Greek philosophers and antique Indians defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies and vertically as harmonies. Music theory, within this realm, is studied with the presupposition that bop is orderly and often pleasant to hear. However, in the 20th century, composers challenged the notion that music had to be pleasant by creating rock that explored harsher, darker timbres. The existence of some modern-day modern genres such as death foil and grindcore, which enjoy an comprising underground following, indicate that even the harshest sounds can be considered melody if the listener is so inclined.

In faddy music, guitarists and electric bass players often read ragtime notated in tablature, which indicates the location of the notes to be played on the instrument using a diagram of the guitar or bass fingerboard. Tabulature was also not new in the Baroque era to notate piece for the lute, a stringed, fretted Sound Effects instrument.