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Course: Music > Unit 1
Lesson 2: Reading music- Lesson 1: Staff, names of notes, treble clef
- Lesson 2: Ledger lines and the octave
- Lesson 3: Bass clef, grand staff and the octave
- Lesson 4: Reading music in treble clef and the C Major scale
- Lesson 5: C Major scale in bass clef and reading in bass clef
- Lesson 6: Alto and tenor clefs.
- Lesson 7: Accidentals
- Lesson 8: Natural sign, more on accidentals and key signature
- Lesson 9: More on sharps and flats
- Lesson 10: Chromatic scales and the half step
- Glossary of musical terms
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Lesson 1: Staff, names of notes, treble clef
Want to join the conversation?
- Does anyone play oboe? Or any knowledge on the instrument? If so is there a 4th line ledger line for the instrument? Thanks!(14 votes)
- Yes, the oboe can play a high G found on the 4th ledger line above the staff. Advanced players can play the high Bb which occupies the 5th ledger line above the staff. That is more difficult to achieve, and requires some modifications to the embouchure (how the reed is held in the mouth) and possibly structural changes to the reed.(13 votes)
- in Sanskrit, (an indian language) do re mi fa so la ti do, is: sa re ga ma pa da ni sa.
Why do most people in the world use the european version? I mean, its the same concept after all...(7 votes)- That is an interesting thing to know, but I believe the reason is that they all belong to the same language family: Indo-european(4 votes)
- Atits says the soprano is the highest pitch, what is the second highest, (third, forth, ect.) 2:54(3 votes)
- In order from highest to lowest:
Soprano, alto, tenor, bass.
There might be less common ones in between each of these, but these are the most common.
Most choral music is written for "SATB Choir", satb being an acronym for the aforementioned levels.(10 votes)
- are there going to be any tests? if not how can I remember all of these notes(4 votes)
- Unfortunately, no. There are no tests. It just takes some time and practice to remember everything.(3 votes)
- are all piano names and notes based on letters and shapes?(3 votes)
- No. Piano's are usually named based off of the company that made them.
The notes were named based off of the pitch they made.(5 votes)
- Do they teach about a recorder? I need help with that.(4 votes)
- The main thing about playing recorder is the amount of air that you put through it. Recorder requires, especially early on in learning, a slow stream of air. Think of blowing warm air through it. Your vocal cavity should be open, as is saying, "Ahhh." Begin with no fingers down on the holes and blow. If you get a high squealing sound, slow down your air stream until the sound is pleasing to the ear. Once you conquer your air stream production, you can begin playing different notes by covering the holes with your fingers. Most any place you can buy a recorder should have a method book. By the way, in Bach and Handel's day, the recorder was used as the soprano voice in the woodwind section. Transverse(modern) flutes came about, later, as in Beethoven. Enjoy learning the recorder!(3 votes)
- I have a question about sight reading. I started playing the piano at 4/5 years old and I'm 35 now. My private tutor is an old lady and she taught me sight reading from an early age using the 'do, re, me' but I noticed everyone uses the alphabet system now. I encounter a lot of trouble sometimes trying to figure out which key someone is referring because it seems no one uses the old system anymore. Why is that?
My second question is when I sight read, I've always read the notes individually. I'm trying to figure out if advanced musicians are able to sight read in bulks as opposed to individual notes like I do (which consumes time to figure out what is written). If so, what techniques can I use to enable me to sight read in 'bulks' instead of individual notes?
So for example if I'm playing a piece and there's an octave that consisted of (me, sol, si, me) then I will sight read each note and assign my finger based on each one. I'm assuming there are people who are able to look at the combination and immediately can tell the mixture without needing to look at each note individually. I suppose this is similar to quantum reading where there are people who are able to read 3 lines of a book instead of each word in each sentence and then 1 sentence per one scan.
Am I making sense?(4 votes)- Try playing Chorales (from a church song book for example) and playing straight through, focusing only on the highest and lowest note. If you just play the Soprano and Bass lines, you'll get good practice, and yeah it's exactly like the reading method you mentioned. The first step is to eliminate the need to sound out the word, and then the need to say it in your head as you read it (singing twinkle twinkle while reading, for example), then to read multiple words at once, etc, etc. Set up metronome, slow place, and pretend like you're performing for a group. No stops first playthrough, just soprano and bass notes if you can. If that's too hard, work on alto and tenor together alternating with work on bass soprano together, just practice using your peripheral vision to observe everything. Good luck!(3 votes)
- How do people memorize the notes of music?(3 votes)
- Muscle memory contributes a lot to memorization as well, at least for me. The more you play, the more your body remembers how to play the notes. No matter how you memorize notes, it all happens with lots and lots of practice!(4 votes)
- Anybody know any lessons on voice training?(4 votes)
- Well, one thing you can try is using your diaphragm instead of your lungs. If you don't understand that then breath with your belly, not your chest. And if you still don't understand then I hope this site does:
www.howtosing.com/how-to-sing-from-your-diaphragm/
This breathing method helps a lot with sing because it could help carry your voice ( that's how a baby can cry really loud)
Another thing you can try is when you can't reach a note that is too high, then sing louder and point your chin down. This helps because when most people try to reach a note, they point their chin up and have their necks stretched out in front of them. This is wrong because you're placing too much strain on your voice. I hope I helped you!(2 votes)
- Now what about Bagpipe notation? because it goes l-g l-a b c d e f H-G H-A(5 votes)
- Uses treble staff. Mixolydian mode. The F is sharped.(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Tutor] In our section on Note Values, we discussed whole notes,
half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth
notes, sometimes with dots, all different note values. Now let's place these notes,
so they can represent a pitch, a pitch is a sound determined
by the speed of a vibration from the source of the sound, a source means in our
case, musical instrument and these vibrations create a pitch, the thinner the vibration, the faster the vibration,
the higher the pitch, the slower the vibration,
the lower the pitch. We begin with a staff or a stave, which has five parallel lines, any one of our notes can be placed on one of these five lines or four spaces. Let's work with a whole note. Now, the next element to
identifying a pitch is added, that's called a clef,
there are many clefs, but let's start working
with the treble clef, each note placed on the
treble clef has a name, corresponding to the first
seven letters of the alphabet, starting with A and ending with G, these seven note names
are repeated indefinitely. On the staff with a treble
clef, A is on the second space, continuing up, the next note is B, that'll be on the third line, then the third space is C, the fourth line is D, the fourth space, E, the fifth line, F and above the staff, a G. Now we can see the succession of notes from A to G on the treble clef staff. If we place a note below or lower than the second space A on
the second line, it is a G, remember the alphabet goes from
A to G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and if we go down, we
reverse the alphabet, so that line, second line becomes a G, the first space, an F, the lowest line an E and below the staff a D. As the notes ascend, the
pitch becomes higher, when the notes descend,
the pitch becomes lower, this is true of all
traditional music notation. The treble clef is
sometimes called a G clef, because it circles the
G on the second line, this clef is used for treble
instruments and voices or the highest pitched
instruments and voices, the soprano voice and
instruments like flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, horn, violin and the upper part of the piano, often played with the right hand.