Read Music Like a Pro...and Have Fun Doing It
Clef signs are the symbols that you see at the very beginning of a music staff.
They help us organize the staff so that music notes can be read with ease.
The purpose is to tell the reader where each note (and letter name) will go.
In other words, a clef sign tells us what lines and spaces of the staff will represent each note.
The music alphabet is not too different from the American English alphabet.
The best part is that it only uses the first 7 letters.
When those seven letters are done, it restarts all over again.
We begin with “A” and move in order of the alphabet and stop at “G”. That’s it!
That’s all of the letters we use to name notes.
Once you hit G, you restart back over with “A”.
Around and around we go cycling through the alphabet over and over again. [Read more...]
As you’ve probably already guessed, space notes are any type of music note without a line running through it.
They fit in between two lines of the music staff.
Can you see how these notes do not cross over a line?
Space notes fit within the spaces of a staff.
They are just nestled in there all warm and cozy…
The next thing we’re going to do is learn what the names of these notes are.
Before we do that, we need to have a lesson on the music alphabet.
Do you remember those music notes that are placed on lines?
They are called line notes.
You can see how a line of the music staff runs right through the middle of the note.
It’s almost as though the line is splitting the note in half.
Line notes are basically any type of music note with a line running through it.
Every single line of the staff can hold a note.
Now that you know we call these line notes, it’s time to talk about space notes next.
The musical sounds that you hear when a music note is played is called pitch.
Pitch is relative. When we compare the pitch of one note to another note, we can hear if it is higher or lower in sound.
The location of the note on the staff determines how high or low it will be in pitch when you read it.
The higher the note is written on the music staff, the higher the pitch will sound.
Music notes are the round or oval-shaped symbols that you find on the music staff.
They are placed on the lines or in the spaces.
You will notice that notes can move any direction on the staff.
They can move up, down, or appear again in the same space or line.
The music staff is nothing but horizontal lines that run parallel to each other.
There are total of 5 lines with 4 spaces in between.
We number the lines and spaces starting at the bottom moving up towards the top.
I hear regularly that many people are trying to learn music theory on their own in an effort to learn how to improve their music reading skills.
They search the internet, buy lots of books, and ask different teachers.
Does this sound familiar?
Everything is going okay for awhile until they run into a wall.
The wall of deep frustration.
Of course, much of the information that is being absorbed makes sense at first. The problem is when you keep adding to that knowledge base, but not sequentially.
Everything gets jumbled up together and your left in a state of confusion.
I call this Swiss cheese syndrome… [Read more...]
This simple little time signature chart was designed to help you remember what the top and bottom numbers mean.
It’s always easy to remember the top number, but the bottom number can be a little bit tricky.
Let’s review…
This number just tells us how many beats are in each measure.
Whatever number appears on the bottom indicates the type of note that will receive 1 beat.
So, when you see the number “4″, it means the quarter note will receive 1 beat. [Read more...]
What is the difference between a chord and a triad?
Is there a difference?
A chord is when 3 or more notes sound together.
A triad is when a 3-note chord uses the root (1st note), 3rd, and 5th note of the scale.
All 3 notes sound simultaneously just like a chord.
A chord is used more as a general term while a triad tells us more specifics about that chord.
The name “triad” was given to this type of chord because it is built in the closest position possible using only 3rd intervals. [Read more...]
