Second Inversion Chords

HARQIB HARIS/AHMAD ARSHAD_ISL www.theoryontheweb.com. Introduction Music can be defined as organized sound. It is a living language that has been developed over centuries and continues to be refined and reinvented by composers and musicians today. In various parts of the world, different musical languages and "dialects" are used. However, the music written in Europe during the "common practice" period from about 1650 - 1900 comprises a very large portion of our musical heritage, and includes such famous composers as Vivaldi, J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Verdi and Wagner. Most of the popular music of today still uses the syntax and musical "grammar" of that period. This type of music is based on both acoustic principles and tradition, constituting what we often refer to as "tonal" music. Just as words function a certain way within a sentence, chords and rhythms function a special way within tonal music. Even in other types of music - contemporary art, popular, jazz, eastern, Latin American, African, Native American - the principles used in western art music can help one to better understand and appreciate the beauty and structure found within each of these musics. So whether you are a performer, composer, or simply a person who likes listening to music, an understanding of how music works is a valuable and essential asset. This is intended to be a course of study that will provide a solid and complete background of the basics of tonal music. Upon successful completion, it is hoped that you will have an understanding of the fundamentals of the language of tonal music. Although it is intended to be a preparation for students hoping to begin music studies at colleges and universities in the United States, it can be of use to anyone who wants to better understand the language of music. HARQIB HARIS/AHMAD ARSHAD_ISL www.theoryontheweb.com. Basics First, we need to understand a few terms that are used to talk about music. pitch - Pitch refers to what we perceive the frequency of a sound to be. For instance, the following example consists of three pitches. The first pitch, A3, has a frequency of 440 HZ (cycles per second. The second pitch, E4, has a higher frequency (660 HZ), and so we say it sounds "higher." The third pitch, A2, sounds "lower" because the frequency (220 HZ) is much lower than the first pitch. note - A note is a sound perceived to have a single, constant pitch. rhythm - this is a general term used to refer to when and how long notes occur in time. In the following example, there is a long note, followed by four, even notes, followed by a rhythmic pattern of varying lengths. When we try to write down or notate these sounds, we need a system that will allow us to show both the pitch (how high or low the note sounds) and rhythm (how it is played in time). Just as an X-Y graph is used to show these relationships in math, music uses a notation system that notates pitch vertically (higher and lower) and rhythm horizontally (forward in time). Play the following example and listen to how the sounds are reflected in the notation. The following sections in Part One: Fundamentals show how music is notated and read. Links: o Activities for Review of this section o Next section: Rhythm o Table of Contents HARQIB HARIS/AHMAD ARSHAD_ISL www.theoryontheweb.com. Rhythm Rhythm is a term we use to describe how music and sounds are placed in time. As we saw last section, rhythm can be expressed by notes with a pitch, like a piano, or notes without pitches, like a snare drum. Most common practice music has rhythms that conform to a constant, even pulse. This pulse might be fast (over 4 pulses per second) or slow (less than one pulse per second). We often call this pulse the beat (note: if musicians play a passage very fast or very slow, it may sound like there are several pulses per beat or several beats per pulse. it is important to realize that the pulse is what you hear, the beat is what is notated). Tempo is a term we use to describe the rate at which the beats are occuring. Rhythmic notation is how we specify where each note begins and ends in relation to the beat. Our modern system for notating rhythm has a very logical method of describing how long a note should sound. It uses a set of noteheads plus stems and flags to indicate duration. A whole note (see below) originally was the standard unit of measure. If it is equally divided into two parts, each of these is called a half note. A half note divided into two equal parts yields two quarter notes, which are each one quarter of a whole note, hence their name. This process theoretically continues on as far as needed, however in most music, one rarely encounters a note beyond a 32nd note. The following chart shows how these notes relate to one another: The following example shows the relationship between these notes. Each measure has 4 beats worth of notes. As you play the example, tap along and listen to how each HARQIB HARIS/AHMAD ARSHAD_ISL www.theoryontheweb.com. measure's notes are half as long (so there are twice as many) as the previous measure's notes. Notice also that the note's value (8th, 16th, etc.) is also how much of a 4 beat measure that note lasts. Music also requires a method of notating silence. Silence is notated by a rest. Rests follow the same hierarchy as notes, as the following chart indicates: With the exception of the whole and half, rests are usually centered in the staff. With whole and half rests, there is an easy way to remember which is which: Whole rests (being larger and therefore "heavier") always hang down from the fourth line, and half rests (being smaller) always float above the third line. When a group of notes with flags occur within one beat (or in vocal music within one word or syllable) they are beamed together, to make this grouping more apparent to the performer. The number of beams is equal to the number of flags normally found on the note, so a group of eighth notes has a single beam, a grouping of sixteenth notes has two beams, etc. Beaming does not affect how the music sounds, it is only a notational means of making music easier to read and perform. HARQIB HARIS/AHMAD ARSHAD_ISL www.theoryontheweb.com. There are two methods used to notate more complex values. The first is to use a tie to join two note values together into one, sustained value. A tie is a curved line connecting the insides of the two noteheads. Any two or more note values may be tied together into longer durations, provided a separate tie is used between each notehead. A second method uses a dot following the notehead to indicate that the duration is equal to one and one-half times the note's normal value. So for example, a dotted quarter note equals a duration of one quarter plus one eighth note, or three eighth notes total duration. A second dot adds half of the dot's value. Tuplets A beat may be subdivided into any number of equal divisions. When the number of subdivisions does not equal one of the standard subdivisions listed above, a tuplet must be used. A tuplet adds additional subdivisions to the normal amount that would be expected for the rhythmic value employed. If we wish to have three subdivisions of a quarter note, (instead of the normal two eighth notes) we can use a triplet (a three-note tuplet) to accomplish this. Tuplets are notated using the next longest rhythmic value and have a number (with an optional bracket if there is no beam) over the grouping. Listening example Listen to the following example that makes use of the above rhythmic considerations. Listen to it and tap or sing along several times,, trying to tap or count the subdivsions during longer note values. HARQIB HARIS/AHMAD ARSHAD_ISL www.theoryontheweb.com. Links: o Activities for Review of this section o Next section: Meter o Table of Contents Meter Most music has a consistent grouping of beats, and within these groupings of beats we find that some receive more emphasis than others. Listen to the following example. You probably found yourself counting or tapping along in a pattern like this: 1 . 2 . 3 . 1 . 2 . 3 . 1 . 2 . 3 . You also probably heard this example in terms of three-beat groupings. Each of these groupings is called a measure. Beat "1" received more emphasis in our minds, even though it was no louder than the other notes. This organization of notes into structured groupings is called meter. There are three types of meter: simple, compound, and asymmetrical. Simple Meter HARQIB HARIS/AHMAD ARSHAD_ISL www.theoryontheweb.com. In simple meter, each beat is normally subdivided into two parts, and the note receiving the beat is always a standard single note value (i.e. a quarter, half, eight, etc.) In musical notation, this is indicated by a time signature, which provides information on how many beats are in each grouping, and which note value receives the beat. A time signature is notated by two numbers, one above the other, at the beginning of each piece and whenever there is a change of meter in the work. In simple meter: The top number indicates the number of beats per measure.

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