Imagine a motorcycle screaming down the street toward your direction, then as the motorcycle streaks passed your house the rider continues to drive away. What would you hear? The same sound I hear occasionally on my street: a distinct PITCH that is moving HIGHER (both because of the Doppler effect and increasing RPM) as it approaches my house, then a change to a LOWER pitch as the motorcycle passes the house and slows to the stop sign at the end of the street.
The topic of PITCH is the focus for this week. Pitch is one of the elements of music and we need to have a way of documenting it so that we can keep a copy of all of our great musical ideas. The system of music notation known as Standard Notation is the system we use in this class. It is by no means the only system of music notation. Guitarists are familiar with tablature and chord diagrams both of which are alternate notation formats. Other cultures in the world have different notation systems as well.
Standard notation is not necessary a perfect notation system but very useful for many styles of music and it is well suited for our purposes. It's best attribute is being the most widely accepted music notation system used throughout the world today. I have absolutely no data to back up that last statement, I just like the way that it sounds;-)
The system of Standard notation evolved over the course of centuries and it now consists of a graphic system that uses five parallel lines grouped together and called a STAFF
We use the first seven letters of the alphabet (A-G) to name pitches in the Standard notation system. This seems to indicate that there are 7 different PITCH names, i.e. A, B, C, D, E, F and G. Yes, that is correct, so far. As it turns out, there are more names that we will learn about later.
This five line system is used to distinguish between the different alphabetical PITCH elements of the notes. Not only are the lines used but also the spaces between the lines. An oval shape (called a NOTEHEAD) is placed on the five line STAFF on either a line or space position. A LOW NOTE would be placed lower on the five line system than would a HIGH NOTE. This is the basic idea. The vertical placement on the five line STAFF is related to the PITCH placement in sound. We'll see and hear some examples in a moment. In order to have a system that is truly usable we have to be able to notate pitches of a very wide range. From the low note of the contrabass to the high note of a piccolo, or for that matter the low note of the piano to the high note of the piano. A simple five line system won't provide enough different locations to notate all of the notes of a piano. There are several different notation elements that can be added to the staff to make it more useful.
A graphic symbol known as a Clef sign is used with staff to define the alphabetical locations on that staff. In this class we will focus on two different Clefs: Treble Clef and Bass Clef.
As the names imply, the Treble Clef is used for higher pitches and the Bass Clef is used for lower pitches. A flute uses the Treble Clef, a cello uses a Bass Clef. Let's look at the Treble Clef, sometimes called the G clef because the scroll part of the Clef is spiraling towards the second line -- defined as the letter G. Once the second line is defined as G, everything else must follow in sequence. The next space is A, the next line is B, the next space is C, etc. Most people memorize the lines (E G B D F) using a mnemonic gimmick of Every Good Boy Does Fine. The Spaces from bottom to top spell out FACE. Isn't that nice.
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When you add in the space locations above and below the staff you end up with eleven different pitch locations. It starts from the letter D, going through the music alphabet past the next D and all the way up to G. The immediate task at hand is to memorize all of these pitch locations. I'll wait........... OK, it might take more than just a few seconds. Work on memorizing the letter names of the staff locations during this week.
This is very important!!! I'm serious.
Lower pitched notes use the Bass Clef. It is sometimes called the F Clef because the two dots above and below the fourth staff line define the fourth line as F. This Clef redefines the alphabetical locations of the lines and spaces. In bass clef the lines from bottom to top are G B D F A and the spaces are A C E G. The off-the-shelf mnemonics are Good Boys Do Fine Always (lines) and All Cows Eat Grass (spaces).
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When you add in the space locations above and below the staff you again end up with eleven different pitch locations, this time starting from the letter F, going through the music alphabet past the next F and all the way up to the next B.
Yep, you have to memorize all of these too. You better get started.
If you have been thinking that with either Treble clef only or with Bass clef only, we still don't have enough different locations, you are correct. One way standard notation solves the limited pitch choices is by creating a Grand Staff. A Grand Staff (sometimes referred to as a Great Staff) is a two staff system that has a Treble Clef on top and a Bass Clef on the bottom. The piano uses a Grand staff for its notation.
This still doesn't give us as many different pitch locations as we need and another notation device used is the LEDGER LINE. The ledger line is a small line placed outside the staff area to become a sixth line of the staff. This ledger line can be ABOVE or BELOW the staff. It gets even better. There can be multiple ledger lines to extend the range of the Clefs. Isn't that wonderful? If you need to notate a really high note you simply add as many ledger lines as you need. (there is also a way to minimize ledger lines yet achieve the same effect, stay tuned.) Let's use a ledger line on the Grand Staff. As you know from your memorization exercises the high note of the Bass Clef is the letter B and the low note of the Treble Clef is the letter D. A single ledger below Treble clef will be a letter C, the very letter we need to connect the top Treble clef with the bottom Bass clef. If you wanted, you could notate that same note as the first ledger line above the bass clef, they are both the same note, letter C, this particular C is referred to as MIDDLE C, for obvious reasons.
(mp3 files preferred)
Open MIDI file
Open mp3 file
Play file
this first goes up two OCTAVES then back down
the next one goes up two staff positions then back one, up two back one, etc.
the next one uses only the spaces
the last one stays in the bass clef area and uses a pattern of up 5, down 6 with some variations.
You should continue to memorize the letter names of the positions on the staff so that you can say the names of the notes shown above at the same rate they are played in the mp3 file. Play it again, and try to say the letter names, see where you stand. Do you need work? Well, get to work then.
We can use ledger lines to extend the grand staff both above and below. In addition, we can use an octave higher symbol (8va) or an octave lower symbol (8vb or 8basso) over a note or group of notes to indicate that the note(s) should be played an octave higher (or lower) than written. In extreme ranges we can use 15va (2 octaves higher) or 15vb (2 octaves lower)
Using these symbols will help eliminate the use of ledger lines, which are a pain when writing music by hand. Ledger lines are also a pain to read, however most instruments have ranges that require the common use of ledger lines. Many instruments use a single staff even when that instrument has a wide range. The guitar is a good example of an instrument whose written range is very wide yet it uses a single treble clef staff and often requires the use of ledger lines. The lowest written note is E, space below the third ledger line below the staff. What a mouthful! The highest note varies, depending on whether you're talking about classical, flat-top, electric etc. Even with a classical guitar (the lowest range of the bunch) the high note is B, on the fifth ledger line above the staff! Thatsa lotta ledger lines. Sometimes the extreme upper range of the guitar is notated using 8va to minimize the ledger lines. The end of the example below shows the last 5 notes rewritten using the 8va symbol. Either way is correct, it's up to the individual composer or arranger to decide how many ledger lines he or she wants to tolerate. The lower range is rarely given a 8vb treatment, guitarists just get accustomed to seeing the lower ledger lines. Such is life.
All instrumentalists must deal with ledger lines. You must too.
This section is a jump start on next week's lecture. Chromatics are best understood when related to the piano keyboard or guitar fretboard, but we're not going there this week. If this seems confusing, have patience, we revisit this topic in more detail next week.
This system of pitch letter names has evolved over the millennium. 5 or 6 centuries ago these letter names might have given the musicians all the notes their music needed. As the concept of tonality developed in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, there became a need for additional notes. "Musica Ficta" (false music) was a common composition and performance practice where new notes outside of the regular alphabet were used at phrase endings. The composers of the time would write the music, yet in performance often some of the notes would be changed. This change usually occurred at the phrase endings and the notes that were changed helped bring about a new concept in music, Dominant to Tonic relationships. They didn't think of it in the same way that we do now, but in retrospect, one can see that practice of Musica Ficta was the genesis of controlling tonality. Eventually the musicians of that time began writing the correct notes in the score that then had previously been performed correctly yet notated incorrectly. Thus was born the notation of chromatics.
To fully understand chromatics we need to understand a few terms first. The term half-step is used to describe the smallest distance on the keyboard and also the smallest distance in the 12 tone per octave system. The system we are currently studying has 12 tones per octave yet only 7 letter names per octave, what gives? What about the other 5 tones?
Read On.
The letter names of our musical alphabet are NOT all the same distance apart. Some adjacent letter names have more distance (musicians use the term 'Interval' instead of distance) between them than other adjacent letter names. As an example the letter names E and F have only one half-step between them while the letter names of F and G have two half-steps between them. I can't explain how or why things evolved this way, but you better be fully aware that not all adjacent letter names are created equal. The letter names of B and C as well as the previously mentioned E and F have the interval of only one half-step between them. All other adjacent letter combinations have an interval of two half steps between them. Remember B-C and E-F are one half-step apart, all other adjacent letters are two half-steps apart.
Wait a minute, let me pause and interrupt myself as I might in a traditional classroom...
If you are feeling lost at this point, perhaps checked out mentally, you can bail out and jump to the 'links' section at the end of the lecture. I've already covered the topics you need to know to take the practice quiz for this week. Without question this topic of chromatics is best understood by using a keyboard as a reference and we won't be doing that until next week. Soooo, if you have enough to keep you busy already and this topic isn't clicking with you right now, come back to this later.
OK, is anyone still with me? I'll continue with the story of chromatics.
So, if there is one half-step between B and C (and a half-step is the smallest interval in our system, remember?) then C is the next note after B (one half-step higher). That makes sense, but what about the two half-step intervals between most of the letter names, i.e. A to B. You start at A, and one half-step higher is a note (but it's not B). B is two half-step intervals away. The note in between A and B is a chromatic note.
Let's see what this looks like in table form.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| A | _ | B | C | _ | D | _ | E | F | _ | G | _ |
The 12 columns represent the 12 notes of our system, the blank squares are the 5 notes in our system whose names we have not yet learned. They are the chromatic notes. A chromatic note is a legitimate note, as valid as any other. We use them all of the time, but they need more than just a letter name to describe them. They have a chromatic sign also.
We have three different chromatic signs in music.
Notice that the chromatic sign always goes to the left of the notehead. First shown is the note C-sharp, followed by E-flat, then lastly a C-natural and E-natural.
Every letter name can be sharped or flatted, creating more names than there are notes (and confusion shall reign). In the table below all of the sharped notes are represented by a shift of one column to the right and the flatted notes are one column to the left (with a wrap-around at the end of the line). All of the notes of any single column have the same pitch (sound), yet usually two different names.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| _ | A# | _ | B# | C# | _ | D# | _ | E# | F# | _ | G# |
| A | _ | B | C | _ | D | _ | E | F | _ | G | _ |
| _ | Bb | Cb | _ | Db | _ | Eb | Fb | _ | Gb | _ | Ab |
Here is the same thing with most of the air squeezed out.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| A | A# | B | C | C# | D | D# | E | F | F# | G | G# |
| Bb | Cb | B# | Db | Eb | Fb | E# | Gb | Ab |
As you can see from this table, most notes have more than one name. The note in between A and B is named A# (A-sharp) or Bb (B-flat). Yes, that note has two names. Sometimes it's called A#, other times its called Bb. Sometimes I'm called Mike, sometimes I'm called Sult. It's no big deal. It's just a couple of different names. In this class, we will learn when it is appropriate to use one name vs. another name.
The bottom line is this:
If you are getting a headache with all of this technical chromatic name stuff, take solace in the fact that this will become clearer when we study the keyboard layout, next week.
You've taken some Excedrin and are feeling better, I assume.
"Enharmonic" is the term we use to describe the 'double name' syndrome. As an example, A# and Bb are enharmonic equivalents (or simply 'enharmonics'). Another look at the table above reveals the following enharmonic pairs: A#-Bb, B-Cb, B#-C, C#-Db, D#-Eb, E-Fb, E#-F, F#-Gb, G#-Ab. Two names for the same note. Enharmonics are as simple as that. You need to be aware (and we learn more about this later) that usually one of the names is appropriate for a specific context whereas the other name may be appropriate in a different context.
These examples are melodies that many of you will recognize, they have a rhythmic component that I am ignoring for now. The notation will show the pitches only. Follow along with the music and notice how some notes are played long or short, fast or slow. We have not yet discussed rhythm. We will continue to study the topic of pitch for a couple of more weeks before we tackle the topic of rhythm. If you can't wait, you can read about 'Rhythm' in the text.
When listening to and reading the music, notice the pitch contour of these melodies. Some of them jump around, some move in small intervals. Which one has the smallest pitch range? Which one has the largest interval leap? Can you name all of the notes played? (Of course, this is too fast to say the names AS it is playing)
Open MIDI file of Pitch contours of different melodies
Open mp3 file of Pitch contours of different melodies
Play file
[*** Pitches from 'Scarboro Faire' - Folk Song ***]
[*** Pitches from a typical 'Boogie Woogie' Bassline ***]
[*** Pitches from 'Flight of the Bumblebee' - Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov ***]
[*** Pitches from 'America' - Leonard Bernstein ***]
Here are the links to this week's reading from the text. Note that the chapter is spread out over two files. You can link to part two from part one using the 'next' link found in these files.
Below is a link to this week's OPTIONAL online practice/quiz.
This quiz is NOT REQUIRED, it if for practice only. The required tests begin next week.
If you are experiencing problems or have questions about how to use the quiz, or anything else regarding the course, PLEASE EMAIL ME, mikesult@guitarland.com. The most important issue of this week is getting the mp3 files to play on your computer. Of secondary importance is the notation quiz. If you are having trouble with the mp3 files, don't worry about the quiz (although it doesn't require mp3), you will be allowed to make it up once your system is working. I want to be sure that everyone has success playing mp3 files by this week. I will try to answer questions on a Frequently Asked Question page that I'll add to throughout the quarter (no names will be used). If you have questions, so do others, don't be shy. Let's talk.
End of Lecture 1