(Note for more advanced readers; I talk here only about the basics and avoid confusion will all the various exceptions and stuff. All reference to music means the Western approach, using equal temperament. Music before around 1600 used different notational systems. Similarly, very modern music sometimes breaks tradition and adds more complicated and/or unorthodox elements. - The approach I discuss here lies in-between these extremes, it is the music that most people today are familiar with and is applicable to most styles and genres). Note that given rules to do with direction and position of stems and other marks are applicable only to music for a single instrument or voice. Where a short-score is used (more than one part of the same stave), the rules change. - This will be dealt with in a later post.
It may seem a lot to take in at once (and indeed this post is way longer than I originally intended it to be), but after just a little practise, things really do become second nature - it's just like reading and speaking any language.
Music is written on a staff or stave. This is the five lines on which all notes are written. Notes are written both on these lines, and in the four spaces between these lines.
As you would expect, music is read from left to right. The higher up the stave you go, the higher that note is in pitch (and similarly, the lower down the stave you go, the lower the note is in pitch).
At the beginning of a stave, there will be a clef. - This tells us the range of the stave and which notes go where. For this post, I will deal exclusively with treble clef (also called G-clef), which is indicated by the squiggly thing at the very start of the music.
From bottom to top, the notes that go on the lines of the stave are: E, G, B, D, F. (There is a third between each one). There are various mnemonics that you can use the remember this. The most famous is probably Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.
Notes can also go in the spaces between the lines. From bottom to top, these notes are: F, A, C, E. (There is also a third between each one) - They spell out the word 'face'.
So, now you know all the notes that go on the treble-stave. Let's put that all together:
Each note is now a second apart from it's neighbours.
Now, the clever thing about music is that the same notes keep repeating over and over again in different octaves. Notice that the note E goes both on the bottom line of the stave, and in the highest space on the stave. Also notice that in both cases, the note F follows the note E.
Musical notes follow the letters of the alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F, G... - but instead of going to H, they go back to A again and repeat. - This is always the same pattern. The second A is one octave higher than the first A.
We can continue this pattern beyond the stave. For example, we know that G always follows F, therefore at the top of the stave, we can add the note G in the space directly above the top line. Similarly at the bottom, we know that D always comes before E, so we can add the note D in the space directly below the bottom line.
We can go even further beyond the stave by adding in additional lines as needed, either above or below the five existing lines. These extra lines are called ledger lines. The same pattern always keeps repeating, so above the G we have just added at the top will come the note A, and below the D we added at the bottom comes the note C. (This note is called 'middle-C').
Notice that the ledger lines are small and are used only when needed. They are straight horizontal lines parallel to the lines of the stave, and the spacing between different ledger lines should be equal to the spacing between the lines of the stave.
I have only shown two ledger lines, but you can have any number you need, the pattern always keeps repeating: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D... - and so on for ever. In practice though, you don't often get music in the treble clef that uses more than about 3 or 4 ledger lines. (If you did need to go particularly high or low, you would use a different clef, or write the notes one octave lower or higher than they would actually sound).
So now you know the basics of pitch. - Make sure you fully understand all this before you continue reading.
Accidentals: Sharps and Flats
Sharps (#) and flats (b) are the black keys on the piano. They generally lie in-between the notes that are written in the above examples. Any note can be sharpened or flattened at any time.
A sharp (#) raises a note by one semitone. - That means the note will then be slightly higher in pitch, generally half-way between the original note, and the next note above it.
A flat (b) lowers a note by one semitone. - That means the note will then be slightly lower in pitch, generally half-way between the original note and the note below it.
Note that there is a maximum of only one possible note in-between any other two notes that are next to each other. - That means therefore, that when you sharpen one note, it sounds the same as if you flatten the note above it. (And vice versa; if you flatten one note, it sounds the same as if you sharpen the note below it). We say these are 'enharmonically equivalent'.
The sharp sign looks like a hash sign (#), and the flat sign looks like a lower-case b (b). When these signs appear in music, they are called Accidentals. - They are written on the same line, or in the same space as the note that they belong to. They are always written immediately to the left of the note to which they belong to. (Notice though that when we write letters, we put the accidental to the right, for example F# or Bb for F-sharp and B-flat respectively).
There is also the natural sign. This cancels out a flat or a sharp (either from a key signature or a previous accidental). Natural notes are normal notes, as in the above examples; they are neither flat not sharp. We sometimes refer to flats, sharps and naturals as the 'spelling' of the note.
Accidentals remain in effect until cancelled out with another accidental, or automatically cancelled out by a bar-line (see below).
In this example, there is a semitone between each note. G# and Ab sound the same (they are 'enharmonically equivalent'). The first G and the final G (natural) are both the same note. An accidental is not needed for the first G, since there has been no previous indication to sharpen or flatten it. (However, without the natural sign, the final G would be a G-sharp, because the sharp continues to affect all G's after it was introduced on the second note).
A bar-line automatically cancels out all accidentals (and reverts them back to the key signature). So the A after the bar-line is an A-natural, not an A-flat. (If it had been at the end of the previous bar, the flat would still be in effect from the Ab on the fourth note).
Note however: There is no separate note for E#/Fb, or for B#/Cb. - Look on the piano keyboard, there is no black note in-between E and F, or in-between B and C. These notes are already a semitone apart, therefore you cannot have a note that lies in-between them. E# or Cb are still possible ways of notating things, but:
E# sounds the same as F, and Fb sounds exactly the same as E.
B# sounds the same as C, and Cb sounds exactly the same as B.
So, any notes both on the lines and in the spaces of the stave (and beyond) can be sharpened or flattened. The name of the note is still the same, but we just add 'sharp' or 'flat' to the end. - So for example, all notes on the second-from-bottom line of the stave are all G's of some sort. Without any sharp or flat signs they are G-naturals. With a sharp sign in front of the note, it becomes a G-sharp (one semitone higher), and with a flat sign in front of the note, it becomes a G-flat (one semitone lower).
In this example, each note is a semitone higher in pitch than the one before it. (Extending the sequence higher, the note a semitone above G# would be A. Extending the sequence lower, the note a semitone below Gb would be F.)
So, now we can extend our range of notes to encompass all the 12 different notes of the octave (the difference between each note is now one semitone, the smallest possible distance between any two ntoes):
This is every possible note that you can have in the two octaves above middle-C. Notice that there is no separate note for E# or B# (see above). - A scale like this is known as the 'chromatic scale'. Here it is spelt using sharps. However, it is possible to spell it using flats instead:
Notice here that the natural signs are needed (otherwise everything would be flat). Also notice there is no separate note for Fb or Cb (see above). - This example would sound exactly the same as the example above using sharps (C# is the same as Db, D# is the same as Eb, etc.).
As before, we can continue these notes above and below the stave in different octaves.
Sometimes you use a sharp, sometimes you use a flat. - In some pieces you will see both. The spelling of notes largely depends on key and tonal relationships. This involves a lot of theory which you don't need to bother with at this point.
You may have noticed that these past two examples, unlike the previous examples, use filled-in notes with stems. - A stem is the vertical line that comes out from the note at the corner (not the centre) of the note-head. - Notice the stems of every note below the middle line of the stave come from the right-side of the note and go upwards. The stems of every note above the middle line of the stave come from the left-side of the note and hang downwards. The stem of a note on the middle line can go up or down, but going down is usually preferred. The stems should generally all be about the same length (normally about the span of one octave), and should be straight, and exactly perpendicular to the lines of the stave.
The presence or absence of stems, along with whether the note is filled-in or hollow (as with the first example) indicates the duration of the note, which in turn, governs the rhythm of the music.
This is continued in my next post below...
