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Overview
Learning to read and write music is very similar to learning a new language. Music theory is the study of the fundamental elements of music and how it is written.
Music Theory For Beginners was developed for anyone interested in learning to read and write music, a task that can be quite daunting for novices. This book, however, will allay any fears and set you on the path to learning what all those dots, lines, and symbols actually mean. It provides the necessary scholarly muscle to entice and inform the reader, yet it does not require any prior knowledge of music or force the reader to wade through hundreds of pages of jargon and details.
Whether your goal is to gain a cursory understanding of music, become fluent in reading music, or start composing your own music, this text will provide everything you need for a solid foundation in music theory. Anyone can pick up Music Theory For Beginners and instantly start learning about—and understanding—music theory.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781939994479 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | For Beginners |
| Publication date: | 10/20/2015 |
| Series: | For Beginners |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 176 |
| File size: | 13 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Joe Lee is an illustrator, cartoonist, writer, and clown. With a degree from Indiana University centering on Medieval History, Joe is also a graduate of Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey’s Clown College and the author and illustrator of Greek Mythology For Beginners and Dante For Beginners. Visit him at joeleeillustrator.com
Read an Excerpt
Music Theory for Beginners
By R. Ryan Endris, JOE LEE
For Beginners LLC
Copyright © 2015 R. Ryan EndrisAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-939994-47-9
CHAPTER 1
THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF RHYTHM
Rhythm, beat, tempo: these are words we use all the time, often in reference to classical music, but also in talking about popular music and even the way people speak. You might hear someone casually say, "She has really good rhythm," or "I really like the beat of that song." Perhaps you've heard a political analyst comment on the rhythm or tempo of a presidential speech. We've all heard these terms, but what do they actually mean? These three words — rhythm, beat, and tempo — are often used interchangeably and incorrectly. They are never, ever the same thing, and your task for this chapter is to learn what differentiates them and how they are related.
Without even knowing it, you're most likely familiar with beat. Have you ever caught yourself tapping your foot or clapping along with a song? What you're mostly likely tapping — or clapping — out is the beat. Beat is the underlying pulse in music. It is steady like a heartbeat (unless there's an arrhythmia!), and it is ever-present, even during silences.
Tempo, the Italian word for time, is the speed of the beat. You can also think of tempo as a way of describing how fast or slow the music is played. One usually thinks of a funeral march as having a slow tempo, while a marching band in an Independence Day parade typically plays music with a fast tempo.
Classical music usually, but not always, uses Italian words to describe various tempi (the plural of tempo). For example, allegro, meaning happy, describes a faster tempo; largo, meaning broad, describes a slower tempo. Sometimes composers leave the tempo of their composition up to the performer with a simple marking of allegro or lento (slow). Others, however, are very specific. At the beginning of his Mass in C, for example, Beethoven indicates the tempo as Andante con moto assai vivace quasi allegretto ma non troppo ("A walking pace with motion, always lively, somewhat a bit on the fast side, but not too much"). While seemingly very specific (at least in Beethoven's mind), his instructions have remained quite ambiguous for those left to interpret them!
Of our first three essential terms, the final one you'll need to understand is rhythm. Rhythm is the pattern of sound and silence in music; more simply, think of it as the way the words go in a song. When you're tapping your foot to a song, that's the beat; but when you're singing, saying, speaking, or whispering the words to the song, you're singing, saying, speaking, or whispering the rhythm. Singing along with your favorite guitar solo in the middle of the song? You're singing the rhythm. But what about when there's silence in the middle of a song? Remember that silence, too — not just the sound — is part of the rhythm. And of course, the beat goes on, even when there is silence in the rhythm. Rhythm can also be thought of as the general motion of music, with beat as its fundamental unit (more on this in Chapter 2).
One of the key elements of rhythm is duration. Is a particular sound made for a long time (like sticking your tongue out and saying "ah" as the doctor examines your throat), or is the sound quick and short, like when someone yells, "Ouch!"? You can think of rhythmic values very much like measuring cups that hold different (and related) amounts of dry or liquid foods. For example, one cup is equivalent to two ½ cups, which is an aural perception; each ½ cup contains two ¼ cups, and each ¼ cup is made up of 4 table-spoons. Rhythmic values essentially tell us the quantity or duration of sound; they have nothing to do with the dynamics of the sound (loudness or softness).
Figures 1.1 and 1.2 identify the most common rhythmic values and their relationships to each other. Frequently in modern musical piece, the longest note value is a whole note, which in Figures 1.1 and 1.2 receives four pulses. The half note receives two pulses, and the quarter note receives one pulse. Believe it or not, there is such a thing as less than a full pulse! An eighth note receives half a pulse, and a sixteenth note receives a quarter of a pulse. The rhythmic values continue to divide beyond this point (infinitely), but rhythmic values shorter than a sixteenth note are not commonly found in most music. Of course, because duration applies to both sound and silence, the latter are represented by corresponding symbols called rests; likewise, they can take the form of a whole rest, half rest, and so on. While the whole rest and half rest may look identical, their placement on the staff (the five parallel lines used to "hold" the notes and rests) determines their value: a whole rest "hangs" from the third line, while the half rest "sits" on it.
Up to this point, we've discussed beat, tempo, and rhythm, and we've learned the various durations of rhythms in music. These rhythms, of course, are all relative to meter, the framework that brings all of these elements together. We'll learn about that in the next chapter.
CHAPTER 2METER, THE FRAMEWORK FOR RHYTHM
This might be the perfect time for you to grab one of your favorite tunes and listen to it while tapping your foot along with the beat. You probably notice that some beats feel stronger, while other beats feel weaker. This combination of strong and weak beats in a recurring pattern is what we call meter. Modern music, generally, follows some very specific patterns, or meters. And of course, meter is directly related to the rhythmic values we learned about in the previous chapter. Meters are divided into two categories: simple meter and compound meter.
Beats typically divide into either two or three parts. Simple meters are meters with beats that divide into two, while compound meters have a beat that divides into three. For example, a meter that uses the quarter note as the beat would divide into two eighth notes. Take a look at Figure 2.1, an example of simple meter. As you'll see, each quarter note divides into two eighth notes in each measure. You'll also notice that there is an accent mark (>) above the first note in each group. This reminds you that the first beat in any meter is always the strongest!
In Figure 2.1, the quarter note receives the beat and divides into eighth notes. But what if a different note value receives one beat, such as a whole note or a half note or even an eighth note? It will still divide into two beats of half the value of the principle beat, as demonstrated in Figure 2.2.
You probably also noticed a couple of other things about these examples. One is that the rhythms are grouped together and separated by lines. The lines are called bar lines, and they delineate a measure. A measure is simply a grouping of notes with a meter (remember — a meter is a specific combination of strong and weak beats that repeats over and over again), and the bar line is used to show where each measure starts and ends. Even if there were no bar lines (they didn't even exist in the fifteenth century!), the music could still be played; measures just make it easier for musicians to keep track of where they are in the music.
The other important symbol that you may have noticed is a set of numbers at the start of each line. These two numbers, indicating the time signature, give musicians valuable information about the meter. The time signature represents the meter with two numbers: the top number indicates how many beats there are in each measure; the bottom number indicates which rhythmic duration (e.g., quarter note, half note) receives one beat or pulse. The top number can range anywhere from 1 to infinity, but the bottom number must correspond to a specific rhythmic value. The most common bottom numbers are 2 for a half note, 4 for a quarter note, and 8 for an eighth note, but 1, 16, 32, 64, and so on are possible as well. Why can't the bottom note be a 7 or 9? Because there is no such thing as a seventh note or a ninth note (refer back to Chapter 1).
The top number generally gives three options for the type of simple meter: duple meter (2 beats per measure); triple meter (3 beats per measure); or quadruple meter (4 beats per measure). Of course, a meter could have 5 beats per measure or 7 beats per measure, but these are irregular and not commonly encountered. Whether the meter is simple duple, simple triple, or simple quadruple, the important thing to remember is that the beat always subdivides into two (see Figure 2.3). Examples include "Oh! Susannah!" for simple duple meter, "The Star-Spangled Banner" for simple triple meter, and "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" (Beethoven's "Ode to Joy") for simple quadruple meter.
The other type of meter is called compound meter. Compound meters can be duple, triple, or quadruple just like simple meters; however, the beat divides into three parts instead of two. Because of this, the rhythmic value that receives one beat cannot simply be a quarter note or any other note; in order to be divided into three, it must be half again as long in duration. How does one make the note half again as long? It's a simple as adding a dot after the note. Adding a dot after any rhythmic value adds half of the rhythmic value to its total duration. For example, a dotted whole note has a duration of six beats: a whole note receives four beats, and the dot adds two additional beats to the duration (because two is half of four). Congruently, a dotted quarter note has a rhythmic value of one-and-a-half beats. Figure 2.4 shows how these dotted rhythmic values translate to duple, triple, and quadruple compound meters.
You have probably noticed that the top number of the time signatures in Figure 2.4 is not a 2, 3, or 4, as in simple meters. This might be a bit confusing, since the numbers are 6, 9, and 12. Simply put, we have no other way to indicate in modern notation that the beat is divided into three while still using a 2, 3, or 4 as the top number. Instead, we count the total number of eighth notes and use that as the top number; however, there are not 6, 9, or 12 beats in each measure. There are 2, 3, and 4 beats in each measure of duple, triple, and quadruple compound meter, respectively.
The one thing that all these different meters have in common is that they deal with rhythms that occur on the beat. However, as you'll notice when singing along with your favorite songs, some of the words occur between the beats. First, let's identify what's happening. When rhythms in between beats are accented, that's called syncopation. And because things no longer line up neatly with the beat, some notes have to be tied together. A tie is a curved line that connects two notes of the same pitch and essentially unites them into a single duration equal to their two separate durations. Thus, a quarter note tied to another quarter note equals two beats, the same as a half note. Figure 2.5 demonstrates an example of syncopation in the top line against the quarter note beat in the bottom line.
The last thing you need to know about rhythm before we bring this chapter to a close is how to count or say the different kinds. In simple meters, the beat is divided into its number followed by the word and. So, for example, a quadruple simple meter would be counted as "ONE and TWO and THREE and FOUR and." In simple meters, the beat is divided into its number followed by "and a." For example, a triple compound meter would be counted as "ONE and a TWO and a THREE and a FOUR and a." While all of this might seem a bit complex or overwhelming, it will become second nature to you with time and practice. Now go grab a piece of music and start practicing those rhythms!
CHAPTER 3NOTATING PITCH (AND WHAT PITCH IS)
Now that we have learned how to write rhythms on a single line, we turn to the question of how to notate the highness or lowness of pitch. Logically enough, a system was developed to indicate pitch vertically on a staff. A staff (pl. staves) consists of five parallel lines that are separated by four spaces. The lines are numbered one through five from the bottom to top, and the spaces are numbered one through four, again from the bottom to top. Figure 3.1 shows an example of a staff.
Noteheads are marked on the staff to indicate highness and lowness of pitch. Noteheads are the small oval shapes used to notate pitch. Higher pitches are placed higher on the staff; lower pitches are placed lower on the staff.
In Figure 3.2, the second note (on the third space) is higher than the first note (on the third line). Even a person who does not read music can logically deduce that a note that is higher on a vertical plane has a higher pitch than a note lower on the plane. Eventually we will add stems (the vertical lines coming from the noteheads) and sometimes flags (the small banners that hang from the stems of eighth notes and notes of shorter duration) to indicate rhythm. But for now, let's focus exclusively on pitch.
Before we continue with notating pitch on the staff, however, it is important to understand that each note in music has a letter name — A, B, C, D, E, F, or G. This letter name is determined by the note's position on the staff in conjunction with the clef being used (more on clefs in a bit). So what do you do when you are counting pitches upward and you run out of letters beyond G? You simply start over again with A. The same applies below A; you simply continue backwards with G, followed by F, E, etc. If we consider this pattern of seven pitches, we notice that every eighth letter is the same. We say that these pitches are an octave apart. The range from one A to the A above or below is an octave.
Although the letter names apply to notes played on any Western instrument, the piano keyboard is our best friend in teaching music theory. On the piano keyboard, the white keys follow the same A-G pattern of letter names and repeat it in each direction to the end of the keyboard. Most pianos have 88 keys; electronic keyboards usually have fewer, sometimes as few as 61. Figure 3.3 will help you identify pitch location on the keyboard. The white key immediately to the left of any group of two black keys is always a C; the white key immediately to the left of any group of three black keys is always F.
The black keys in between the white keys are exactly what you might think they are: pitches in between the white keys. For example, the black key between A and B in Figure 3.3 is equidistant from them and identified through the use of accidentals. Accidentals are symbols used to identify pitches as higher or lower than what was previously indicated. The three accidentals are sharp (#), to raise the pitch one half-step; flat (b), to lower the pitch one half-step; and natural (§), which cancels a sharp or flat. Thus, in the example of the black key between A and B, we can identify it as either A-sharp or B-flat, depending on its context in the music. We call these pitches enharmonic equivalents — two pitches that are spelled differently but sound exactly the same.
On the piano keyboard, the largest interval between two adjacent keys is a whole step. An example of a whole step is the interval between A and B. An interval is the distance between two pitches; it is often described in terms of whole steps and half steps. The smallest interval is the half step, such as the interval between A and the black key on either side of the A. Although whole steps are usually found between adjacent letter names, there are exceptions (between B and C and between E and F). You'll notice that there is no black key between these sets of keys. It's important to remember also that a whole step is comprised of two half steps.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Music Theory for Beginners by R. Ryan Endris, JOE LEE. Copyright © 2015 R. Ryan Endris. Excerpted by permission of For Beginners LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
List of Figures,Foreword,
Preface,
Introduction: The Elements of Music,
I. No Pitches Allowed — Rhythm, Beat, Tempo, and Meter,
Chapter 1: The Building Blocks of Rhythm,
Chapter 2: Meter, the Framework for Rhythm,
II. Musical Notation,
Chapter 3: Notating Pitch (and What Pitch Is),
Chapter 4: The Evolution of Musical Notation,
III. Scales and Keys,
Chapter 5: Major Scales and Keys,
Chapter 6: Minor Scales and Keys,
Chapter 7: More Scales!,
IV. Intervals and Harmony,
Chapter 8: Intervals,
Chapter 9: Sweet, Sweet Harmony,
V. Putting (Music) Theory into Practice,
Chapter 10: Writing Harmonies,
Chapter 11: Writing Melodies,
Chapter 12: The Syntax of Music,
Epilogue,
Glossary,
Further Reading,
About the Author and Illustrator,