Monthly Archives: April 2010

Today we’re going to talk about music notation. It might be a good idea to review the lesson on pitch before you continue with this lesson, where I explain the pitch system in more detail. In this lesson, we’re going to get right into notating pitch.

As our pitch system has evolved over the centuries, so has our music notation system. Remember that the twelve pitches of the chromatic scale, are organized on a keyboard using white and black keys. We use the first seven letters of the alphabet (A-G) and apply those to the white keys, but the organization makes more sense visually starting on C rather than A. The black keys are always sharps or flats (e.g., C-sharp, D-flat, etc.), and I promise I’ll get to those, but not yet.

We notate pitches on a staff with five lines and four spaces The staff can be extended infinitely using ledger lines.

We need one more symbol, called a clef, before we can represent pitches using notes on the lines and spaces. Clefs tell us which octave the notes on the staff are located.

Let’s take another look at an entire piano keyboard as a point of reference:

An 88-key piano has eight Cs, numbered C1, C2, etc from bottom to top. C4 is called "middle C."

Now we’re going to find middle C on the staff; its location depends on the clef. There used to be many clefs that musicians had to learn in order to read music. Thankfully, today we’re pretty much down to using only four clefs, and in most cases only two.

C Clefs

I’m going to start with the two least commonly used clefs, because I believe they’re the most logical. Historically, there were several clefs that all looked the same, but were moveable up and down the staff to show the location of middle C. These clefs were called C clefs.

Look at the elegant design of the C clef, and notice that it is symmetrical around a center point. That center point indicates where middle C is located on the staff. I placed a note on the middle C line to make it easier for you to see. When a musician looks at the clef, he or she knows where middle C is located on the staff. The next space up on each clef is D4, the next line up, E4 and so on. The next space down on each clef is B3, the next line down, A3.

While both clefs are C clefs, they also have more specific names, depending on where middle C is located. The C clef to the left above is the alto clef; middle C is right in the middle of the staff. The clef to the right is the tenor clef; middle C is the fourth line from the bottom. Middle C is located on each staff to accommodate the typical range of either an alto or a tenor, so they won’t have to read many ledger lines. While no longer used by singers, these clefs are commonly used in instrumental music. Violists primarily read the alto clef; cellists, bassoonists, and trombonists read the tenor clef when the music moves into the higher register of their instrument.

Treble and Bass Clefs

Now let’s look at the clefs most commonly used by musicians today: the treble clef and the bass clef.

The treble clef also is called the G clef because its bottom curls around G4

The diagram below shows two octaves on a treble clef matched to the keys on the piano. (Remember, C4 is middle C.)

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The bass clef also is called the F clef; notice the two dots are on either side of F3.

The diagram below shows two octaves on a bass clef matched to the keys on the piano.

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A grand staff is two staves joined together by a brace. The brace means that both staves are to be played at the same time by one player. The grand staff is used for instruments that require two hands to play simultaneously (e.g., piano, harp, harpsichord, etc.)

Notice that middle C is one ledger line below and above the treble and bass clefs respectively. This could be another origin of the term middle C.

You’ll find several methods available to learn the note names for lines and spaces of the clefs, the most popular being mnemonics. For example, the mnemonic for the lines of the treble clef from the bottom up (EGBDF) is “Every Good Boy Does Fine.” These methods are helpful when you first start learning how to read music, but I tend to discourage them because I have found that they become a crutch that is hard to let go. I believe the best way to learn the note names is to pick up a music book, such as a hymnal, and start naming the notes. Don’t worry about singing or playing them; just name them. You will find that it doesn’t take long to get very good at knowing what the names of the lines and spaces are for the treble and bass clefs. After all, there are only five lines and four spaces for each clef. In essence, you only need to learn 18 items total, not counting the ledger lines. Don’t worry about the ledger lines, they’ll come once you are fluent with the lines and spaces within the staff.

Go to Music Notation Lesson 2

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Last time, I talked about active listening, and how Beethoven was able to write music when he was deaf because he had a highly developed inner ear. The activity of inner hearing was probably more common before the advent of audio technology. There is a great dramatization of inner hearing in the film, Amadeus:

While Antonio Salieri is perusing some of Mozart’s original manuscripts, at the request
of Mozart’s wife, the soundtrack is playing the music that he is hearing in his mind. As
he turns the pages of the musical scores, Salieri’s emotions intensify, and he is overcome
with the beauty of the music that Mozart wrote, apparently with little effort. Finally he
drops the scores and declares to Mozart’s wife, “It is miraculousI”

Salieri was using his inner ear to hear Mozart’s music. He didn’t have to hear the music actually being played to know what it sounded like. We don’t emphasize inner hearing today because it’s so easy just to turn on a recording and let the technology do the work for us. I’m not suggesting we give up our wonderful technology. But I do believe we need to make a more concerted effort to develop our musicianship skills by studying music without the aid of a recording. To develop your inner ear, you must practice it. Some might argue that it is not necessary today with all the access to recordings. My argument is simply that the more you internalize music, the better musician you become.

If you are planning to study music at a university, or perhaps your high school, you will encounter courses in aural theory. Sometimes they call these courses musicianship, a name I prefer because it identifies the goal of the course. In these courses you learn to write down melodies and harmonies that are played. You also learn to sight-sing, that is, look at a melody and sing it the first time you see it. These courses can get frustrating because you always feel a step behind. It seems that just as you are getting to a certain level of proficiency, the instructor moves on to the next level of difficulty. One way that I have encouraged my musicianship students is, after we are well into the course of study, I take them back to the beginning to show them how easy those first melodies are now that they have had some practice. This gives them a sense that they truly have progressed. I also have them look at the melodies from the beginning and ask them to hear them in their minds without actually singing them. I love to see the joy on some of their faces when they discover that they really have progressed, and that they are on their way to developing their inner ear, which, to me, is one of of the primary goals of these courses.

Inner hearing is not difficult, it just takes practice. If you’ve never tried it before, do this simple exercise:

Look at the following sentence, but don’t say it aloud:

I love music theory.

Can you hear the sentence in your mind? Of course you can. You probably do this often when reading. I used words and not music here to show you that inner hearing is a natural part of what we do everyday, usually without thinking about it. Now look at the following melody, but don’t click the play button:

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Do you know what the melody is just by looking at it? Can you hear it in your mind? It doesn’t matter if you can’t hear the actual first pitch. Choose any starting pitch in your mind. The goal is to hear the relationships between the pitches. If you can’t hear the melody, click the play button and listen to it. Then try to hear it in your mind again. Now some might argue that, after playing the melody, you’re just memorizing it when you listen to it internally. That’s true. But you have to start somewhere. With practice you’ll discover that you do have an inner ear. It just needs to be developed through practice.

Now let’s try a simple harmony. Look at the sequence of harmonies below (they’re all sixths) and see if you can hear it. If not, click the play button and try it again.

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Obviously more complex music becomes more difficult. But as you grow musically, if you work on being an active listener and practice inner hearing, your skill will improve.

Final Thought on Absolute Pitch

Absolute, or perfect pitch is not the same thing as developing your inner ear. Perfect pitch is the ability to know what a pitch sounds like (e.g., a C) without a reference point. This is a valuable skill, but not what we’re talking about here. And you don’t need perfect pitch to develop a proficient inner ear. As I said before, the goal of inner hearing is to hear the pitch relationships, not necessarily the exact pitches.