What Are The Music Notes

Your Guide To Piano Notes

There have been a lot of fascinating studies on music and memory in the past few years. Research shows that music actually helps us remember things. Learning music can even help children with learning disabilities!

Why not turn that to your advantage?

The trick lies in getting the rational and intuitive side of your brain working together. Were going to give you a bunch of knowledge to mull over in your rational brain to help you bridge that gap.

What Is The Treble Staff

Lets start by looking at the treble staff. This is the staff that typically shows which notes to play with your right hand. If you are learning how to read music notes for the first time, you must familiarize yourself with the letter names of the lines and spaces.

The treble clef symbol looks like this:

Youll notice in the image below that the treble clef symbol circles around the G line. If you can remember that, youll always be able to figure out the rest of the lines and spaces on the staff.

On your staff paper, label the white spaces with FACE starting with the first space at the bottom of the page and going up, then the lines EGBDF starting at the bottom line going to the top line. There are little tricks to help you remember the names of the lines and spaces for example, just remember the phrase Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge.

Glossary For The Lesson

note – a pitch produced by a musical instrument.

– a range of notes from one letter name up to the next highest pitches by the same letter name.

natural notes – notes represented by the seven letters of the music alphabet with no sharp or flat symbols.

sharp notes – notes represented by any letter of the music alphabet with the sharp symbol added.

flat notes – notes represented by any letter of the music alphabet with the flat symbol added.

enharmonics – two notes with the same pitch, only called by a different name.

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Other Heavy Metal Genres: 1980s 1990s And 2000s

Many subgenres of heavy metal developed outside of the commercial mainstream during the 1980s such as crossover thrash. Several attempts have been made to map the complex world of underground metal, most notably by the editors of AllMusic, as well as critic Garry Sharpe-Young. Sharpe-Young’s multivolume metal encyclopedia separates the underground into five major categories: thrash metal, death metal, black metal, power metal, and the related subgenres of doom and gothic metal.

In 1990, a review in Rolling Stone suggested retiring the term “heavy metal” as the genre was “ridiculously vague”. The article stated that the term only fueled “misperceptions of rock & roll bigots who still assume that five bands as different as Ratt, Extreme, Anthrax, Danzig and Mother Love Bone” sound the same.

Thrash metal

In the early 1990s, thrash achieved breakout success, challenging and redefining the metal mainstream. Metallica’s self-titled 1991 album topped the Billboard chart, as the band established international following. Megadeth’s Countdown to Extinction debuted at number two, Anthrax and Slayer cracked the top 10, and albums by regional bands such as Testament and Sepultura entered the top 100.

Death metal

Origins: Late 1960s And Early 1970s

Critics disagree over who can be thought of as the first heavy metal band. Most credit either Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath, with American commentators tending to favour Led Zeppelin and British commentators tending to favour Black Sabbath, though many give equal credit to both. Deep Purple, the third band in what is sometimes considered the “unholy trinity” of heavy metal , fluctuated between many rock styles until late 1969 when they took a heavy metal direction. A few commentatorsâmainly Americanâargue for other groups including Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf or Blue Cheer as the first to play heavy metal.

In this counterculture period MC5, who began as part of the Detroit garage rock scene, developed a raw distorted style that has been seen as a major influence on the future sound of both heavy metal and later punk music.The Stooges also began to establish and influence a heavy metal and later punk sound, with songs such as “I Wanna Be Your Dog“, featuring pounding and distorted heavy guitar power chord riffs.Pink Floyd released two of their heaviest and loudest songs to date “Ibiza Bar” and “The Nile Song“, which was regarded as “one of the heaviest songs the band recorded”.King Crimson‘s debut album started with “21st Century Schizoid Man“, which was considered heavy metal by several critics.

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Time For Some Counting Practice

Feeling confident in playing all of these different notes on a piano? Great! Now lets put them into practice:

This first example involves playing 4 quarter notes one after the other.

Play each quarter note correctly and in time, you are going to count from 1 up to 4. Play the key on each count. Try beginning on G as in the diagram above, but once you can play and count comfortably, move around to different keys as you see fit!

How was that? Lets try another!

This next example combines quarter notes and half notes.

Just like the example before, play the first two quarter notes and count 1 2. Then, count the half note on beats 3 4. How many beats is a half note? Start again on G, but once you feel more comfortable, move on to different notes.

How To Draw A Bass Clef

The bass clef is simple to draw. Begin by drawing a dot on the fourth line of the staff. This line marks F3 on the staff, the F below middle C. Next, draw a curve up to the right and then down and around to the left, like a backwards C. Once you have this, draw two dots on either side of the fourth line, one in between the fourth and fifth lines and one in between the third and fourth lines.

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The First Ledger Line Note

Middle C, is found exactly where it says it is – in the middle of the Treble and Bass Clef.

Above Middle C, heading up towards the Treble Clef, the next note above it is D, and then you land on your first line note in Treble Clef, which is E. Remember your Treble Clef notes?

Below Middle C, heading down towards the Bass Clef, the next note is B, and then you land on your top line note for the Bass Clef, which is A.

You will encounter a lot more notes on ledger lines as you advance in your musical studies. All you have to remember to figure out what note you’re looking at is find an “anchor” note – or the nearest note that you know what the name of it is, and then count up or down to figure out the ledger line note.

See how easy it is to learn your notes?

What Do Ties Look Like

Ties look pretty much like you would think they look: a curved line that resembles a piece of rope or shoelace that connects two notes like this:

Remember that the whole note lasts for four counts. If we have two whole notes tied together, this means that the note values are equal to eight counts. Practice playing a note and counting 1 2 3 4 and then again 1 2 3 4.

Here is another example:

In this example, we see the half note tied together. Practice counting this example by holding down the pitch G and counting 1 2 for the first quarter notes, then 3 4 for the half note. Keep the half note depressed while you count 1 2, and then finish it out the quarter notes on 3 4. Easy!

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Reading Dynamics And Expression

The 7 Letter Alphabet: How To Name Music Notes

If youre learning how to read sheet music, the first thing to know is the musical alphabet. Luckily for all of us, its only seven letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. These letters are used to name the music notes you see on sheet music.

Sheet music uses what we call the staff to organize music notes. The staff consists of five lines and four spaces. Each of line and space represents a different letter , which in turn, represents a note.

When it comes to actually assigning the note names A-G on the staff, the sequence will depend on the clef. However, it is worth noting that the sequence will always move alphabetically upward, regardless of the clef.

And speaking of clefs, a musical clef is a symbol that is placed at the left-hand end of a staff, indicating the pitch of the notes written on it. The clef tells a musician which lines or spaces represent each note. In this article, were going to cover the first clef nearly every musician learns, the treble clef.

We use common mnemonics to remember the note names for the lines and spaces of the treble clef. For lines, we remember E-G-B-D-F by the word cue Every Good Boy Does Fine. Similarly, for the spaces, FACE is just like the word face. Now, lets replace the letters with the music notes you will actually see in sheet music.

Notice how the letters continue alphabetically even after theyve left the staff onto the ledger lines.

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Bass Clef Notes: How To Easily Read Notes For The Left Hand On Piano

• Reading by intervals

Have you ever looked at a piece of piano music and noticed that it is split into two parts? These two parts show the treble clef and bass clef. Together these clefs describe which notes to play in which hands.

Most beginners learn to read the treble clef first. This means that much less time is devoted to reading the bass clef. Even experienced pianists are often much slower at reading bass clef notes.

So if you feel like your left hand notes on piano are lagging behind, then dont worry. This post is going to teach you some tools that will help you to read bass clef.

Put Theory Into Practice

Translating the inky blots on the page through your fingertips into actual music is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to reading piano sheet music. Now that youve spent some time writing things out on the page, its time to start putting that into practice on your actual instrument.

Start with each clef independently, just like you did when you were first memorizing the piano notes. Stick to your regular practice routine, as well. Remember, practice doesnt only make perfect, it also makes things permanent.

Youll want to practice with a metronome if you arent already. You need to be as comfortable with rhythm and harmony as you are with melody. You should also stay in the habit of focusing on musicality, even when youre practicing.

After seeing all the symbols and placement of notes. It is time to identify which note corresponds to the key on the piano. The white keys on the piano would correspond to the keys in the C Scale. Starting from C, followed by the keys D, E, F, G, A, B and ending again at a higher C. You would find them in the white keys on the piano.

The black keys are the ones between some of these white keys. Like the Eb being between D and E. Each of these keys has a place on the staff.

When practicing these sequences of notes, start slow until you feel the pace. From that point, that is when you start learning the song in its actual pace and tempo.

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Music Symbols You Need To Understand Written Music

In sheet music, music symbols are used to describe the way a particular piece of music should be played.

Thats why sheet music is still so important for communicating how to play a piece of music.

But written music uses a lot of different symbols to describe what to play exactly and it can be confusing to know what each symbol means.

Thats why weve put together a master list of music symbols you need to know to read sheet music.

Lets learn the 60 most important music symbols!

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The Music Alphabet: Start Speaking The Language By Learning The A

When you play music with other people, you have to be able to talk about what you’re going to play. To do that, you have to know how to speak the language. Learning the music alphabet will help you do that.

Notice: You don’t have to read music for this!

The language of music is just like any other language. That’s why we use the music alphabet. It’s a simple system of letters that help us write down the sounds we actually want to play.

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A Different Way To Learn How To Read Sheet Music: The Mental Flip Strategy

One of the most difficult things about learning how to read sheet music for the piano, as opposed to most other instruments, is that there is not just a single melody to be played. Piano music requires you to play more than one part at a time. Usually these parts are interconnected they are part of a chord that you need to be able to accurately read.

Although the concept of reading multiple lines of music may seem overwhelming at first, in time, youll find that this is what makes the piano such a powerful instrument. A pianist can carry the bassline, chords, and melody all at once, eliminating the need for accompaniment and providing orchestra-like backing for solo instruments. Many beginners prefer to use a technique called the mental flip strategy to get more comfortable with reading and memorizing the notes. Before we dive into how to use that strategy, lets take a step back and see why sheet music is written the way it is.

How To Read Bass Clef Piano Notes

Learning how to read bass clef piano notes is an important skill. The bass clef stave system is made up of 5 horizontal lines. Just like notes for the right hand, bass clef piano notes can either sit on the line , or in the spaces between two lines .

If you look at the note chart below, you will see that middle C on piano is a line note. This is an important landmark to remember when learning how to read bass clef. The note 1 below middle C, which is B, is a space note. This pattern of line space line space continues all the way down the bass clef.

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Why Do We Need Bass Clef

Bass clef is a useful tool for a few reasons.

• If we only used treble clef, we would have a more limited range of notes to read on one, five line staff. We would need to use an excessive amount of ledger lines and octave higher or lower markings.
• We can easily read pitches below middle C.
• You can learn to read piano sheet music faster.