Posts Tagged ‘bass clef’

How to Read Piano Notes

Saturday, August 16th, 2008

How to Read Piano Notes

How To Read Piano NotesHow to Read Piano Notes

Reading piano notes may seem daunting at first, but it really isn’t if you ground yourself in the basics. The first step is learning the names of the notes. The great thing is that you only have seven to memorize.
All music is the result of combinations of these seven. These notes, named after letters in the alphabet, are A, B, C, D, E, F and G. Specific keys on the piano, associated with these notes, comprise your piano playing toolkit.

These seven notes sit on lines and spaces, called a music staff. Piano music consists of two staffs or staves: the Treble Clef and the Bass Clef. The notes from the upper portion of the piano keyboard sit on the Treble Clef. The notes from the lower portion of the keyboard sit on the Bass Clef.

Usually, the right hand plays the notes in the Treble Clef, while the left hand plays notes in the Bass Clef. The key to reading piano notes is in knowing what key relates to what note on the sheet music.

The note A on a piano is a white key. The A on the music staff corresponds to where the A note is on the keyboard. The notes on a keyboard repeat themselves:

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A

Each of these notes is a key on the piano. It’s that simple, all along the keyboard.

The first A sits on one point of the music staff. As you play along the keyboard, the second A you play sits further up the music staff. As your fingers run up to the upper portions of the keyboard, the higher the notes sit on the Treble Clef. The further down you play on the piano keyboard, the further down the notes sit on the music staff, running into the Bass Clef.

You can group notes together on a music staff vertically. These vertical grouping are chords. A chord is a group of three or more notes played simultaneously. If you play the C, E and G keys at the same time on the keyboard, you play a chord known as a triad. On a piece of sheet music, you will see these three notes as such:

G
E
C …piled on top of one another so-to-speak.

If the composer wants these notes played separately, he would write them out horizontally on the music staff as such:

C E G …moves along the music staff.

Of course, these letters do not appear on the music staff; instead oval notes replace the letters.
When you first begin to read piano sheet music, locate the reference point note of each staff. This allows you to determine the rest of the notes on the staff.

The Treble Clef has the G note as its reference point. This note is on the second line from the bottom of the five line Treble Clef staff. The Bass Clef has the F notes as its reference point. This note is on the second line from the top of the five line Bass Clef staff. Every other note on either staff is easily located from these points.

Reading piano notes will be easier when you study the fundamentals. Learn the Treble and Bass Clefs and where the seven notes sit on them, and your reading skills will improve.

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How to Read Music - Easier Than You Ever Thought!

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

How to read musicHow to Read Music - Easier Than You Ever Thought!

One of the simple joys in life is the ability to read music. Learning this skill will enable you to express yourself creatively at the piano, playing your favorite songs.

It’s not difficult to learn to read music if you understand its components.

Written music has an architecture all its own. Musical notes sit on a staff. This staff consists of five lines and four spaces. Piano music utilizes two staves: the Treble

Clef and the Bass Clef. The Treble Clef consists of notes in the upper part of the piano keyboard, and the Bass Clef consists of notes in the lower part of the piano

keyboard. Music for instruments such as the trumpet uses only the Treble Clef, with additional notes written just above or just below the staff. There are also Tenor and

Alto Clefs, which accommodate written notes for a host of other instruments.

There are only seven notes in all of music. Of course, myriad combinations of these notes give us the vast array of music we have available to us today. These combinations

of notes will continue to provide us with new music in the future as well. These notes are seven letters from the alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F and G; what musicians and

composers do with seven notes is what makes music so beautiful.
On a sheet of music, the Treble Clef has a figure at the beginning of the staff. This figure indicates where line “G” is, on the second line from the bottom of the staff.

Once you know where line “G” is, you can figure out the names of the other spaces and lines. The Bass Clef has a figure at the beginning of its staff. This figure indicates

where line “F” is, on the second line from the top of this staff. Again, you can figure out the other notes, where they sit on the Bass Clef, because you have a starting

point with line “F”.

You can play musical notes individually as single successive notes, or you can play them in unison as a chord. Notes do not all look alike on a musical staff. Some have

stems attached to them. Some have what look like little flags on them. Some notes are solid black, while others are clear ovals. These different characteristic of a musical

note represent its value. The value helps a music reader determine the duration of a note, how much time it should take up in a piece of music.

Written music also includes the use of “rests.” These rests are of a different shape than music notes, and they indicate intervals of silence in music. A musician needs to

know where pauses in their playing need to occur and for how long these pauses must be.

These are the fundamentals to know when you want to begin a study of music reading. From there you will come to understand time signatures, rhythm, tempo, and phrasing and

articulation markings. However, learning those seven notes and the music staff is the first step. After that, it’s full speed ahead to greater musical enjoyment.
http://www.readmusicfast.com/

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What in the World is Figured Bass in Music?

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

Figured bass (chord symbols)

Even many musicians haven’t heard of figured bass. Also called

basso continuo, a simple explanation of the term is a short way to

note chords on a musical score. If you have never heard of it, it’s

most likely because the method isn’t used today. However, it could

be considered akin to, or a precursor of, a modern chord chart.

Figured bass originated in the Baroque era of the17th and 18th

century. Music has evolved over the centuries and still does today.

The development of figured bass came in response to one of these

early musical style evolutions. The Baroque music period came on the

heels of the Renaissance period. Music from the Renaissance was

generally characterized by its reliance upon intervals of thirds. Of

course, musical trends evolve over a period of time. For this

reason, it’s difficult to pinpoint an exact year when this trend

shifted. Usually a new musical era is well under way before anyone

realizes there has been a change. Modal characteristics of

Renaissance music eventually gave way to more tonal music. The

defining characteristic of tonal music is its use of fifths. This is

in contrast to the previous intervals of thirds. This led the way

for Baroque style music.

Composers and musicians in this period began using more elaborate

instrumentation during the Baroque period. New musical instruments

were being developed that contributed to the trend. Many of them had

wider range capabilities, allowing for more variety in musical

scores. New playing techniques were also developed, lending a

distinction to music of this period such as had not previously been

heard.

The more complex nature of Baroque music made a new form of musical

notation a necessity. This is how figured bass was born. Playing

music by reading figured bass required more than rudimentary musical

skills. With this method, the melody line and the bass line are

noted on a traditional musical scale (bass clef and treble clef).

The instrumentalist(s) would fill in the harmony lines based on the

bass note. The harmony part, or the part that was implied but not

written in the score, was known as the continuo.

To play figured bass, it is necessary to have a working

understanding of chords. An instrumentalist reading a score with

figured bass would see the melody notes and the bass notes. The

instrumentalist would assume that the continuo notes that would

accompany would be a standard fifth interval unless otherwise noted.

If another variation was desired, numbers would appear on the score

underneath the bass note indicating the appropriate interval.

Like many trends, the use of the figured bass method became

obsolete. Today, chords are often indicated by abbreviating their

names (i.e.,”C7” for a C major/minor seventh chord). Similar to

figured bass, instrumentalists have some leeway for improvisation

with this type of musical annotation. This is in contrast to music

that has every note for each part annotated on a musical staff. Like

shorthand once was to writing, so was figured bass to music. And

like shorthand, changes in technology and trends have greatly

diminished the use of figured bass.

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