Articles-

Learn Western Music

 I have designed this concept of learning western Music in a very different and easy way. My intension is to give a formal introduction of western Music.Infact I am the first Indian Music Director to write about Western Music and I have tried my best not to deviate from the original concept of Western Music, but I have surely added my inputs with my knowledge and experience. Hope you find my work interesting and useful. Do feel free to communicate with me if you have any suggestions

Understanding Notes-

Like in English language we have alphabets A,B.C……. etc., by which we build words. In the same way we have some notes in music by which we build a melody. These notes are as follows-

 C D E F G A B C 

Or in other words these notes are called-

Do Re Me Fa So La Te Do

But when used practically these noted are termed and used as – C D …….

 If we look at the above notes, there is a C at the starting and another C at the end. But there is a difference between both the C s.If you look at both the C s , the end one has a line below the note. This line tells you the concept of Octaves.

The concept of Octaves –

Octave is defined as – a group of full seven notes starting from C to B is called an Octave. So now if we again look at the notes above , in the last C the Octave changes , thus it marked by a line below. Octave express the relative height or depth of a sound. Everybody is familiar with words like high or low pitch. To explain further lets take these examples- Men speaking will have a heavy voice or in other words their voice will be low octave low pitched] , on the other hand women tend to speak in a sharp, thin voice or in other words their voice will be high octave [high pitched].

To clear the concept of pitch further , lets take the Key-board of a Piano , the more you move towards the right , your octave increases and you start playing the notes of higher octave. And the more you move towards the left side of the key-board the sounds becomes heavy, basal and you play the notes of the low octave.

Piano Key-Board

Musicians need a language to express the concept of octave. So we can conclude if a note has a line below then the note is played in the higher Octave and on the other hand if a note has a line above it , then the note is played in the lower Octave. For example –

C - medium Octave

_

C - lower Octave

 

C - higher Octave.

In this way the notes are differciated from each Octaves. And these symbols are very basic types for a musician , he may require some details before playing a melody. Hence symbols used to express octaves,notes,scales ,chords,speed,rhythum patterns are explained in the next few chapters. And all these above mentioned heads constitute the language of Music know as THE STAFF NOTATION.

The Staff-

It consists of five parallel , equally spaced lines, which enslose four spaces.

If you look at the figure above the counting of the lines and spaces starts from below. Notes are placed on this staff and they have their specific positions , we will discuss about them later. 

The Cleff– 

The staff cannot provide any information about the Octaves , the is required to play. Hence we have the first occupancy of the Staff , giving us the information about the octaves to be played. So the Cleff can be defined as the qualifier of the Octave of the notes to be played by a musician. Most commonly used cleff . nowadays are – The Treble Cleff , The Bass Cleff , and The Alto Cleff.

 The Treble Cleff – Notes will be between Medium and Higher Octave.

The Bass Cleff – Notes will be between Lower and Medium Octave

 The Alto Cleff – Notes will only of Medium Octave

If you look at the above figures and explainations , it would be very clear by now that in The Alto Cleff only Medium Octave is played.So the Alto Clef is either avoided by the musicians or used very less.Mostly used Cleff are therefore The Bass and The Treble Cleff.

Music for most orchestral intruments is written on one staff and uses just one Cleff , that which is appropriate to the each specific instrument.Like for instance The Treble Cleff is used for Flute , Violin , Trumpet and The Bass Cleff is used for Cello , Trombone , Double Bass , Base Guitar.The piano music is written on two Staffs , which are bracketed together. The right hand usually plays the Higher Octave ,written in The Treble Cleff , while the left hand plays the Lower Octave , written in The Bass Cleff.

Two Clef melody

After mastering The Treble and The Bass Cleff individually , a pianist must soon learn how to read these Cleffs simultaneously. A Staff qualified by a Cleff provides the correct environment for the notes to be played, which now has a fixed Octave provided by The Cleff.

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