Understanding Basic Music Theory

1 Understanding Basic MusicTheory Catherine Schmidt-JonesPrinting HistoryFebruary 2015:Adopted by Open Textbooks SystemThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons-ShareAlike International LicenseOriginal source: 1 The The Groups of Treble Clef and Bass Memorizing the Notes in Bass and Treble Moveable Why use different clefs?.. Pitch: Sharp, Flat, and Natural Key Enharmonic Enharmonic Enharmonic Keys and Enharmonic Intervals and Enharmonic Spellings and Equal Duration: Note Lengths in Written The Shape of a The Length of a More about Duration: Rest Time Beats and Meter: Reading Time Counting and What is Meter?.. Classifying Recognizing Pickup Notes and Pickup Pickup Dots, Ties, and Borrowed Dotted Tied Borrowed Metronome Tempo Gradual Tempo Repeats and Other Musical Road Map Dynamics and What is Articulation?.. Performing Common Solutions to Exercises in Chapter 2 The Shape or Contour of a Melodic Melodic Melodies in Suggestions for Presenting these Concepts to Terms that Describe Suggested Some useful Vocal Instrumental Classifying Western and Jazz, Blues, and World Tonal, Atonal, and Modal Classical and Art Folk and Popular Suggestions for Listening and Further Tonal, Atonal, and Modal Western Non-Western Western Non-Western Music that Combines Western and Non-Western 3 The Physical Acoustics for Music Music is Organized Sound Longitudinal and Transverse Wave Amplitude and Wavelength, Frequency, and Standing Waves and Musical What is a Standing Wave?

2 Standing Waves on Standing Waves in Wind Standing Waves in Other Harmonic Series I: Timbre and Physics, Harmonics and The Harmonic Solution to Exercises in Chapter 4 Notes and Octaves and the Major-Minor Tonal Where Octaves Come Naming Dividing the Octave into Half Steps and Whole Major Keys and Tonal Major Music in Different Minor Keys and Music in a Minor Minor Relative Minor and Major Harmonic and Melodic Minor Jazz and Dorian Minor .. The Distance Between Naming Classifying Perfect Major and Minor Augmented and Diminished Inverting Harmonic Series II: Harmonics, Intervals and Frequency and Brass Playing Harmonics on The Circle of Related Key Scales that aren t Major or Scales and Western Pentatonic Dividing the Octave, More or The Blues Modes and Exotic Solutions to Exercises in Chapter 5 Harmony and Triads in Root First and Second Naming Major and Minor Augmented and Diminished Consonance and Beyond Triads: Naming Other Chord Seventh Added Notes, Suspensions, and Bass Altering Notes and Beginning Harmonic Basic Triads in Major A Hierarchy of Naming Chords Within a Minor Further Form is the Basic Describing Labelling Form With Naming Solutions to Exercises in Chapter 6 Ear What is Ear Training?

3 Ear Training Playing Chords By Playing Tunes by Recognizing Intervals and Writing Music Tuning Tuning based on the Harmonic Pythagorean Mean-tone Just Well Equal A Comparison of Equal Temperament with the Harmonic Beats and Wide Further Modes and The Classical Greek The Medieval Church Modal Jazz and Folk The Ragas of Classical Indian Other Non-Western Modal Transposition: Changing Why Transpose?.. Avoiding How to Transpose Step 1: Choose Your Step 2: Write the New Key Step 4: Be Careful with Choosing Your New Working with Transposing Playable Transposing at Transposing Chord Step 1: Choose Your Step 2: Change the Names of All the Solutions to Exercises in Chapter underCreative Commons-ShareAlike International License( ).Although it is significantly expanded from "Introduction to Music Theory ", this coursestill covers only the bare essentials of Music Theory . Music is a very large subject, andthe advanced Theory that students will want to pursue after mastering the basics willvary greatly.

4 A trumpet player interested in jazz, a vocalist interested in early Music , apianist interested in classical composition, and a guitarist interested in world Music ,will all want to delve into very different facets of Music Theory ; although, interestingly,if they all become very well-versed in their chosen fields, they will still end up verycapable of Understanding each other and cooperating in musical endeavors. The finalsection of this course does include a few challenges that are generally not considered"beginner level" musicianship, but are very useful in just about every field and genreof main purpose of the course, however, is to explore Basic Music Theory sothoroughly that the interested student will then be able to easily pick up whateverfurther Theory is wanted. Music history and the physics of sound are included to theextent that they shed light on Music Theory . Students who find the section onacoustics (The Physical Basis) uninteresting may skip it at first, but should then goback to it when they begin to want to understand why musical sounds work the waythey do.

5 Remember, the main premise of this course is that a better Understanding ofwhere the basics come from will lead to better and faster comprehension of morecomplex also helps to remember, however, that Music Theory is a bit like are invented by the people who speak them, who tend to care more aboutwhat is easy and what makes sense than about following rules. Later, experts studythe best speakers and writers in order to discover how they use language. Theselanguage theorists then make up rules that clarify grammar and spelling and point outthe relationships between words. Those rules are only guidelines based on patternsdiscovered by the theoreticians, which is why there are usually plenty of "exceptions"to every rule. Attempts to develop a new language by first inventing the grammar andspelling never seem to result in a language that people find Theory , too, always comes along after a group of composers and performershave already developed a musical tradition.

6 Theoreticians then study the resultingmusic and discover good ways of explaining it to the audience and to other composersand performers. So sometimes the answer to "Why is it that way?" is simply "that'swhat is easiest for the performer", or "they borrowed that from an earlier musictradition".In the case of Music , however, the answers to some "why"s can be found in the basicphysics of sound, so the pivotal section of this course is an overview of acoustics as itpertains to Music . Students who are already familiar with notation and Basic musicaldefinitions can skip the first sections and begin with this introduction to the physicalbasis of Music . Adults who have already had some Music instruction should be able to1work through this course with or without a teacher; simply use the opening sections toreview any concepts that are unclear or half-forgotten. Young students and beginningmusicians should go through it with a teacher, in either a classroom or lesson is, even within the English-speaking world, quite a variety of Music teachingtraditions, which sometimes use different terms for the same concepts.

7 The termsfavored in this course are mostly those in common use in the , but when morethan one system of terms is widely used, the alternatives are 1 The StaffAvailable underCreative Commons-ShareAlike International License( ).People were talking long before they invented writing. People were also making musiclong before anyone wrote any Music down. Some musicians still play "by ear" (withoutwritten Music ), and some Music traditions rely more on improvisation and/or "by ear"learning. But written Music is very useful, for many of the same reasons that writtenwords are useful. Music is easier to study and share if it is written andNon-Western(Page 79)specializes in long, complex pieces for large groups ofmusicians singing or playing parts exactly as a composer intended. Without writtenmusic, this would be too difficult. Many different types of Music notation have beeninvented, and some, such as tablature, are still in use. By far the most widespread wayto write Music , however, is on astaff.

8 In fact, this type of written Music is soubiquitous that it is calledcommon The StaffAvailable underCreative Commons-ShareAlike International License( ).Thestaff(pluralstaves) is written as five horizontal parallel lines. Most of the notes ofthe Music are placed on one of these lines or in a space in between lines. Extraledgerlinesmay be added to show a note that is too high or too low to be on the linesdivide the staff into short sections calledmeasuresorbars. Adouble bar line, either heavy or light, is used to mark the ends of larger sections ofmusic, including the very end of a piece, which is marked:Figure StaffThe five horizontal lines are the lines of the staff. In between the lines are the spaces. Ifa note is above or below the staff, ledger lines are added to show how far above or below. Shorter verticallines are bar lines. The most important symbols on the staff, the clef symbol, key signature and timesignature, appear at the beginning of the different kinds of symbols can appear on, above, and below the staff.

9 The notesand rests are the actual written Music . A note stands for a ound; a rest stands for a3silence. Other symbols on the staff, like the clef symbol, he key signature, and the timesignature, tell you important information about the notes and measures. Symbols thatappear above and below the Music may tell you how fast it goes (tempo markings),how loud it should be (dynamic markings), where to go next (repeats, for example)and even give directions for how to perform particular notes (accents, for example).:Figure Symbols on the StaffThe bar lines divide the staff into short sections called bars ormeasures. The notes (sounds) and rests (silences) are the written Music . Many other symbols may appearon, above, or below the staff, giving directions for how to play the Groups of stavesAvailable underCreative Commons-ShareAlike International License( ).Staves are read from left to right. Beginning at the top of the page, they are read onestaff at a time unless they are connected.

10 If staves should be played at the same time(by the same person or by different people), they will be connected at least by a longvertical line at the left hand side. They may also be connected by their bar lines. Stavesplayed by similar instruments or voices, or staves that should be played by the sameperson (for example, the right hand and left hand of a piano part) may be groupedtogether by braces or brackets at the beginning of each of StavesWhen many staves are to be played at the same time, as in this orchestralscore, the lines for similar instruments - all the violins, for example, or all the strings - may be marked withbraces or Treble Clef and Bass ClefAvailable underCreative Commons-ShareAlike International License( ).The first symbol that appears at the beginning of every Music staff is aclef symbol. Itis very important because it tells you which note (A, B, C, D, E, F, or G) is found on eachline or space. For example, atreble clefsymbol tells you that the second line from thebottom (the line that the symbol curls around) is "G".