You know you’ve found a dotted quarter note when you see a quarter note with a dot beside it. Just as you might suspect, the name itself describes exactly what it looks like. A dotted quarter note is worth 1 1/2 beats total. Let’s go figure it out.
In the last lesson, we introduced the time signature and what each number means. This time, we’re going to look specifically at the 4/4 time signature and put it into action.
The C Clef is a symbol on the music staff that looks like the letter “C”. In fact, that is exactly what it used to be before it turned into a more elaborate design.
When we place the C Clef on the 3rd line of the music staff, we have the alto clef. This means that when we put the center of the C Clef (where the 2 C’s meet) on the third line, that is indicating the note middle C.
The musical sounds you hear when a music note is played is called pitch. The location of a note on the staff determines how high or low it will be in pitch when you read it.
Music notes are the round or oval-shaped symbols that you find on the music staff. These music notes tell us what sound to play or sing.
Artists use a variety of materials to create a masterpiece. Musicians and composers do the same thing using tone color. Becoming aware of different types of tone color in music will help you understand what you are reading even deeper.
Did you just run out of music staff paper and you don’t want to wait until you can buy more? Get yourself some free music staff paper right here!
Isn’t it fun to have all these fancy musical terms to keep track of? Okay, no not really. Diatonic intervals are one of those complicated-sounding musical ideas with a very simple meaning.
So what exactly are perfect intervals? What makes them so special to be called “perfect”? An interval is an interval, right?
