Lesson #3 1.4&1.5

Lesson #3: Continuation of Sheet music basics

1.4: Types of Notes

There are different types of musical notes, each with a different duration measured in beats. These notes are outlined below.

Image 6: An example of how time signatures and note durations / types are measured

Lesson #2 1.2&1.3

Lesson #2: Continuation of Sheet music basics

1.2: Key Signatures

Image 3: Key Signatures

A Key signature is shown to the right of the clef symbol and will show a series sharp symbols or flat symbols which can be interpreted to deduce which key the piece is written in.

The Key of a piece means that when playing a piece of music, certain notes may be sharpened or flattened by the pieces key signature unless overridden by a natural symbol or an extra sharp/flat symbol. Therefore, on a Key Signature such as D Major, where the sharps are F# and C# each C note you see on the notation is played as C# and not C natural.

The word / term Sharp means to increase the pitch of a note by a semi-tone.
The word / term Flat or Flatten means to decrease the pitch of a note by a semi-tone.

Image 3 outlines the various Key Signatures you may encounter. There are many others but these are simply the basic or most common key signatures.

1.3: Time Signatures

A Time Signature (Image 4) indicates how many beats there are in each bar and which note is to be used as a beat. This basic introduction to time signatures will assume that the crotchet is to be used as the one beat measure - therefore all times will be something:4 time. Certain time signatures lend themselves to certain styles of songs, e.g. most waltzes are written in 3:4 time, and the majority of rock songs would be based around 4:4 time.

Image 4: Time Signatures

   In our next lesson we will continue on 1.4: Types of Music Notes
  Stay tuned !!                                                         

Lesson #1 1.0&1.1

First!!

Hello eager music learners, and welcome to my blog on music.
In this blog I will try to setup some courses on music basis.

Lessons #1: The Basics of sheet music

1.0: Musical Staff
In musical notation, the musical staff (Image 1) or stave is a set of five horizontal lines on which musical note symbols are placed to indicate pitch and time. The staff is read left to right and the higher a position on the staff, the higher the pitch of the note to be played. If a note appears above or below the 5 lines, ledger lines are used to indicate the exact note.

The musical staff on its own does not help you to represent any specific notes, that is without a musical clef. The two main clefs are Treble clef and Bass clef - if these are combined it is called a grand staff. When reading music you will have a Clef Type, a Key Signature and a Time Signature.

The two main types of musical clefs are shown below and the notes for each clef are shown on it - Middle C has been underlined with a red mark.

Image 1: The Musical Staff

Image 2: Depiction of the Treble Clef and Bass Clef on a piano roll

1.1: Scales

In musical terms, a scale is an ascending or descending series of notes or pitches. Each note in a musical scale is referred to as a scale degree. Though there are many different types of musical scales from chromatic scales, modal scales and whole note scales to minor, pentatonic and Arabic scales. The usual scale which people learning an instrument for the first time, will depend on the instrument they are learning and the key of the instrument. For demonstration purposes the scale of C is outlined below.

In our next lesson we will continue on Lesson 1.2: Key Signatures.

I hope this was informative and see you in the next lesson!