• Notation

    • All music is created from twelve possible pitches. Seven of the pitches are the first seven letters of the alphabet, and the other five are the same letters with an added accidental. An accidental rises (with a sharp, #) or lowers (with a flat, b) the pitch of a note. The pitches with accidentals are between natural pitches, pitches without a sharp or a flat. A sharp or flat pitch is a halfway point between two natural pitches. An A#/Bb, for example, is halfway between the pitch of A and the pitch of B. A# and Bb, along with the other accidentals written below as X#/Xb are the same pitch, or enharmonic, and can be referred to by either name. This halfway distance is called a halfstep, as opposed to the wholestep distance between A and B. The distance between B and C and E and F is a halfstep, and therefore does not require an intermediate step.

    A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab

    These twelve pitches are repeated up and down the keyboard or the fretboard. The distance between one pitch and the next pitch with the same name is called an octave.

    Musical notes (the visual representation of a pitch) are written on a five line staff. The seven letters just mentioned are used to label the possible staff positions; notes can be placed either on a line or on a space between lines. The treble or bass clef notates the range of notes on the staff. The treble clef staff is drawn above the bass clef staff, together they span about 3 octaves. Notes higher or lower than the staff permits are drawn on ledger lines, up to two can define notes above and below the five line staff.

    Treble Clef Bass Clef

    Below are the notes assigned to each position. The note names ascend upwards (ie. C is on a line, D in the space above, E on the line above that, etc.) The note names in the red brackets are the most important to remember. Acronyms for these note names in each staff are listen below the diagram. Middle C, circled in yellow, is shared by both the treble and bass staves, and is located directly between them on the grand staff.

    Lines of the treble clef
    Every Good Boy Does Fine    		 Spaces of the treble clef
    F A C E
    Lines of the bass clef
    Good Boys Do Fine Always    		 Spaces of the bass clef
    All Cows Eat Grass

    Grand Staff

    How a note is played is defined not only by it's pitch, but also by it's duration and quality. Mensural notation allows notes to be written with fixed rhythmic values. Below is a list of the most common rhythmic symbols used in music, including notes and rests of various durations. Rhythm is defined as the set of relationships between note and rest durations in a piece of music. The values of the notes below are counted in beats; the speed at which beats are played are determined by the tempo of the composition. Starting with the four beat whole note the following notes are successivly smaller fractions of four.

    or or
    Whole note (4) Half note (2) Quarter note (1) Eigth note (.5) Sixteenth note (.25)
    Whole rest (4) Half rest (2) Quarter rest (1) Eigth rest (.5) Sixteenth rest (.25)

    Meter is a system for organizing beats into measures/bars indicated by barlines. The number of beats per measure can be duple, triple, or quadruple. The organization of these beats is expressed in the time signature. The time signature consists of two numbers, the lower number is the rhythmic value being organized, and the upper is the number of these values per measure. Below are five common time signatures.
    2 quarter notes per measure
    3 quarter notes per measure
    or 4 quarter notes per measure
    or 2 half notes per measure
    3 half notes per measure

    This is basic notation, just enough to introduce the essential concepts of music theory.

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