The Three Pillars Of Music:
Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony

A RHYTHM is a musical sound or group of sounds organized in time.

Here’s an example of a rhythm with drum sounds:

A MELODY is a series of musical sounds, played one at a time.

In this next example, we’ve added a melody on top of the drum sounds. The melody is played using sounds from a marimba (a mallet instrument similar to a xylophone). Notice how both the tones of the marimba and the drums have the same rhythm.

A HARMONY is a group of two or more musical sounds played at the same time.

In this example, we’ve added one tone on top of each of the original tones of our melody to create harmony. Each time we hear two tones played at the same time, we’re hearing a harmony and these tones can be said to be in harmony.