CLASSICAL GUITAR METHOD Available NOW! Harry Pellegrin Author, Musician, Recording Artist Guitar Lessons Schenectady NY Captiol Area

CLASSICAL GUITAR METHOD available NOW! Harry Pellegrin Auth...
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The Website of Harry George Pellegrin

Rory Gallagher
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Guitar Technique Sessions Number 40

Updated July 14, 2005
Okay, someone emailed me (actually three people) and asked why all this stuff about lute tab? Some of
Site Map: Where am I? them didn't read standard notation. One wanted to know if I was some sort of musical 'snob' who had to
"show off" just how many notation systems I could read!
HOME (Front Page)
Well, let me tell you a short story. Long before man wrote music down with lines and dots, people made music. The
Bio: Harry Pellegrin
lines and dots only came about as a method of saving what the performers and composers did for posterity -- so
Guitar Sessions
others could attempt to copy their performances. Notation is a tool -- a wonderful tool that everyone should use if at
all possible. Earth moving equipment and concrete are great indispensible tools as well -- not having them didn't
Private Lessons
keep the Egyptians from building the pyramids, did it?
AIR RAID (80's Punk)
Notation is the same. There are great musicians -- like Rory Gallagher -- who didn't and don't consider themselves
LOW END (A Novel)
'readers.' Does this render their artistic efforts null and void? Of course not! So all this talk of mine about reading is
not intended to diss all those musicians who don't read. Reading is simple. Simple enough that even musicians can
do it!
Classical Guitar
Here is a fifteen minute crash course in music reading -- standard notation. Next week we'll transcribe that Dowland
piece. For now, it's MSL -- music as a second language. Relax, it all makes sense.
Albert Valdes-Blain
Andres Segovia
Left Hand Accuracy
Basics of Standard Notation
My Other CD's
The Kenny Hill Munich
I feel it is essential for the student-guitarist to learn how to read standard musical notation. Although much of the
History of The Guitar
repertoire is available in guitar tab, so much more isn't. [It is also a very wise endeavor to learn the various forms of
Arcane Tips for the Lute
lute intabulation. Much lute music is made available as scholarly researched editions, transcribed to standard
notationbut to pitch, not in a format readable to guitarists, but it is much easier to find lute music in original
editions and work from that to generate unique transcriptions. This topic is outside the scope of our discussion at
present.] Guitar tab is great for new players, but a solid understanding of standard notation is more valuable in the
long run. There are no concert-quality classical artists who do not read standard notation.
Pitch and Rhythm

Rock N' Roll
Fender Guitars
Old Ones...
Funny Old Photos
The Discords
Rory Gallagher
AIR RAID
All forms of musical notation deal with two factors. These two factors are pitch and rhythm. The notation of rhythm
is basically identical in lute and lute tablature and standard notation. It is where pitch is concerned that the two
differ. Tablature tells us where we are to place our fingers on the fingerboard. Standard notation tells us what
pitches we are to produce on the instrument. Tablature is a much more precise system for stringed instruments
since there are certain duplicate' notes that can be played on different strings (and different positions) but would be
written as the same note in standard notation. However, they are represented by different symbols in tablature.
Tablature's major drawback then is that it cannot be directly read from on another instrument. You cannot sit down
at the piano and easily read from lute tablature unless you have an intimate knowledge of the lute. However, a
pianist can read a piece of violin music on the piano with no difficulty at all. This is because both instruments use
the standard musical notation.
Notation of Rhythm
Musical time is divided into equally spaced units of time called pulses, or beats . These beats last from the
beginning of the first beat until the beginning of the next. When written as music, these beats are organized into
groups of beats. Vertical Bar lines divide the staff perpendicularly, dividing the staff into measures . The measures
contain predetermined numbers of beats.
Measures mean nothing unless we

know how many beats are contained in them. For this reason we call certain rhythms meters , which are
designated by time signatures .
All meters can be reduced to two basic meters known as Duple and Triple meters. Duple meter uses groups of
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two beats. They are organized as strong and weak beats, which are like marching feet. The foot placed forward first
is the strong beat, the other foot the weak follower.
V = strong, = weak.
V - V - V - V - V - V - etc.
Triple meter is based on a unit of three beats and is basically a dance rhythm. The waltz is a triple meter.
V = strong, = weak.
V - - V - - V - - V - - V - - etc.
The most common Duple meter is 4/4 time. (It is sometimes called Common time .) 4/4 is a symbol known as a
time signature . It represents:
4 beats to the measure
4 the quarter note receives the beat
In the meter known as 4/4 , there are four beats in the measure (Or one whole note, or two half notes, or four
quarter notes or eight eighth notes.) In 4/4 time, the Duple meter is arranged:
V - v - V - v - V - v - etc.
Beats one and three are the strong beats. One is the strongest beat. Beat three is stronger than two and four is the
weakest. That brings us to notes and how they tell us what durations they have.
This is a Whole note. It has a duration of four beats.
w
This is a Half note. It lasts half as long as a Whole note, it has a duration of two beats
h
This is a Quarter note. It lasts half as long as a half note, one quarter as long as a whole note. It has a duration of
one beat.
q
This is an Eighth note. It lasts half as long as a quarter note, one quarter as long as a half note, one eighth as long
as a whole note. It has a duration of one half of one beat.
e
TIME SIGNATURES ARE NOTATED AS FRACTIONS AND ARE REFERRED TO AS (PER EXAMPLE) FOUR
FOUR', THREE FOUR' AND TWO FOUR'. THERE ARE OTHER TIME SIGNATURES SUCH AS 6/8, 12/8
In 4/4 time, there can only be one whole note in a measure, two half notes in a measure, only four quarter notes in
a measure, and only eight eighth notes in a measure. Of course, any combination of half, quarter, and eighth notes
can occur, as long as they don't exceed or fall short of having four complete beats in the measure.
TIME SIGNATURE
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We have shown how pitch duration is notated. However, music is made of silence as well as sound. Rests notate
when and how long the silences in the music last. Rests show beats or parts of beats that remain silent in
performance, where no pitches are assigned to a beat. Rests correspond exactly to note values in duration:
So heavy it hangs below the line
The whole rest
It sits up on the line
The half rest
The quarter rest
The eighth rest
The whole rest represents four beats of silence, the half rest represents two beats of silence, the quarter rest
indicates one beat of silence and the eighth rest divides the beat into two equal parts and represents one half beat
of silence.
The Tie
These six samples show correct use of whole, half, quarter and eighth notes, ties and rests in 4/4 time.
Notation
of Pitch
Pitches
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are notated
on the staff
a
structure
consisting
of five lines with
four spaces.
Each line and
space indicates
a single
pitch.
Fifth
line_________________________________________________
Fourth Space
Fourth line_________________________________________________
Third space
Third line_________________________________________________
Second space
Second line_________________________________________________
First space
First line_________________________________________________
The spaces spell the word face' ( F , A , C , E )
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Remember the names of the line by thinking: E very G ood B oy D eserves F udge
These are the pitch

names of the lines
on the bass clef: 1 = G, 2 = B, 3 = D, 4 = F, 5 = A
Remember the names of the lines by thinking: G ood B oys D on't F
orget A nything
1 = A, 2 = C, 3 = E, 4 = G
And Cows Eat Grass
Bass clef is not of primary importance to the guitarist aside from the fact that it is useful to have good working
knowledge of this clef fro transcribing keyboard music (Albeniz and Scarlatti spring to mind.)
Accidentals (Sharps and Flats)
The c major scale is composed of the following pitches: c, d, e, f, g, a, b, and c. Even though the note names follow
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in complete alphabet sequence, there are still gaps.

These gaps are where the accidentals are located. To understand the logic of this, we must first look at how the
diatonic major scale of Western music is formed.
CDEFGABC
(Whole) (Whole) (Half) (Whole) (Whole) (Whole) (Half)
In this chart, the term Whole refers to a Whole step and Half to a Half step. A Whole step is made up of two Half
steps. There is no smaller interval in Western music than the Half step. The guitar fretboard is fretted in half steps.
In other words, to make a Whole step, one must skip a fret from the original tone to the next tone forming the
interval. The interval from the c fret to the e fret is a whole step. The interval from the c fret to the d fret is a half
step.
In order to make major scales starting from pitches other than c, we have to use sharps and flats to insure that the
intervallic relationships between each step of the scale is correct.
Here is a g scale without any accidentals:
GABCDEFG
(Whole) (Whole) (Half) (Whole) (Whole) (Half) (Whole)
This scale is not a correct major scale because the last two intervals are transposed. To make the scale correct, we
must add an f sharp to the scale. The symbol for the sharp is:
GABCDEF#G
Now the Intervals are in the proper order.
Rather than continually writing f # 's throughout a piece that is in g major, we put one # at the beginning of the
piece, right after the clef, and before the time signature. We call this the key signature, as it tells us what key the
piece will be in. F # 's are then just written as f's in the piece. We understand them to be f # 's from the key
signature. If the piece should require an f in its natural form due to a transposition, etc., a symbol called a natural
is placed before the note. It looks like this:
As far as flats are concerned, they are the same pitches as sharps, that is to say c# is the same pitch as d flat (d b
), d # is the same pitch as e flat(e b ), f # is the same pitch as g flat(g b ), g # is the same pitch as a flat(a ), and a #
is the same pitch as b flat(b ). Flats are used when a sharp would obscure the true nature of a scale. Observe the
following f scale.
FGABCDEF
(Whole) (Whole) (Whole) (Half) (Whole) (Whole) (Half)
The intervals are out of order. We could straighten it out by spelling the scale as F G A A # C D E F. This scale is
correct as far as pitch in equal temperament is concerned, but how could we possibly have a key signature with
both an a and an a # in the scale? Instead of this awkward spelling, we use a b flat instead.
FGABbCDEF
Now we can use a single flat as the key signature for the key of f major. Of course, like a sharp, a flat can be
removed by a natural sign.
The intent of this section has not been to teach the student everything there is to know about standard notation, but
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to allow him to figure out and understand what is being presented to him in this graded format. Other aspects of
notation will be discussed when they present themselves.
What's New? The The Two New Albums!
Hey, the new albums are out! That's right, finally a

follow-up to the reissue of my old album from the
late 1980's and its sequel as well.
Reflecting Pools is a departure for me as it is totally keyboard. Well, the guitar did show up on one track...
Reflecting Pools is an ethereal journey into the realm of relaxation. In That Zone is a more classically structured
exploration of mood and personality.
Available through www.BATHTUBMUSIC.com...

...And containing nine tracks that are relaxing, inspirational -- sounds like a snooze. Not really, this is great stuff to
listen to on a rainy afternoon, while with your significant other (nudge, nudge, know what I mean?) Please visit the
Relfecting Pools page on this site or www.bathrubmusic.com.
LOW END
The Guitar Sessions:
What's new with the book

that came out over a year
ago? After being on
back-order at Amazon.com
for what seemed like a
century, it is my
uinderstanding that copies
are once again shipping.
Barnes and Noble's
website stocks new coipies
of LOW END in an on
again/off again mode.
Weekly tech tips and exercises to help the guitarist

improve.
DEEP END, the exciting sequel, is being

shopped by my literary agent even as we speak.
This feature has really taken off. Each week a new page is
posted with either an exerices to get the left and right hands
moving more efficiently and
effectively or an interesting
pice from the standard
repertoire , demonstrating a
necessary technical ability.
Judging by the hits these
pages receive, you guitar
players love this feature!
The page is updated every Thursday. Visit the 2004 Archive as
well!
My Mission, My Policy
About My Site:
In my opinion, the murder mystery genre reached

its zenith in the 1930's and 1940's. The novels
penned in those decades were taut, no nonsense
stories of people in life and death crises, people
who did not flinch when confronted with
overwhelming odds or overwhelming emotion.
Some of these tales could be hard-edged and
hard-boiled, but the heroes invariably had a soft
side as well.
This site is a way for me to commemorate and celebrate a life

and lifestyle that is now extinct. Why extinct? Is it that Thomas
Wolfe " You-can't-go-home-again " thing? Is it because life is so
much different now that what we experienced in the Bronx in
the 60's and 70's is no longer relevant? Yes. No. Yes and no?
Definintely maybe ! Why do I always start these little essays
with questions?
At first, the main thrust of this site was to promote my book. It is
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I believe that over the years, in an attempt to

mimic real life, the writers of murder
mysteries--and most other literature, for that
matter--have lowered the standards of excellence
set by such authors as the gritty Raymond
Chandler and the sophisticated Dorothy Sayers.
Many authors misinterpret smut for romance and
brutality for strength.
My novels aspire to the standards set by the
1940's mystery writers. My tales are as real and
grimey as the mean streets that spawned them.
Even so, and though they deal with modern
issues, you will not find gratuitous sex in my
characters' relationships. Sex may be alluded to,
but it is never allowed out from behind closed
doors. You will find that my books are
entertaining to a broad audience--I have had
positive comments from teens to grandmothers.
One reader was surprised when I told him that
there were no obscenities in the book he'd just
finished. He hadn't missed them! A good story
doesn't need such unnecessary 'embellishment.'
I have conducted book signings at churches,
country clubs, libraries and even a street corner
(don't ask!) and I've never been called to task for,
or ashamed of, my work. Pick up a copy of my
latest novel and see if it isn't a good read!
Harry Pellegrin
As a native New Yorker

and an American, I am still
angered by the cowardly
attacks of 9/11. Unless we
restore New York City's
skyline to its condition
prior to September 11th,
2001, the miserable scum
who attacked us will have
won! Visit
www.makeNYNYagain.com and rebuild America!
a worthy goal; the book tells a good tale and eveyone who has
read it finds it entertaining and thought-provoking. With that
sole goal, I went live with this site back in August of 2003. What
happened next is what makes this site truly valuable.
There are people I grew up with, attended school and with
whom I played in bands -- neighbors, friends, good family -who I hadn't seen since I moved from the Bronx in 1986.
Divorce had forced me into exile, time and distance conspired
to seemingly turn this into a life sentence. Thank the muses for
the internet! This site wasn't live for more than two months
before I was reunited with Paul Silvestro , a childhood friend
whom I hadn't seen in seventeen years. His brother Larry , the
guy who had turned me on to playing guitar and taught me the
things about music that matter the most, now with him I had no
contact since 1983. Twenty years! Too long. I felt as if a part of
my soul had been restored -- a part that had been missing for
ages and had long ago been written off. But more was to come.
Anthony Pernice, Art Clement , Mike Moretti -- all reunited to
me.
The 1960's weren't good to a number of us -- many of us had
our personal demons to exorcise, be it substance abuse or the
insidious hedonism of the times. but through it all, we were
instilled with a vibe, cast in an artistic mold--call it what you
will--but unless these same environmental stimuli are exactly
reproduced, there will never be another crop of people quite the
same.
This page delves into what we experienced and how we
incorporated these experiences into art, music, literature and
life . I've paid tribute to my neighborhood, the Wakefield section
of the Bronx. The Discords -- Larry Silvestro and Artie
Clemente's first band in the early mid-sixties-- they're here with
their matching outfits, Fender, Hagstrom and Gretsch guitars
plus those impeccably precise five part harmonies.
Of course, there is an homage to Leo Fender and his
magnificent designs, the Telecaster and the Stratocaster
. I officially declare C.L. Fender an honorary Bronxite. These
instruments have literally changed my life and the way we all
hear music. Check out this page on my site.
Rory Gallagher, whom I saw play in 1973 and who has
influenced me ever since--he has a page here as well. He has
gone on now, but the impact he made is still rippling outwards,
changing how we interpret the blues.
Untermyer Park in Yonkers and Woodlawn Cemetery in the
Bronx are included on this site. We were kids interested in a
good ghost story and both these places were terrific for
providing a few innocent and fun goosebumps. Of course this
was during the same period of time that Son of Sam was using
Untermyer and Pine Street in Yonkers for his own uses... And
we didn't know!!!
...and of course, my book!
Please enjoy this site. Nose around. Anyone can find
something here to read and get a chuckle.
Thanks!
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About Us | Site Map | Contact Us | 2003-2007
Pound Sterling Graphics
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CLASSICAL GUITAR METHOD Available NOW! Harry Pellegrin Author, Musician, Recording Artist Guitar Lessons Schenectady NY Captiol Area

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Copyright:

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CLASSICAL GUITAR METHOD available NOW! Harry Pellegrin Auth...

The Website of Harry George Pellegrin

Fine Classical Guitars

AMAZON B&N BathtubMusic

Contact Us / Buy a CD / Buy a Book /

Guitar Technique Sessions Number 40

Pitch and Rhythm

Measures mean nothing unless we