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FUNDAMENTALS OF MUSIC: The Staff, Clefs, and Ledger lines.

  THE STAFF The Staff is a foundation upon which notes are built in music. IIt consists of five equally spaced horizontal lines. Most of the notes of the music are placed on one of these lines or in a space in between the lines. Extra  Ledger line   may be added to show a note that is too high or too low to be in the Staff. Ledger lines are additional lines or small lines that extends the Staff, either above or below to show notes that are too high or too low. Vertical Bar lines  divide the Staff into short sections called measures  or   bars.  A   Double bar line,  either heavy or light, is used to Mark the end of larger sections of music, including the very end of a piece, which is marked by a heavy-double bar. A musical staff remains inactive or meaningless until a clef is added. The lines and spaces on a musical staff should determine the Letter name  of the note to be sang or played but without a clef attached to this staff,th...

Music And Sound: The Four Qualities of Sound

 MUSIC AND SOUND: The Four Qualities of Sound  WHAT IS MUSIC? Music can be defined as the deliberate combination and arrangement of sound and silence in a way that pleases the ear. It is important to know that this is just one of the numerous definitions of music. Since music is perceived by different people in different ways, it cannot to be tied to one definition. But for academic and theory purpose, we will stick with the above definition. From the definition above we can see that music is not only about the sounds that we hear but how it is arranged with the silences. There's surely going to be a part in a song or a musical performance, when the singer or performer will pause to take his or her breathe, that pause is what we call 'silence'. So 'sound' combined aesthetically with 'silence' births music. WHAT THEN IS SOUND? Sound is the sensation produced by the organs of hearing when vibrations (sound waves) reach the ear. QUALITIES OF SOUND Sound has fou...

KEY TERMS FOR GRADE 1 MUSIC THEORY LESSONS

KEY TERMS FOR GRADE 1 MUSIC THEORY LESSONS  Congratulations to you! With this lesson we kickstart our journey into learning, reading and writing music. Before we go into the few beginner terms I aim to share with you in this post, i'd like us to take a brief look on our learning outcomes for Grade 1 music theory. Note that these learning outcomes covers for bothe ABRSM and Trinity College exams. LEARNING OUTCOMES: Note values Simple time signature of 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 The Stave Clefs Accidentals Major scales of C, F and G. Grouping of Notes and Rests Identifying the key of a piece of music. Tonic triads Introduction to intervals Ostinato Some frequently used performance directions Yeah, lets keep this in mind as we journey through Grade 1 Music theory in the next few weeks. Back to the business of the day. Below are important terms that we would encounter more frequently as we go into the study of music general. They are a lot of terms in music that deserves to be here but of course, I...