Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People Fundamentals tobyrush.com music theory for musicians and normal people by toby w. rush so then the What is Music Theory? bassoon choir comes in like flaming Chances are there’s a piece of music honeydew melons that moves you in a profound way... from on high a way that is frustratingly difficult to describe to someone else! Like other forms of art, music often has the capability to create in the listener that emotional reactions please transcends other forms of communication. bradley it’s late though a single piece of music may elicit different reactions from different listeners, any and if i’m lover of music will tell you that they’re real, almost those feelings are real! they’re worthy done of study. one of the most valuable parts coming up with terminology of music theory is giving names to doesn’t just help us talk to musical structures and processes, others about music, though... which makes them easier to talk about! it actually helps us learn! but while it’s an important step, and a great place to start, music theory is much more than just coming up with names for things! when composers write music — whether it’s a classical- era symphony or a bit of japanese post-shibuya-kei glitch techno — they are not following a particular set of rules. If anything they are often trying to break them! so while a lot of people think music theory is about learning the rules for how to write music, that’s not m quite right. music theorists don’t create rules for n ozart akata writing music; they look for patterns in music that is already written. composers ...theorists create... analyze! which leads to the most important why dissect music? what’s the question... the one that, as you point of figuring out rules study music theory, you should be that composers themselves why? weren’t even worried about? constantly asking yourself: because somewhere maybe it’s in the notes. in there is the reason maybe it’s in the silence. music theory is why that piece of music maybe it’s somewhere but figuring out what moves you. in between. music theorists are going to makes music work. it may take a the reason it long time, or find it, makes you cry, even create because... And you just gives you chills, more questions joined the team. reminds you of home. than answers. grab your stuff... let’s go! 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 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 left of the note that they note by two half steps. 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 ∫œ œ nœ ‹œ two half steps. # & bœ 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 the length of 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 adds half each one adding half of the of the original note’s length! previously added value. ack! Get it off! = + = + + = + + + K GEt it off! q. q e q.. q e x q... q 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 delineated 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, [drumintro] the corrs knows” “heaven forgiven, not forgotten (1996) 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 kind of lying to you. the top number indicates the number of divisions in a measure. to get the number of beats, divide it by three.