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Toby Rush—Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

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Toby Rush—Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People hello! this file is a collection of individual sheets MUSICcovering a bunch of lessons on music THEORY theory. for it’s not a book... yet. it might be someday! but as of right now, it’s incomplete. The truth is, they weren’t intended to be a single volume when I started making them... they were just review sheets for my own theory students. but the more I made, MUSICIANSthe more I realized they could be collected into a textbook of sorts... eventually! and I still have a lot of work to do, but I’ve collected the ones I’ve made so far into a single document to make it easier for the folks who wanted them all... but didn’t want to download every file individually! I still have a lot of work to do, but I’ve collected the ones I’ve made so far into a single document to make it easier for the folks who wanted them all... but didn’t want so if you’ve been sent this file NORMALto download every file individually! by someone, know that there might be a newer version — or more pages — at tobyrush.com. but if you like this, or find it useful, great! feel free to share it, copy it, and use it. now let’s learn some music theory! just don’t sell it, change it, or tell others you made it!* PEOPLERush by Toby W. Rush *for more info, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ music theory for musicians and normal people by toby w. rush music notation is the art of Notation: Pitch recording music in written form. liz phair “what makes you happy” [melody from chorus] whitechocolatespaceegg (1998) #¶#g#F#d#DµD#SµS#d#Mf#SµSµg#F œ œœœ œœ œ œœœ œ œœ Œ modern music notation is a product œ of centuries of transformation... the system of musical notation and it is neither efficient nor intuitive! we use is essentially a stylized graph of pitch versus time. pitch is the highness or lowness of a sound. œ œ œ & œ œ œ œ œ for example, a flute has the five lines on which notes a high pitch, while a tuba appear is called a staff. has a low pitch. pitch pitch time a note is a written representation of a particular pitch. notation is based on the piano keyboard; lines and spaces on the staff represent F g a b c d e F g a b c d e the white notes on the keyboard. the white notes on the keyboard are labeled with letters from A to G. to display notes outside the staff, we use shortened staff lines & called treblew clef B w B w w alto clef ledger lines. tenor clef ? bass clef the clef determines what notes each staff line corresponds to. the four modern middle c is the c that is closest to clefs are shown here; the note displayed the middle of the piano keyboard. on each staff corresponds to middle c. these symbols are placed to The double sharp raises the To notate the the of the note that they note by two half steps. left black notes affect, and they apply to all the on the piano ‹ notes on that line or space keyboard, we use for the rest of the measure. accidentals, The sharp raises the which alter the note by one half step. note by one or two half steps. # & bœ œ nœ #œ ∫œ œ nœ ‹œ The natural cancels out a half step is any previous accidental. the distance n between two adjacent keys The flat lowers the on the piano note by one half step. keyboard, F g a b c d e F g a b c d e regardless b of what color The double flat lowers two notes which have the same the keys are. the note by two half steps. pitch (for example, f sharp and g flat) are called enharmonics. licensed∫ under a creative commons BY-NC-ND license - visit tobyrush.com for more music theory for musicians and normal people by toby w. rush while pitch is pretty clearly notated on a Notation: Rhythm vertical axis, note length is indicated using a somewhat arcane system involving noteheads, stems and flags. K K K half note whole note W w eighth note h quarter note q e x x x x sixteenth note one-hundred- sixty-fourth note double whole note thirty-second note twenty-eighth note in this chart, each successive type of note is half as long note lengths in a piece as the note to its left. none of these notes has a standard are indicated by the tempo length; a half note in one piece may be the same length as marking at the beginning an eighth note in a different piece. of a piece or section. half rest whole rest „ ∑ Œ eighth rest ‰ ≈ ® Ù Â quarter rest one-hundred- ∑ sixteenth rest sixty-fourth rest twenty-eighth rest thirty-second rest double whole rest a rest is a period of usually rests are silence that a length placed on the staff at a which corresponds to a particular vertical particular note. position as shown here. the augmentation dot is a dot placed to the right of a notehead. though small, this dot multiple dots can also be added, wields some serious power: it changes the each one adding half of the length of the note by 150%. In other words, previously added value. it makes the note half again as long! = + = + + = + + + = + + + + K q e e q. e e e q.. e e e x q... e e e x x ties are curved marks which connect to tie more than two notes together, two notes together to create draw ties between each note; do not a single, extended sound. use a single, extended tie. j j = j = œ œ œ œ œ œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ a tuplet is any non-standard division of a most tuplets are simple divisions, like note. these are usually written as a group the triplets to the left. but anything is of notes delinated with a bracket and possible! chopin, for example, would a number showing the division being made. often go to town with these things. ) 1 (1846 1 p. 62, no. no. 62, p. jor, o jor, in b ma b in ic chopin ic eder 3 r nocturne for example, these aren’t f exactly quarter notes; wha... gah! they are each a third as chopin, no! œ œ œ long as a half note. down, boy! licensed under a creative commons BY-NC-ND license - visit tobyrush.com for more music theory for musicians and normal people by toby w. rush a fundamental feature of most pieces of music is a Notation: Meter consistent rhythmic pulse. this pulse is called the beat, [drum intro] the coors knows” “heaven not forgotten (1996) forgiven, and a single pulse is called a beat unit. there are two types of beat units: ...and those containing those containing two divisions, q q. three divisions, called simple beat units... E E E E E called compound beat units. in music, beats are organized into patterns of accented and unaccented beat units. in fact, if you listen to a sequence of repeated notes, your brain will probably start to perceive the notes as groups of two, three, or four, even if no accents are present! Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q> Q Q Q Q> Q Q Q >Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q these groups are called measures, barline measure and they are delineated with barlines. the organization simple TIME SIGNATURES are easy. of beat units and measures in the top number a piece is called indicates the number meter. Meter is of beats in a measure. described by two 3 Q Q Q Q Q Q numbers placed the bottom number the4 code for the bottom note at the beginning indicates the type of is pretty easy: 4 refers to of the piece: note which serves as a quarter note, to an eighth the beat unit. note, to a sixteenth8 note, the time signature. 3 16 4 and so on. compound TIME SIGNATURES are stupidly complicated. the top number indicates the number of divisions in a measure. to get the 6 . number of beats, divide it by three. 8 Q Q Q Q the bottom number indicates the type of in fact, wouldn’t this be note which serves as the division. an easier way to notate to get the beat unit, use the note that compound meters? 6 is equal to three of these notes. 2 in a compound meter, the beat unit is always a dotted note! sorry... the man says you have to do it 8by looking at the top the other way. number of the time signature, you can tell two things about the meter: whether it’s simple notes that have flags can or compound, and how many be grouped together by using beats are in a measure. beams in place of flags. simple compound 2 2 6 however, beaming is only used to group notes within beats. 3 for the most part, you shouldn’t beam notes between beats, 3 9 nor should you tie notes within beats. 4 beats per measure beats 4 12 licensed under a creative commons BY-NC-ND license - visit tobyrush.com for more music theory for musicians and normal people by toby w.
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