If you haven't check Music Notation Made Simple Part 1 I suggest you check that out before having any plans on reading this section. Of course there is always an exemption, if you happen to already have some knowledge on the basics of music notation, you are more than welcome to read this chapter.

Have Fun!






After years of teaching music, I found a technique of learning how to read music in a simple way. It works for me, it doesn't mean it's the only way. Haha too much ways to say there, I would be more than happy to share how I teach music in my own way!



We have already discussed about the letter names in a previous chapter, so we are now ready to take the next step in using them.

Letter names have equivalent singing names or the solfa syllables which is use more often in singing lessons than on this one. For uniformity purposes we will be using letter names (C D E F G A B) instead of singing names (Do Re Mi...).

READING NOTES ON THE G STAFF

For notes on lines of a treble clef  just remember the words Every Good Boy Does Fine. Taking only every first letter of each word would give us the notes on the lines of a G staff.












As for the notes on the spaces of a G staff, we just remember the letters that form the word FACE.














Moving on to the F staff, remember the words, Good Boys Do Fine Always for the notes on the lines of a F staff 











and remember ACEG (you can give any meaning for this one) for notes on the spaces of a F staff.












That wasn't so hard I'm sure. The moment you determine a note on the staff, it is then very easy to identify the notes below or above that note. It is one step of identifying the notes on a staff.


Note: The higher the position of a note on a staff, the higher its pitch is. The lower its position on the staff, the lower its pitch is.


 



















Ledger Lines


- are lines located above and below the staff. Its purpose is to guide you when reading notes that are above or below the staff. Without these lines it would be very hard to distinguish notes above or below the staff.

Notes extending above and below the G staff

Notes extending above and below the F staff

Exercise


Try to answer this exercise to test what you have learned so far. For more exercises, you can go to exercise page of this blog.
 





































The Grand Staff

- when you  connect the G staff and the F staff you get what we call the Grand Staff.




















In piano music, the treble staff is played by the right hand while the bass staff is played by the left hand 

Watch the video of a piano excerpt of Bach's Courante from French Suite No.2






This is an example of a Grand Staff use for Four Part Chorale Writing
In four part chorale writing, the treble staff is use for the Sopranos and the Altos while the bass staff is use for the Tenors and the Basses.








Octave Identification

- the word octave means a series of eight (8) notes, 7 of which are unique and 1 is a repetition of the first

- if you think I lost you there, then this image might help you understand what an octave is








- because the pitch spectrum is so wide, one must be able to identify a specific note by the octave in which it appears.



Now let us view the whole spectrum of pitches in different octaves and identify where our middle C is located.


























As you can see base on the figure above, each tone has a certain octave, specific to itself, although you may find C a lot of times, but each C is a different and unique C. That is true to all pitches on the spectrum. This octave identification is approved by the International Acoustical Society. You may want to google the Helmholtz  System, this is a derivation of that famous acoustic system.






Accidentals

- are symbols that you place to the left of the note head, that is before the note head, to indicate the raising or lowering of a pitch.


Sharp sign raises the pitch of a note a half step and looks like this

















Flat sign lowers the pitch of a note and looks like this




















Double sharp sign raises the pitch of a note a whole step and a Double flat lowers the pitch of a note a whole step. Both of these are shown below














This is how you use these accidentals when you write music







Click play to hear the image


Interval

- is the relationship between two tones or the distance between two distinct pitches. In western music, the smallest interval is a half step, in  the keyboard, it will be two adjacent keys.




Listen how these half steps sound like



Enharmonic Equivalents

- are tones that have the same pitch but spelled differently or have different letter names

Music notation is a whole lot more accurate or precise in what it wants to convey compared to the written language. When we notate music, we are showing three (3) of the properties of music (please refer to the basic elements of music) which are; rhythm, pitch and intensity. Pitch and rhythm are shown simultaneously in our notation.

As we begin our journey into the vast world of sounds and beauty I pray that you would continue to grow and find interest in this path you are undertaking.










Staff
- it is consist of five equally spaced horizontal lines which makes four spaces in between them.

You number these lines from the bottom up. The first line is the bottom line, the 2nd line is the one above the bottom line and you know how things go after that.

Bar Lines
- are lines that divides the staff into measures













Double bar line
- indicates the end of a section; in simply means you are at the end of a certain part of a song or music


Fine or End
- indicates the end a piece or a musical score.

- here is ONE WAY of how you locate them on the guitar

don't worry about the color, I just think it's kinda cool to look at

- so now that we know that G is on the second line by reason of the G clef, we can then identify the notes on the other lines and spaces on the staff using G on the second line as our reference point. (Please, oh please, this is just a hint, do not use this as a method for sight reading)

Before we start our journey into understanding music, we really need to discuss a few things here.

The basic materials of music is SOUND and TIME, so we really need to understand first and define these terms to make sure we are on the same page. Simply put, I don't want my readers confused with terminologies being posted in this blog.


Sound is the sensation we sense by our hearing (the ear) when sound waves are produce and reaches the ear. Vibration is the periodic motion of a substance. Example, just pluck the strings of a guitar. You would normally see the strings moving back and forth making vibrations together with the air and the whole guitar itself. Thus, you hear sound because of vibrations.

THE FOUR PROPERTIES OF SOUND


Pitch
-is the highness and lowness of a sound. The greater the vibration of a sound, the higher the pitch we hear.

Tone
- is a musical sound of definite pitch.

Intensity
- is heard as the loudness or softness of a pitch, also termed as amplitude.
- in music, intensity is interpreted by the following Italian terms.