The Building Blocks of Sound lays out technical music concepts in an approachable, easy to grasp way for students so they can start using them to express their musical insights in accurate and relevant musical language: Duration and pitch, pitch names, notation and intervals, volume, instrumental and orchestral timbres prepare the groundwork for an overview of the different families of the traditional symphony orchestra starting with the strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion, and ending with the keyboards and the modern synthesizer.