Frequency, Pitch, and Notes: The Building Blocks of Building Blocks

Similar to the relationship between video games and programming the experience of listening to, and even to some degree writing music is built on layers of abstraction from 'lower level' type concepts. Part of being a competent composer and musician is to understand the lower level concepts, and be able to work at various levels of abstraction. At the highest level of just listening you're not immediately concerned with things like form. Moving one layer down you may be focused on overall form, but not be focused on specific chord progressions. From there layers move down from chord progressions->chord voicings(inversion)->voice leading->counter point(voice independence)->intervals->motifs/melodies->notes->pitch->frequency->silence.