I chose to listen to the piece, “Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass” and “Kyrie (monophonic)”. I found three musical elements that stood out which were harmony, melody and rhythm. Harmony is the sounding of two or more pitches at the same time. Melody is a unit of pitches or tones sounding in succession – one after another. Finally rhythm is referred to the ways in which music is organized into distinct time units.

I first started off by listening to “Kyrie (monophonic)” and was taken aback by what I heard because I was expecting something totally different. The first thing I noticed when listening to this was the rhythm which as mention before, is the way music is organized into time units and in this case I noticed that the rhythm tempo was a bit slow which kind of set a mood towards something sorrowful. I heard some notes playing longer than others which made it easier to pick up some elements. The second musical element that I noticed was harmony. I picked up that there was no harmony because there was no two pitches at the same time. In general the pitches seem to occur not in unison but rather one at a time in relatively slow succession. Because of this I feel as if the piece exemplifies the musical concept of a melody. The notes all fall in line one after another, creating a very slow and steady tempo.

When I listened to “Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass” I was quite surprised as it was so different yet so similar to “Kyrie (monophonic)” at the same time. It possessed a faster tempo, in that the rhythm was faster paced and the song succeeded faster with each note following another in a quicker manner. Harmony also existed in this piece, unlike in “Kyrie (monophonic)” as there were multiple voices singing at once with different pitches, ranging from female and male voices. Yet, like “Kyrie (monophonic)” this piece also possessed a very distinct melody, as notes did not seem to fade into one another as much as jump from one to another, in that the tones sounded in succession in a very noticeable way. It was as if I could tell when each singer actively changed the tone with which they sang. Overall “Kyrie (monophonic)” and “Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass” are similar in that they both exhibit essential musical characteristics, yet they differ in their expression of those characteristics.