Chapter 2: Notation
Preview Questions
- Why do people notate music?
- Which aspects of music lend themselves to notation? Which do not?
- When someone reads a piece of music, what aspects are they free to interpret?
- From left to right, what are the letter names of the following eight notes?
- What is the name of the symbol above on the far left, the one with all the curly parts?
- How do you locate the note c on the piano keyboard? For example, you can say something like “The note c is first white note to the right of a group of two black notes.”
- Where is the note f# located on the piano keyboard.
- What is the pattern of whole and half steps to create a major scale?
- How do the accidentals b and # affect the pitch of a note?
- Why do composers write key signatures in scores? How do they make it easier for performers to read them?
- How many notes are in a chord?
- What is the difference in the intervals of a major and a minor chord?
- What marking is made in a score to indicate that the performer should play softly?
- What does a time signature indicate to the performer?
- What are bar lines used for?
- How many beats does a whole note last for in a time signature of 4/4?
- Why do musicians count to themselves while they are playing? What series of numbers they be thinking to themselves while they are playing two measures in a time signature of ¾?
- What does a rest sign tell the performer to do?
- How does a composer indicate in a musical score the tone they want the performer to produce?
- Which of these symbols can you identify?
Introduction
The goal of this chapter is to help you learn how the pitch and timing of notes are notated and be able to read musical scores on a basic level. This will help you make sense of the bits of scores that will be sprinkled through later chapters, and in the process, understand music better. It’s also an opportunity to train and activate a new part of your brain by connecting up visual symbols with motor movements. After working through this chapter many of these symbols should look more familiar.
Review
In this chapter we’ve looked at how to notate two of the most important parameters of music: pitch and timing. We will talk about how to represent tone in the chapter on modern music.
We presented four types of durations and helped you learn how to count:
The goal of this chapter is to help you learn how the pitch and timing of notes are notated and be able to read musical scores on a basic level. This will help you make sense of the bits of scores that will be sprinkled through later chapters, and in the process, understand music better. It’s also an opportunity to train and activate a new part of your brain by connecting up visual symbols with motor movements. After working through this chapter many of these symbols should look more familiar.
Review
In this chapter we’ve looked at how to notate two of the most important parameters of music: pitch and timing. We will talk about how to represent tone in the chapter on modern music.
We presented four types of durations and helped you learn how to count:
We explained that the treble clef sign at the left edge indicates that notes on the staff are going to be the ones above the note middle c. The lines represent e-g-b-d-f (“every good boy does fine”), and the spaces spell the word f-a-c-e.
We explained what intervals like whole and half steps are, and how they are used to construct major scales using the pattern whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half. We gave you the opportunity to play these on a piano keyboard so that you can better understand what key signatures are. Hopefully you know how to locate middle c, and from there could figure out which white and black keys play other notes written on the staff.
There was a lot of information covered here, hopefully you applied some of it by working on the exercises. We hope that you have a better understanding now of how music is written, and even if you haven’t learned how to perform it yourself, that you’ll be able to make some sense out of the score examples that will be included in later chapters.
You are now ready to start your exploration of the history of music, beginning with the Medieval and Renaissance eras.
We explained what intervals like whole and half steps are, and how they are used to construct major scales using the pattern whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half. We gave you the opportunity to play these on a piano keyboard so that you can better understand what key signatures are. Hopefully you know how to locate middle c, and from there could figure out which white and black keys play other notes written on the staff.
There was a lot of information covered here, hopefully you applied some of it by working on the exercises. We hope that you have a better understanding now of how music is written, and even if you haven’t learned how to perform it yourself, that you’ll be able to make some sense out of the score examples that will be included in later chapters.
You are now ready to start your exploration of the history of music, beginning with the Medieval and Renaissance eras.