From the Beginning, 1

This series is intended to be an introduction to how music is played, composed, and studied. We will start at the very beginning of the basics of music theory...

Music is nearly impossible to define, but it can be described as sounds, called notes, and silences, called rests. In Classical Music, these notes are written o­n a staff of five lines:



The squigly symbol at the left of the staff is called a "clef." This tells us which note o­n the staff is which pitch. The clef shown here, the Treble clef, is the most common clef. It tells us that any note placed o­n the second line of the staff (from the bottom) is a "G." The notes in Classical Music are A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. There are also notes in between some of these notes, but we will cover that later.

In addition to the notes in music, rhythm is very important. Rhythm tells us how long each note or rest should be held. How long a note is held is determined by the "beat" of the music. If you have ever tapped your foot to something that you have listened to, you have found the "beat." This next picture gives us some information about the rhythm:



The "Time Signature in this example is "4/4," which is pronounced "four four." To explain what the "Time Signature" means, we must look at each of the two fours separately. The upper four means there are four beats in a bar (or measure). The lower four means that each of the beats is what is called a "quarter note." Before we explain what a "quarter note" is, we will help you to understand a bar. If notes are like letters in a language, bars are like words. In languages such as English, words are separated by spaces (of course!). In music, words (called bars) are separated by barlines, or lines that vertically cross the staff. In this example, every bar will contain exactly four beats. As we explained, each beat we be represented by a "quarter note." In our example, here is how several different types of notes will fit in to a bar:



As you can see, o­nly o­ne whole note fits into o­ne bar with a 4/4 time signature. Two half notes fit into the same bar, and so o­n. All of the names such as half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, (and ever thirty-second) are relative to the whole note. This meens that a sixteenth note is o­ne sixteenth of a whole note, or 1/4th of a quarter note. It may all seem mathematical and complicated, but it gradually becomes very natural. The main thing to remember is that the whole measure must be complete, meaning every beat must be filled with either notes or rests. Speaking of rests, here is the series of rests, each corresponding in lenght to its respective note:

OK! Enough with the just the rhythm. Now we can get to the notes and eventually harmony. Keep reading o­n and we page and we will provide you with some audio/visual materials!

First of all, in Classical Music we have the following pitches that are equivalent to the white keys o­n a piano: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. The black keys o­n the piano are A-sharp (or B-flat), C-sharp (or D-flat), D-sharp (or E-flat), F-sharp (or G-flat), and G-sharp (or A-flat). What are these sharps and flats? They are half-steps. The distance between A and B is a whole step, and there is a half step in the middle, called A-sharp or B-flat. Sharps are notated as # and flats are notated as b. Thus, A-sharp is A# and B-flat is Bb. Sharps indicate that the note should be raised o­ne half step in pitch. Flats indicate that the note should be lowered o­ne half step in pitch. If A=1 and B=2, then A-sharp=1+0.5 and B-flat=2-0.5, meaning A-sharp and B-flat are equal. There are two exceptions, however. The distance between B and C and the distance between E and F are already half steps. This means that B-sharp equals C (and C-flat equals B). Likewise, E-sharp equals F and F-flat equals E. Another thing is that after G-sharp, the cycle repeats and we return to A. This means that A-flat equals G-sharp. o­nce we repeat to the next A, we will have completed o­ne "octave." This may all be very confusing, but the following picture may help make it clear:

Now that we know about the staff, rhythms, rests, and the actual notes, let's see how these notes are written down:



As you can see, the staff has five lines, and a note is either o­n a line or o­n a space between two lines. When you see the treble clef at the beginning of the staff (the squiggly symbol before the 4/4), the note o­n the first line is an E. The note o­n the space above the first line is an F, and the note o­n the second line is a G. This is the basis of Classical Music notation, and is the standard that has been used for writing music for the past four-hundred years.

Here is how note with sharps and flats are written: