Mus F193: Introduction to Music TheoryClass 2

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Agenda for today...

• Odds and ends (website address, make-up session)

• Review Units 1 – 5 (up to page 29)

• Homework

• Questions?

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Odds and Ends

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Website for the class!

• http://musictheorynome.wordpress.com

• No content there YET...

• ...but hang tight: lecture slides and class audio coming ASAP

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Make-Up Session

• When would be a good day/time to do this?

• Tuesday, June 4: 6:30-8:30pm (?)

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Essentials of Music Theory: Units 1-5

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Unit 1The Staff, Clefs, Grand Staff, Ledger Lines

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Unit 1: The Staff

• Everything happens on the staff

• All the notes “live” there

• Five lines, four spaces

• Notes that are placed higher on the staff sound higher in pitch; notes that are placed lower, sound lower (deeper)

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Unit 1: The Staff

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Unit 1: The Treble Clef

• ...Without a clef, however, musical pitches have no reference point

• Putting a note in space #2, for example, or line #4 doesn’t really mean anything by itself

• It needs a clef to dictate what pitch it is

• The treble clef (also called the G Clef, seen on next page) is the most common; wraps around the note G

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Unit 1: The Treble Clef

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Unit 1: The Treble Clef

• Mnemonic devices for the notes of the treble clef:

• LINES: E-G-B-D-F

• “Every good boy does fine”

• SPACES: F-A-C-E

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Unit 1: The Bass Clef

• Pronounced “base”

• Denotes pitches that are lower than the treble clef

• Clef wraps around F below middle C

• Notes in this range, for example:

• Most male vocal parts, lower ranges of the piano, etc.

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Unit 1: The Bass Clef

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Unit 1: The Bass Clef

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Unit 1: The Bass Clef

• Mnemonic devices for bass clef:

• LINES: G-B-D-F-A

• “Good boys do fine always”

• SPACES: A-C-E-G

• “All cows eat grass”

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Unit 1: The Grand Staff

• What happens when you put the treble staff and the bass staff together?

• the grand staff

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Unit 1: The Grand Staff

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Unit 1: The Grand Staff

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Unit 1: Ledger Lines

• Extend the range of the staff so that higher and lower notes can be added

• Ledger lines “catch” the notes that spill over the top or the bottom of the staff

• With ledger lines, some of the highest pitches of the bass staff and the lowest pitches of the treble staff are the same pitches; this is where the staffs overlap

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Unit 2Note Values, Measures/Bars, Time Signature (4/4), Rests (Whole, Half, Quarter)

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Unit 2: Note Values

• Notes have values. They’re very ethical.

• ...Just kidding.

• Note values = duration; how long is the pitch held?

• Music occurs in time; note values specify how much time each note gets

• First notes to learn: whole, half, quarter notes

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Unit 2: Note Values

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Unit 2: Mind Yer Stems!

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Unit 2: Measures & Bar Lines

• Written music is measured out into equal segments called... measures!

• Bar lines:

• Separate measures, one from another

• “Bar” is another name for “measure”

• Double bar: ends a piece of music

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Unit 2: Measures & Bar Lines

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Unit 2: Time Signatures

• Music is measured in time; each measure has a specific quantity of musical time as per the time signature

• Time signature has two numbers, top and bottom, much like a fraction: Y/X

• Top number (Y): how many beats in each measure?

• Bottom number (X): what type of note gets the beat?

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Unit 2: Time Signatures

• Within a given measure, you can fit different values of notes...

• ...as long as they fit into the number of beats dictated by the time signature...

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Unit 2: Time Signatures

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Unit 2: Rests

• Just like notes/musical pitches, rests – or the absence of pitches/notes – are also written out

• You can have different durations of rests

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Unit 2: Rests

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Unit 2: Rests

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Unit 2: Rests

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Unit 2: Duration of Rests vs. Duration of Notes

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Unit 3Time Signatures (2/4 and 3/4), Dotted Half Note, Ties & Slurs

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Unit 3: More Time Signatures

• 4/4 isn’t the only time signature you should know...

• Other time signatures use different values either for the top number (# of beats) and/or for the bottom number (what note gets the beat)

• Example: 2/4

• 2 beats/measure; quarter note gets the beat (just like 4/4)

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Unit 3: More Time Signatures

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Unit 3: More Time Signatures

• The time signature 3/4 works the same way:

• Three beats per measure

• Quarter note (/4) gets the beat

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Unit 3: More Time Signatures

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Unit 3: More Time Signatures

• So, to review:

• 4/4 – also called Common Time, by the way – has four beats per measure

• 3/4 – three beats per measure

• 2/4 – two beats per measure

• Each (4/4, 3/4, 2/4) gives the beat to the quarter note

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Unit 3: More Complex Note Values – Dotted Notes

• Whole / half / quarter notes aren’t the only possible note values

• Add a dot to a note – to make a dotted note – and you’ve increased the value of that note by half

• So, a half note is two beats, but a dotted half is three beats

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Unit 3: More Complex Note Values – Dotted Notes

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Unit 3: More Complex Note Values – Dotted Notes

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Unit 3: Ties and Slurs

• Another way of lengthening notes: combining them with a tie

• A tie joins two notes of the same pitch with a curved line

• The note effectively becomes longer...

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Unit 3: Ties and Slurs

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Unit 3: Ties and Slurs

• A slur, on the other hand, is a way of connecting different pitches to make them sound smoother, part of a single, unbroken musical phrase

• This is sometimes called legato playing/singing

• This works differently depending on the voice/instrument that is playing the slurred notes

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Unit 3: Ties and Slurs

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Unit 4Repeats (Repeat Signs), 1st/2nd Endings, Eighth Notes, Eighth Rests, Dotted Quarter Notes

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Unit 4: Do it Again with a Repeat

• What happens when you want to repeat a section of music over again, but don’t want to re-write all of the notes a second time?

• Use a repeat sign

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Unit 4: Do it Again with a Repeat

• Different repeat-sign uses covered in the book:

• Repeat sign sends you back to the beginning (simplest)

• Repeat happens between repeat signs facing each other

• Repeat involves alternate endings (first ending, second ending)

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Unit 4: Do it Again with a Repeat

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Unit 4: More Note Values – Eighths

• An eighth note is half of a quarter note

• (or eighth of a whole note, if that’s helpful)

• You can tell an eighth by its flag

• An eighth note is just the next step in the notes we’ve been exploring: two eighths make a quarter note, two quarter notes make a half note, two half notes make a whole note

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Unit 4: More Note Values – Eighths

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Unit 4: More Rest Values – Eighths

• ...And just as quarter/half/whole notes have quarter/half/whole rests, eighth notes also have eighth rests:

• Half of a quarter rest

• Both eighth notes and eighth rests can happen either on the downbeat or the upbeat

• “1-and, 2-and, 3-and, 4-and...”

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Unit 4: More Rest Values – Eighths

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Unit 4: One More Note Value – Dotted Quarter

• Don’t forget: a dot after a note increases its duration by half

• So, dotted half note = half note (2 beats) + 1 beat = 3 beats

• Dotted quarter note = quarter note (1 beat) + eighth note (1/2 beat) = 1.5 beats

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Unit 4: One More Note Value – Dotted Quarter

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Unit 5 (up to p. 29)Dynamics, Tempo Marks

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Unit 5: Dynamics!

• Is it loud?

• Is it soft?

• Is it getting louder?

• Fading away?

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Unit 5: Tempo

• Is it fast?

• Is it slow?

• Is it getting faster?

• Is it slowing down?

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Unit 5: Dynamics!

• Soft to loud: pianissimo (pp, very soft); piano (p, soft); mezzo piano (mp, moderately soft); mezzo forte (mf, moderately loud); forte (f, loud); fortissimo (ff, very loud)

• You’ll occasionally see markings like ppp or ffff; these aren’t technically correct, since “-issimo” already means “most”/superlative

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Unit 5: Dynamics!

• Changing dynamics:

• Getting louder: crescendo (sometimes marked cresc.)

• Getting softer: diminuendo (dim.) or decrescendo (decresc.)

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Unit 5: Tempo

• Slow to fast: largo (very slow); adagio (slow); andante (“moving along”); moderato (moderately); allegro (quickly); vivace (fast)

• Moderato is often combined with other markings: ex.: allegro moderato

• There’s a lot of grey area here – sometimes dependent upon how the conductor/ensemble chooses to perform/interpret these markings

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Unit 5: Tempo

• Other markings could be used, too:

• In English, German, etc.

• It’s not always just Italian

• Changing tempo markings:

• becoming slower: ritardando (rit. or ritard.); becoming faster: accelerando (accel.)

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Examples of various tempos

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Questions?

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Homework for Tues. 5/21

• Review Units 1 through first part of Unit 5

• This will be basis for first Quiz on 5/21

• Take a second look at remainder of Unit 5 (pages 30-33), all of Unit 6...

• ...Then, dig into Units 7-8 – see what you make of it!

• Keep an eye on email and posts on blog

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