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MUSIC NOTATION |
Introduction
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| Staff |
A staff consists of 5
horizontal lines running left to right across the page and
parallel to each other.
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|
|
Barline
|
A
bar line is a vertical
line placed in a staff
to mark off measures. |
| |
| V
represents the vertical bar line |
|
|
Measure
|
The measure is the area
between each vertical bar line. It is in this area where the
notes and rests go.
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|
| Treble
Clef and Bass Clef |
|
There are two musical symbols that name lines and spaces.
They are Treble Clef
and Bass Clef.
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| Treble
Clef or G Clef |
The
treble clef is a symbol
indicating that the second line from the bottom of a staff
represents the pitch of G above middle C. |
|
| Bass
Clef or F Clef |
The
bass clef is a symbol
indicating that the fourth line from the bottom of a staff
represents the pitch of F below middle C. The bass
clef symbol also represents the lower notes on
the grand staff. |
|
|
Notes
|
Notes
are marked on the staff
as small oval, sometimes circular, shapes. These shapes may
be a solid dark color or they may be an outline with the center
left white. Notes may
be placed on the lines and in the spaces. Notes
indicate the pitch by its position on the staff
and duration by its shape. Notes
are read from bottom to top.
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| |
The notes on the line
on the treble clef are
labelled: E,G, B, D, F. - This is easily remembered by using
the saying
"Every
Good Boy
Does Fine"
The
spaces are for the notes
F, A, C, E, in order from the bottom up.
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|
| |
The notes on the line
on the bass clef are
labelled G, B, D, F, A or
"Good
Boys Do
Fine Always"
The
spaces are called A, C, E G or
"All
Cows Eat
Grass"
|
|
| Types
of Notes |
| Whole
Note |
Four
beats equal one whole note. |
|
| Half
Note |
Two
half notes make a whole. |
|
| Quarter
Note |
Two
quarter notes make a half note
Four quarter notes make a whole note |
|
| Eight
Note |
Two
eighth notes = 1 quarter note |
|
| Sixteenth
Note |
Two
sixteenth notes make one eighth. |
|
| Thirty
Second Note |
Two
32nd notes = one sixteenth note |
|
| Whole
Rest * |
Worth
4 beats, like the Whole Note |
|
| Half
Rest |
Worth
2 beats, like the half note |
|
| Quarter
Rest |
Worth
one beat, like the quarter note |
|
| Eighth
Rest |
Worth
half a beat, like 1 eighth note |
|
| Sixteenth
Rest |
Worth
a half an eighth rest. |
|
| Thirty
Second Rest |
Worth
half of a sixteenth rest. |
|
| 'Hold'
Dot |
Used
with notes and rests to add half a beat again the note or
rest value. |
|
*
A rest is a pause in the playing of a song
| Sharps
and Flats |
| Sharp |
A
musical symbol that raises the pitch of a note
by one half step. |
|
| Flat
|
A
musical symbol that lowers the pitch of a note
by one half step. |
 |
| Flat |
|
|
Key Signature
|
| The
group of sharps or flats
placed to the right
of the clef and before
the time signature *.
It indicates the key the song should be played in.
The
key signature tells
you if any note should
be consistently sharped or flatted. The absence of any sharp
or flats at the beginning
tells you the song is played in the keyof C. This example
shows two sharps which tells you that the song is played
in the key of D major and that F and C will always be played
as sharps.
When
writing key signatures
it is important to know the order in which they are to be
written.
If
with sharps,  ,
the order is: F, C, G, D, A, E, B.
If
with flats, ,
the order is: B, E, A, D, G, C, F.
|
| *
Time Signature |
|
A sign placed on a staff
to indicate the meter, commonly a numerical fraction of
which the numerator is the number of beats per measure and
the denominator represents the kind of note getting one
beat.
In
this example the numerator is 4 and so the number of beats
per measure is 4.
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| Major
Scales |
| The
musical alphabet stems from letters A to G. That is,
A,
B, C, D, E, F and G.
A
scale is any set of
notes which either all
ascend or all descend in small steps, and all the notes
belong to a single key.
A
scale consists of the seven letters of the
musical alphabet in sequence and begin and end on the same
note name. The C major
scale begins on C and
ends on C.
C,
D, E, F, G, A, B, C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
This
sequence or row of eight notes
is the C major scale,
the major scale in which
the key-note is C.
The
distance between the two Cs is called an octave.
An octave is a set of
eight notes. What makes
this a major scale is the distinctive sequence of tones
and semitones. A tone
occurs when one note
exists between two notes.
A
semitone occurs when
no note exists between
two notes. |
Rhythm
Rhythm
is the basic beat of the
song. This
includes how long you hold a note,
how long you rest or pause
between notes, and how you
count the notes/rests
in relationship to the "beat"
of the song. Learning to count the notes
and rests in relationship
to the "beat" of
the song is rhythm.
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