Learn How To Read Music & Have Fun Doing It!
The time signature is found right after the clef sign at the very beginning of your music.
The term meter is used interchangeably with time signature and they both mean the same thing.
There are 2 numbers you will find stacked on top of each other.
The top number tells us how many beats are in each measure.
Double bar lines are found at the end of a section of music or at the very end of a song.
Just as bar lines divide the music staff into smaller sections, double bar lines organize the music into larger sections.
NOTE: The correct terminology for this in music theory is simply “double bar.” However, the rest of the world calls them “double bar lines.”
I think this is because it more accurately describes what you are looking at making it easier to remember.
A double bar line telling us it is the end of a section or movement will have 2 thin lines like this:
Bar lines divide the music staff into equal sections.
These single vertical lines help us to organize the notes and rests in a way that make it easier to read.
As you can see, they run straight up and down reaching the top and bottom lines of the staff.
On the grand staff, bar lines pass through the treble and bass clef staves.
Quarter rests are those crazy little squiggly-looking symbols that are worth 1 beat of silence.
They are the quiet counterpart to quarter notes.
In fact, do you remember the conversation we had in an earlier lesson about the importance of both sound and silence in music?
Well, let’s review it again now that you have learned a few notes and rests. [Read more...]
Half rests look similar to whole rests.
The difference is in the direction of the hat.
The upside down hat of a whole rest is turned right side up to create a half rest.
If you can imagine a person wearing this hat, then you know it’s a half rest and not a whole rest.
Music is created by using both sound and silence.
While it’s tempting to just focus on the notes (sound), the rests (silence) are music symbols we don’t want to ignore.
They are just as equally important and give us so much needed variety and contrast.
The first type of rest we will concentrate on is the whole rest.
Whole rests are similar to whole notes with one difference: Instead of 4 beats of sound, we will have 4 beats of silence.
This means that 4 steady beats of no sound going by (total silence) equals 1 whole rest. [Read more...]
Quarter notes have a stem just like half notes, but the notehead is completely filled in (black).
The value of a quarter note is 1 beat.
That means every 1 beat you count going by represents a quarter note. [Read more...]
Half notes have the white (not filled in) oval shaped notehead just like whole notes, but there is one difference.
As you can see, there is also a stem attached to the side of the notehead.
The value of each half note is 2 counts. [Read more...]
Whole notes look like an oval shaped notehead that is white in the center and not filled in.
The value of this type of note is 4 counts.
To make sure we are truly recognizing it’s full value, we count the 4 beats in our heads while playing or singing it.
This is where the discussion about finding the beat comes in handy. [Read more...]
The term “note value” is referring to how long or short a note sounds.
This all depends on what the note looks like.
Instead of going into too much detail right now, It would be best to learn some common generalities based on the visual appearance of music notes.
There are some basic attributes that can give us a lot of important information.
Every music note has a notehead. This is the oval shaped part of the note.
In general, if it is white in the center (not filled in), then it will be held a little longer.
