until you are
absolutely comfortable with it and can solo with it non-stop on a tune.

Try to practice these rhythms until you are absolutely condent with them, then start to mix them
up.

For example, one bar of each, four bars of each, half a bar of one, half a bar of the other etc.

If you have total control of these basic rhythms, then mixing them up, at any tempo, will be a
piece of cake.


Whole Notes

Whole Note Triplets

Half Notes

Half Note Triples

Quarter Notes

Quarter Note Triplets

Eighth Notes

Eighth Note Triplets

Sixteenth Notes

Sixteenth Note Triplets

Make sure to practice rhythm every day and to be aware of what rhythms you are using, and how
you are tting into the groove of a song, at all times.

Often just being aware of your time and focusing on playing solid rhythms is enough to elevate
your playing to new levels, without learning any new scales, licks or chord voicings.

Everything sounds better with good rhythm.

Teaching a Clinic at the College of Charleston

The 3 Elements of Music Melody

If everyone can feel and understand rhythm, I would argue that many, if not most, people can
understand melody.

Yes, some people cant sing on key, but just about all of us can hum along with the radio, sing to
ourselves in the shower or when were stuck in trafc, and so for me, melody is the second most
important element of music.

It is what people remember when they nish hearing a song or walk out of a club after a concert.

Its the hook that we dig into our listeners ears, and those players that have a strong sense of
melody often have long and very successful careers.

When most guitarists hear the words melodic playing, they think of Scales, Arpeggios, patterns
and licks.

Yes, those are certainly important tools that we can use to create melodies, but they arent
melodies themselves, and this is where most players get stuck.

We are often taught that if we learn enough scales, all the right arpeggios and memorize lines
from our favorite solos that well be able to play jazz.

But, I can tell you that after spending hours a day for over a decade of my life in the practice
room doing this, its not going to happen.

At least for me it didnt.

Now, Im not saying that we shouldnt learn scales and arpeggios and licks, those are very
important tools that we need to know, all over the neck and in 12 keys, but theyre not the be all
and end all of playing jazz.

If we want to play melodically and learn to create melodies, then its better to check out the
building blocks of this music we call jazz.

What phrases, motives and small, digestible melodic devices come back time and again when we
analyze our favorite solos.

Since I spent all that time in the practice room, Ill save you some of those hours I spent banging
my head against the wall.

Here is a list ten of the most common melodic devices Ive found in the hundreds of
transcriptions Ive done, and that have been shown to me by my teachers along the way.

This is not by any means a complete list, so if you have something youd like to add, put it in the
comments section below.

That way itll grow over time for future readers to enjoy.
Most, if not all of these devices can be found in my Building Bebop Vocabulary series if you want
to see examples and learn more about these devices.

Melodic Devices

Enclosures: One Note Below, One Note Above

Enclosures: One Note Above, One Note Below

Lower Neighbors

Upper Neighbors

Octave Displacement

1-2-3-5

5-3-2-1

3-7 Triads

3-9 Arpeggios

Passing Tones (Bebop Scales and Other Variations)

As was the case with rhythm, we should make sure that we practice melody in our playing every
day, and be just as specic.

If these ten items are found in the solos of many of the greatest players who ever lived, then it
would probably be a good idea to put the time in to master them in our own playing.

So, here is an example of how to practice any/all of these items, without just running them up
and down the neck.

Pick a Tune

Pick a Melodic Device

Start the Metronome at 40 bpm

Improvise With Only That Device Over a Tune

Click the Metronome Up 10 Beats

Repeat Until the Tempo is Too Fast

Repeat Process with Another Melodic Device

By focusing on one device at a time were putting on handcuffs as I tell my students.

Were purposefully handicapping ourselves so that we can force ourselves to internalize that
specic device, and it also forces us to be very creative in how we use that device, since its the
only improvisational tool we have at our disposal.

Then, when we eventually take the handcuffs off and solo using everything we have in our bag,
youd be surprised at how much clearer our lines are, how much more creative we can be and
just how much more interesting our playing has become.

Playing my Koentopp Guitar Photo: Priscilla Fiedler

The 3 Elements of Music Harmony

Weve now arrived at the third element of music, harmony. I think it is indicative of the problems
that jazz education faces these days when every student I ask always names harmony as the
most important element of music.

Everyone can understand and feel rhythm, many if not most people enjoy and understand melody,
but few people understand harmony.

Harmony is a learned element, something that people spend years studying to master, and that
only fellow musicians or dedicated fans can really fully understand in the moment when a band is
up on stage.

So why then is there such a strong focus on harmony in the study and performance of jazz?
Yes, I will be the rst to say that harmony is a vital tool for any improviser, in any genre, and that
one needs to have a deep understanding of harmony and harmonic function in order to become a
performer, but if it is all were studying, or if it takes up most of our practice time at the expense of
the other two elements, is that such a good thing?

If we can play the most complex changes, use the most outside subs and hit every single change
with perfect voice-leading, does that matter if we dont have good time or cant play a memorable
idea?

This is a problem that Ive found time and again with older, more experienced students that come
to me for advice.

They know their instruments inside and out. They can make any changes I put in front of them,
and have a solid understanding of harmony.

Yet, they either drag or rush their notes, dont ever seem to lock into the groove of a song, or are
just running outlines through changes and never playing anything remotely resembling a melody,
or that the average person could get stuck in their head after a show.

So, exactly how do we study harmony without ignoring the other two elements, rhythm and
melody?

One way Ive found that works well is to isolate changes and break things down to their lowest
denominators, so that the harmony is fairly simple, and then build things up from there.

For example:

Take a Tune

Isolate the rst chord in the song

Put the metronome at 40

Practice soloing over this chord using one rhythm and one melodic device

Crank the metronome up by 10 clicks until its too fast

Repeat with the second chord of the song

Combine the rst two chords and repeat

Repeat this process with all the chords of the rst phrase

Repeat this process with all of the phrases in the song separately

Repeat this process with all of the phrases together, playing the whole song

Change the rhythmic motive and melodic device and repeat

Again, just like we did with the other two elements, by breaking down the harmony of any song
to small, easy to digest chunks, we allow ourselves to not only practice playing over the chords of
the tune, we allow ourselves to do so while including rhythm and harmony in our playing as well.
So, we are now using all three elements at the same time, ensuring that we arent focusing on just
one or two of them and ignoring the others.

Tyler Ross and Matt Warnock in Charleston

Emotion: The 4th Element of Music

Weve now come to the point in my talk about the Three Elements of Music when students
always ask, What about dynamics, and phrasing, and, and, and

My answer to that question is, Yes, emotion is an equally important element of music, but, you
cant be fully involved in the music emotionally, or engage your audience in an emotional way, if
you dont have command of the other three elements.

Music needs to have dynamics, it needs to come from the heart and mean something to the
performer, but it is very difcult to put our heart and soul into a piece if were thinking about
making the changes, playing unmemorable melodies or trying to nd the groove all night.

But, if we have command of rhythm, melody and harmony, then we can insert ourselves into the
song in a deeper way, which will only allow our audience members to connect with us as
performers and with our music, regardless of style or genre.

Having a command of the 3 Elements of Music will not guarantee that youll become a world-
famous guitarist, or that youll even get a call for a gig on Friday night.

But, if you dont have a strong sense of rhythm, melody and harmony, then you can guarantee
that you wont get that call for the next local, regional or national gig.

Practicing a little bit of each of the elements everyday can also increase our enjoyment in the
practice room.

Use improvisation to learn new melodic and rhythm devices, as well as new harmony, and
whenever possible combine all three elements in a way that ensures youre not only solidifying
your understanding of music and your ability to play it, but having a good time while doing so.

Hopefully youve made it through this article and Ive been able to at least open your minds to one
or more aspects of music that are lacking in your practice routine.

And one day, if you nd yourself in one of my workshops and I ask, What are the Three
Elements of Music, youll condently raise your hand and say, Rhythm, Melody and Harmony.