Music basics

START LEARNING MUSIC BASICS

By Zehra Ceylan

LEARN NOTES

There are seven natural notes as:

do

We see a face on the staff:

These are the letter symbols for each note:

* There is also bass clef but we will not be using it.

re

mi

fa

sol

la

ti

Each staff should start with the treble clef*:

NOTE VALUES

Here are the parts of a note: Head, Stem, and Flag

Most of the songs are written on the Treble Clef. The other name of Treble Clef is G Clef because the G note is placed on where the Treble Clef symbol is placed. The place of the note on the staff is very important because it shows what sound it is. If you move the note one line or space up or down, the sound changes. So be careful, take a careful look at where the note is placed on the staff.

On the staff, notes are named as Space notes and Line notes. The notes which are on the space, between the lines are called Space Notes. The notes which are on the lines are called Line Notes.

When we place the notes on a stair, we will see that some notes have a space between each other while some notes are next to each other. It's because some notes are a whole step pitch higher or lower while some are a half step pitch higher or lower. For example, from A note to B note we go a whole step higher pitch, but from E note to F note we go a half step higher pitch. Basically, we only have E to F and B to C as a half step higher pitch, all others are a whole step higher pitch.

Between every note there are some other sounds too. To find those sounds, we use accidentals. An accidental lowers or raises the pitch of the note by half step or cancels the previous accidental. There are three main accidentals which are Flat, Sharp and Natural. Flat lowers the pitch by half step, Sharp raises the pitch by half step and Natural cancels the previous accidental.

And now you can figure out what we can place in the blanks of the stair. And when you closer you will see that There's no B# and E#, and there's no Cb and Fb. The reason is because B, C and E, F are next to each other.