Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Flashcards
Home
Home
Quizzes
SparkNotes
No Fear Shakespeare
College
Help
Log in
Test Prep
Home > SparkCharts > Music > Music Theory & History > Music Theory and Notation
Contents
Music Theory and Notation
The Staff
Clefs
Rhythm, Notes, and Rests
The Staff
Scales
Music usually is notated on a five-line staff. The staff includes notes, rests,
and instructions about key, rhythm, and other musical elements.
Tempo
Dynamics
Expression and Articulation
Themes, Motifs, and
Structures
Instruments and Ensembles
Musical Forms and Genres
Clefs
A clef is a notation that assigns specific pitch values to the lines and
spaces on the staff.
Music for instruments with a wide range (such as the piano) is notated on
the grand staff, which combines the treble clef and the bass clef:
SparkLife
Adding a dot to a note or rest increases the duration of that note or rest
by one half:
A tie over two or more notes of the same pitch indicates that the notes
under it should be held or sustained:
Two of the frequently used standard time signatures are abbreviated with
symbols:
Most time signatures in Western music are duple (the number of beats per
measure are divisible by two) or triple (the number of beats per measure
are divisible by three).
Some time signatures are irregular and cannot be described as duple or
triple. Two common irregular time signatures are 5/4 time and 7/8 time:
Pitch
Pitch refers to the sound frequency of a note (i.e., whether the note is
high or low). In Western music, there are 12 named pitches, which
together are called the chromatic scale.
Some pitches have two namesfor example, C and D are the same pitch.
Such pitches are called enharmonic equivalents. The name given to an
enharmonic pitch depends on notation and key.
The space between two adjacent pitches in the chromatic scale is called a
half step (also known as a semitone). Two semitones equal one whole
step or whole tone.
Accidentals are symbols used in musical notation to raise or lower the
pitch of specific notes:
The space between a given pitch and the next pitch with the same letter
name (for example, from C to C or from F to F) is called an octave.
Scales
A scale is an ascending or descending series of pitches.
The pitches that make up a scale are called degrees, and each is
assigned a name and number. From lowest to highest, the scale
degrees are called the tonic (I), supertonic (II), mediant (III),
subdominant (IV), dominant (V), submediant (VI), and leading
tone (VII).
The name of a scale is determined by its starting pitch and its key
signature.
Most Western scales consist of a series of whole steps and half steps in a
specific order. The two most common Western scales are the major scale
and the minor scale.
Other types of scales have been used throughout the history of Western
music:
Pentatonic scale: A five-tone scale widely used in indigenous folk
music around the world.
Whole-tone scale: A six-tone scale with a whole step between
adjacent notes. Debussy and other Impressionist composers
explored uses of this scale in the late 1800s.
Octatonic scale: An eight-tone scale composed of alternating
whole steps and half steps between adjacent notes. The octatonic
scale came into widespread use in the 20th century.
Intervals
An interval is the space between any two pitches. Intervals are described
with a numerical measure that counts the number of semitones that each
interval spans (counting both the top and bottom pitches). Numerically, an
interval may be described as a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh,
eighth (octave), and so on.
Intervals also are described in terms of quality. An interval may be:
Perfect (P): An interval whose constituent pitches appear in both
the major and minor form of a given scale. For example, the
interval between C and G is called a perfect fifth because the
pitches C and G appear in both the C major and c minor scales.
The only intervals that may be perfect are the fourth, fifth, and
eighth (octave).
Major (M): An interval whose constituent pitches appear in the
major form of a given scale. Seconds, thirds, sixths, and sevenths
may be major.
Minor (m): An interval whose constituent pitches appear in the
minor form of a given scale. Seconds, thirds, sixths, and sevenths
may be minor.
Diminished (d or ): A perfect or minor interval that has been
reduced by a semitone.
Augmented (A or +): A perfect or major interval that has been
increased by a semitone.
The same interval may have different names depending on the context in
which it appears. For example, the tritone is a special interval that spans
three whole tones. The tritone maybe described as either an augmented
fourth (A4) or diminished fifth (d5).
The following staves show the intervals from a minor second to a major
ninth:
Chords
A chord is a group of three or more pitches that sound simultaneously.
The intervals between the notes within a chord determine the chord
quality. Chords, like intervals, may be:
M
major
minor
diminished
augmented
major-minor
half-diminished
Tempo
The tempo of musical composition is the speed at which it is played.
Tempo and meter are closely connected. Tempo establishes the
relationship between meter and actual time and thus affects how the meter
and time signature of a composition sound to the ear. If a piece in 6/8 time
is played at a slow tempo, the ear tends to perceive six beats per
measure; if played at a fast tempo, the ear tends to perceive only two
beats per measure.
Musicians often use a device called a metronome to keep track of tempo.
A metronome marks time by making a regular ticking or beeping sound a
specified number of beats per minute.
Often, tempo is described in terms of metronome number or
metronome mark (M.M.), i.e., the number of ticks or beats per
minute. Use of metronome marks enables the musician to
determine tempo accurately with a metronome. Alternatively, a
composer may allow more casual interpretation of tempo by using
only suggested ranges of beats per minute.
The composer can use tempo marks to change tempo throughout
the course of a musical composition. These marks often take the
form of descriptive terms from Italian, including:
Largo: very slow (M.M.=4060)
Larghetto: very slow, but faster than largo (M.M.=6066)
Dynamics
Dynamics are directions, written in a piece of music, that indicate the
volume at which a note or musical passage should be played. Composers
typically indicate dynamics using abbreviations for a number of Italian
terms:
piano: soft
forte: loud