Global Music Resource

There are many different types of music notation from various different nations and from various time periods of those nation’s history. For this presentation, in western, classical music the building blocks of music notation include staffs, measures, time and key signatures, notes and scales.

The five equal, horizontal lines and four spaces are the Staff. Each individual line and space corresponds to a note. Notes above and below the Staff are placed on ledger lines. The combination of the Treble Clef Staff and the Bass Clef Staff connected by brace are known as the Grand Staff.

Notation is read from left to right. Measures include the lines of the staff onto which the notes are entered and each measure has a finite number of notes / beats per the time signature. Each measure is separated from the previous or successive measure by bar lines. The staffs are like a graph, with notes moving vertically up the staff rising in pitch and declining in pitch as they are entered or move vertically down the lower lines. In moving from left to right on the graph, time elapses as notes are played according to the time signature.

  The clef is placed at the beginning of the staff lines, just prior to the time signature, and will indicate the pitch of the note. The Clefs are: G or Treble (pictured to the far left) for higher pitched instruments, F or Bass (pictured next)for lower pitched instruments, and C (Tenor Clef and Alto Clef). The Treble Clef has its own staff lines for notes in its octave group and the Bass Clef has its own staff for notes in its octave groups.

The Time Signature is entered at the beginning of the staff lines. The most common time signature of a composition is 4/4 time. This means that there are 4 beats total per each measure. It secondly indicates that that each quarter note receives one beat. In 3/4 time, the 3 indicates three beats per measure and the 4 indicates that each quarter note receives one beat.

Notes include whole notes (which receive all the maximum beats per measure), half notes (which receive one half the maximum beats per measure), quarter notes (which receive one beat per measure). An eighth note would receive one half beat per measure. Thus, in 4/4 time, a whole note gets 4 beats or counts after striking it on its first beat, a half note gets 2 beats after the initial strike, a quarter note receives one beat simultaneously with the strike and 2 eighth notes would be struck in the time it took to play one quarter note. The duration of any note will always be relative to the amount of beats indicated by its representation (whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, etc.). After all of the allotted notes per measure are played, the next measure is played (again, each measure is separated by a bar from an adjoining measure). This underlying time provides the rhythm of the composition.

The whole note is represented (when written on sheet music) as an oval. All the other notes are also represented (in written form) as ovals but all the other notes have stems. The stem may point either upwards or downwards. The half note looks like the whole note with a stem. The quarter notes are also colored in as are the eighth notes and sixteenth notes. Eighth notes are also represented by adding a flag to a quarter note. The flag indicates that the note receives one half the beat of the quarter. Two flags on a sixteenth note indicates that it receives one half the beat of the eighth note. When two eighth are written in succession on a measure, the flag on each note is not written. Rather a beam (bold line) is written between the two notes, thus connecting them. Similarly, two beams are written connecting two sixteenth notes.

Adding a dot to a note adds an additional one half of its beat to the duration of the note. Thus, a half note in 4/4 time that receives 2 beats per measure. Adding a dot, which is one half of the two beats, or one beat, is added on to the duration. Thus, a dotted half note receives its two beats plus one additional beat, or three beats.

Similarly, there is a whole rest, a half rest, and quarter, eighth and sixteenth rest notation. A Rest indicates that a beat should be counted but no note should be played (silence).

The vertical graph aspect of the lines of the staff indicates the scale of notes. Each line of the staff will represent a note and each space between the lines represents a note. The natural notes are in western, alphabetical representation: A, B, C, D, E, F, G. However, the actual scale is based on 12 notes. These include the half step (semitone) sharps and flats between A and B, C an D, D and E, and F and G. These seven major notes and five interval minor notes create an octave. The interval semitone between all of the notes, except for B and C and E and F, is always the Sharp of the preceding note and the Flat of the successive note. Thus, for instance, A Sharp and B Flat are the same Enharmonic Note. The symbols written before the notes to signify whether a Sharp (#) or a Flat (b) should be played are known as Accidentals. The step up between notes is a tone, such as between C and D.

There are several levels of octaves in which a scale (sequence) of notes can be played. Every note played by any instrument corresponds with a frequency. For instance, A just below Middle C has the frequency of 440 cycles per second (Hz). This frequency also indicates the pitch of the note. Each rise in octave doubles the frequency of a note. Thus, A before C one octave above the previous example has a frequency of 880 Hz. Again, this frequency is what identifies the note’s pitch.

The octaves also are number by group. For instance, the first octave group adds a zero to any note in its group. Thus, the first C is C0. Middle C is C4 at 261.6 Hz, and A4 is the 440 Hz A note mentioned in the above paragraph.

A Scale is a sequence (played either ascending or descending) of notes within an octave. For instance, playing only the major notes from Middle C (C4) on a piano (white keys only) to C one octave higher (C5) is a scale. The scale begins with Middle C and is known as the C Major Scale (C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C). The Middle C is also known as the Tonic (root note) of the scale. Each note in the scale has a name, number position and a relationship to the Tonic:

C Tonic I
D SuperTonic II
E Mediant III
F Subdominant IV
G Dominant V
A Submediant VI
B Leading Note VII

A Major Scale always has the same intervals between each of the notes in the scale. For instance, in the C Major Scale, the two notes following the Tonic C (the Supertonic D and Mediant E) are always a full step intervals. The Subdominant F is a half step from the Mediant E. The Dominant G, the Submediant A and the Leading Note B are all full intervals between each other. The next octave C (C5) is a half interval. Similarly, the G Major Scale is G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G. The Transposition of any Major Scale is just changing the Tonic (root note) as all the following notes in the scale will follow the same interval pattern. The transposition of a major scale is accomplished by the insertion of a key signature.

Sometimes one or two Sharp or one or two Flat symbols will be written one a specific staff line or space at the beginning of a composition right after the Clef symbol but just before the Time Signature. The presence of these Sharps or Flats indicates the Key Signature of the composition. This means that any note on the staff line or space that has a Key Signature Sharp or Flat at the beginning of the composition will consistently be played a semitone higher or lower (depending on the Key Signature). The absence of any Key Signature means that the composition is in the Key of C, which has no sharps or flats.

The Circle of Fifths demonstrates the relationship between key signatures. There are twelve key signatures in the Circle starting with the key of C at the top. When moving in a clockwise direction, the next note is a perfect fifth from the previous note.

In addition to the major scales in western music, there are also three Minor Scales: Natural (or Relative) Minor, Harmonic Minor and Melodic Minor.

List of Scales:

Chords are a group of three or more notes played simultaneously. A chord will always be structured around a key note (tonic), which is normally the lowest note in the chord. The most basic chord are known as Triads. Triads are three note chord combinations. For instance, the major chords, C Major, G Major, etc., are triads (.wav and .aiff digital audio file samples are presented on the Sound Page for use in your projects).