Music Basics made easy

Music Notes

Music notes means signs that signifies the duration, sound’s pitch, and a pitched sound. Its a written language that expresses our feelings.

Music Theory
 
Staff :

Five horizontal lines and four spaces make a staff.
 

Pitches :








 
First seven letters of the alphabet constitutes the Pitches. The alphabets are (A B C D E F G). It's a Tone of expression.


Musical Symbol:

A musical symbol placed at the beginning of the staff i.e. five horizontal lines, is known as clef. It decides the letter names of the lines and spaces.
Treble (G) and Bass(F)  are the two main clefs :





Grand Staff:

Combination of the treble and brass connected with one a line on the left side of the staffs is called a grand staff.

Staff also has extended lines; these lines are called Ledger lines and are on the above and below the staff. These lines are parallel to the staff. Each ledger line has one note.

 
Bars

Vertical lines upon the staff. Double Bar is two vertical lines

Measure

The space between two bars.


Slur


A curved line  joining two or more notes of different pitch.

Tie

A curved line joining two notes of the same pitch.

Dot








Placed after  a note lengthens it one half

Brace


A vertical line which joins two or more staves.

Sharp and Flat Notes 

Notes which are played on the black keys are called 'sharp notes' and 'flat notes' - 'sharps' and 'flats', for short. Sharp and Flats notes are in black color.

Meter :

Meter determines the equal duration of strong and weak beats in a regular pattern. It is Infact time of musical composition which is represented by a fraction at the beginning of the staff. Lower fraction denotes the kind of note receives one beat and upper number of fraction denotes how many beats are there in a measure.
There are two kinds of meters : simple and compound. In simple meter the upper number of the fraction is 2. 3, or 4 where each beat is subdivided by two like: 

The fraction number in the compound meter is 6,9, 12 with a dot with each beat and subdivided into group of three beats.

 Constructing Chords from Scales

Chord consists of three or more related notes played together. It's kind of Harmony.

In all Major Chords, Minor Chords, Augmented Chords and Diminished Chords three notes are played together, however Major Seventh, Minor Seventh, Dominant Seventh and Diminished Seventh chords four notes are played together as a harmony.

Chords: You will build on the chords you have learned now. All Major Chords have a similar flow i.e. 1st, 3rd, 5th notes(C,E,G). However minor chords, which have a sad sound that makes a great contrast to the happy major chords you have learned earlier have a similar flow i.e. 1st, b3rd, 5th notes(C,bE,G). 7th chords, Dominant chords and Diminished chords  are four note chords that will give an added richness to your harmonies! Triads are commonly used in chord progressions.

The most fundamental scale is the Major Scale.  Instead on concentrating on how the scale is devised, let's focus on how chords are constructed from a scale. A 'C Major Scale' starts from a C note and climbs through seven of the eleven notes in-between until it reaches the C an octave higher.

The most basic chord is called a triad as it contains three notes. Triads are put together by first taking any note in a scale as a starting point (called the root of the chord). From the root we skip a note in the scale and add the next note instead. So if we were starting from the first note in the C Major. If we count C as the 1 note then 1, 3, 5 notes in combination would be ‘C’ Major chord. All major chords have the similar movement. Our three notes, '1, 3, 5' notes of the scale are Family of Chords for the C Major Scale. 

 

     While there is only one major scale, three different variations of the minor scale exist. The first minor scale that will we discuss is natural minor. It is constructed with this formula.
      
     The Chart below will give an idea of the chords that are generally used to play  any song. The relationship can be explained better on the key board.  

How chord progressions tend to follow a common pattern.

Keyboard Music 

A set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument like piano is called musical keyboard. White keys with repeating black keys pattern in groups of two or three is called a keyboard. Normally seven alphabets A, B, C, D, E, F and G are used to make music and after G, it again starts with A.

Piano music is an instrumental music played by the keyboard that generates sound by striking steel strings.

Sheet music. 

The notes are arranged on a staff which consists of five lines along with four spaces in between each line. Each line of the staff corresponds to a musical note. Starting at the bottom of the staff, and moving upwards, the notes are E, G, B, D, and F. You might have been taught a trick in grade school on how to remember this by thinking of the phrase, "Every Good Boy Does Fine."

The spaces in between the lines represent musical notes also, and these notes are F, A, C, and E. Again, an easy way to remember this is to note that the notes spell "FACE." When a note is placed on a line or space, it represents, starting at the bottom staff line, an E note, F note, G note, A note, B note, C note, D note, and an E note. Yes, there are two E notes. The one on top is higher than the one on the bottom.

It really is about as easy as that. There are more details for you to learn about the notes and the beat of the music, but now you know the names of the notes and their locations.