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and duration as a third primary musical element, as pitch and duration can ob-
glasbenopedagoški zbornik ◆ letnik/volume 20 ◆ številka/number 40
viously function either horizontally or vertically (Bruner, 1990).
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Yet, as there is no consensus over which of the musical elements should be
considered the most essential, the lists of musical constituent components vary
considerably. Some musical elements, such as duration, are excluded (Castelli-
ni, 1962), while others are added to the most fundamental one, pitch, such as
timbre, intensity, and duration (Owen, 2000).
Burton (2015) defines pitch, duration, loudness, timbre, sonic texture, and
spatial location as musical components, regardless of their purpose, when mu-
sic is referred to as the art of sound, as sound consists of six fundamental ele-
ments. However, due to the fact that music requires more than just sound, the
elements of music are (not only) sound, but also structure and artistic intent
(Burton, 2015).
The fact that music and (visual) art have many common aspects, concepts,
principles, procedures, and even terminologies makes it noteworthy that the
most fundamental elements of music (for example, (sonic) texture, form, colo-
ur, harmony, rhythm) are compared to art (Barrett et al., 1997; Bohannon &
McDowell, 2010; Estrada & May, 2019).
According to Hopkins (1990), there are independent and dependent varia-
bles in music. Pitch, harmony, and dynamics are defined as the primary compo-
nents of music, independent variables, and hence can be considered as param-
eters. Rhythm is seen as a ‘summarizing property’ as it is determined by other
interacting parameters (e.g. harmony, pitch, duration, dynamics), and is there-
fore not a parameter, but a dependent variable, depending on other variables
(Hopkins 1990, p. 29).
McAdams (1989) emphasizes the significance of listeners’ ability to encode
events in one dimension (e.g. pitch) in conjunction with changes in another di-
mension (e.g. duration, timbre, loudness). From this perspective, he asserts that
time and pitch are the most significant dimensions, as listeners readily recognize
similarities in musical structures. The strength of the timbre dimensions would
be moderate, whereas the vibrato rate and spatial location would be weak.
Using a computational approach to represent the most fundamental
aspects of a musical structure can be interesting, especially when considering
a constituent musical element in terms of a function with a certain domain
and a set of values. Thus, both pitch and duration (which scientists believe are
the most essential musical elements), can be considered as a ‘function’ with a
‘domain’ from which other musical elements (set of values) can be generated or
derived (Pearce, 2005, 2018).
Composers, music theorists, music psychologists, and musicologists often
employ primary and secondary musical elements, for example, in explaining
how motivic categorization occurs (e.g. Eitan & Granot, 2009), in explaining

7 The decision to use sonic texture is intended to differentiate it from visual, tactile, and other
types of texture, as it refers to sound produced by combining tones or lines.

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