Which musical concept currently fascinates you? For me it's Melody

I've never really known what it is I was looking for in my ten year musical journey, but when I discovered ear training and melody, I suddenly got it. I've now realized that melody - or intervals - is the DNA of music.

I can now listen to a song, then hum the melody in my head as single notes, then find those notes on the guitar in any key, in the major scale, and then I know what the melody of the song is.

I can then write down those notes as numbers, and play them as major and minor bar chords, and now I know how to play the song! And almost all the music I like is written in the major or minor scale, so being able to play everything I hear on the radio really was one of the things I realized was "music skill" to me.

This of course is incredibly handy when you're composing your own stuff, and you have a melody in your head, or trying to figure out just what chord it is you're looking for.

Once you have a melody, you can then expand it infinitely into the world of chords, as each tone can be expressed in a million ways as different chords. Once you know the chords you like, you can then look at the rhythm, which once again has near infinite expressions.

But for me, it all hangs on the skeleton of melody.

How about you, what concept fascinates you these days?