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Alright. Part two of the Awesomeness that is basic music theory. Before we delve into the wonders of naming notes, and reading music, we had better do a bit of a review.

This is what you should know before reading this section. (all of this was covered in Music 101 : Tones)

If you are comfortable with all of the above, let's get right to it.

So, you will remember that we were just starting to talk note names. Naming notes is relatively easy. Musicians use the first 7 letters of the Alphabet (A B C D E F G) to notate different pitches. Scale degrees are relative; any one of those letter names can be '1', depending on the scale. Letter names are absolute. they refer to a specific frequency. If someone says to sing an A, you know exactly what they want to hear.

There is a problem, however.

There is more than one A.

Have you ever seen the movie "the Sound of Music"? Now would be a good time to have a look at it. It has something called the Solfege scale in it. "Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do". There is a particularly infectious song about it, as well. It is important to know that scale degrees and solfege pertain to the same thing. when I say to play 3, I'm also saying to play Mi. 5 = So, and so on.

The reason you care? We are going to do a singing exercise. If you know the song from the sound of music (Do, a deer, a female deer, Re, a drop of golden sun...) sing that. If you don't, try to sing from Do to the upper do, like in a scale. If you do it correctly, the lower Do should be the same note as the Upper Do... The only difference is that they are an Octave apart. Same name, different pitches.

Thus, more than one A. You have low As, you have High As... how do you determine which one to sing?

Enter the piano Keyboard.

Doesn't that make things a little easier to visualize? A really good way to visualize all of the above notes is to look at where they fall on a piano. Notice that every note is on there at least a few times. All the notes with the same name are an 'Octave' apart. Start counting at one note. Once you finally get to 8, you will be at the Octave, and the same note name. Hence 'Octave'... Octo means 8.

Now, this keyboard is a little baffling, so let's break it down. If you look in the right places, you will notice that the black keys form a pattern. There is a group of 2, followed by a group of 3. Then, we go back to 2, then 3, then 2, then 3, and so on. You don't really have to memorize where the notes are on the piano because of the black keys. The note just to the left of the group of two is always 'C', and the note just to the left of the group of 3 is Always 'F'.

Now, if you want to figure out what A (or C, or F, or G, or whatever) you need to play, you can use a reference note called Middle C. Look at your piano (or a picture of a real one, if you don't have one). Look at the logo, or the pull down handle, if it has one. The C right under that is Middle C. It's right in the middle of the keyboard (who'd a thunk it?). Notes can be referenced with this note. For example, sing the 'A' below Middle C. or the D above middle C.

Let's go back to Mary had a little Lamb. This time, let's use the note names we did up there :

E D C D E E E
D D D
E G G

That's nicer to look at, AND, if you had a piano, now you can play it! Note names are much more specific ways of notating pitches.

There is a much more common way of notating notes... and that would be visually, with graphics. Have a gander at this :

Cool, huh? You may have seen this before. This is by far the most common way of notating music. Let's look at this in a bit more detail.

First of all, this is called a Staff. A blank staff, to be precise. As you can see, there are five lines and four spaces. This is important. Each line and space represents a certain pitch. That weird squiggly thing in front of the staff is called a clef. There are all sorts of different types of clefs, which we will talk about a little later. This particular model is called the treble clef, and it is perhaps the most common clef. Let's have a look at the notes in the treble clef :

These correspond to the notes on the keyboard that we did earlier. If we call the bottom note on our keyboard middle C, then this chain of notes would start on the E Just above middle C.

So, what does this mean for Mary had a little lamb? Only good things.

Yay! It's at maximum readability... aside from the scanner blur. Oh well.

Now, one quick note (no pun intended). On this scale, there are only 9 notes that are named. That's hardly enough for most modern day composers to be satisfied with. So, there are these things called ledger lines. ledger lines extend the staff, and allow a bigger range, like so :

See? Beautiful.

There is one final thing that we are going to deal with in this lesson : Clefs.

Clefs

Clefs are those funny things at the front of the staffs. So far, we have been working with the treble clef, which represents mostly just notes above middle C (middle C is the C one ledger line below the treble clef... or the second note in the lower staff above us). However, there are more notes than just that. In fact, there are a lot more. So, without further ado, some other clefs.

This is the bass clef. Middle C is actually one ledger line ABOVE this clef. The Bass clef is used for lower instruments and voices, like the tuba, or the standard male voice. If you didn't have the bass clef, you would have to go down several ledger lines on the treble clef... and that would be difficult to read. So that's that.

Treble and Bass are the two main clefs that are used in modern music. There is something pretty neat about them too : Because Middle C is one ledger line below the treble clef, and one above the bass, together, they can form one cohesive staff : the Grand Staff.

There are three more specialty clefs that you have to know, even though you probably won't use them very much at all. These clefs are used for instruments who are a little too high for the bass clef, but a little low for the treble. This is the Alto Clef :

This clef is mostly used for the Viola. Middle C is the middle line on this staff. A quick way to tell that? The pointer in the middle of the symbol points to middle C, which in this case, is on the middle line.

This is an interesting little picture that shows the alto Clef in relation to the bass and the treble :

Remember, each stave only has 5 lines and four spaces. This can be kind of confusing, but it is a good representation of where the alto clef falls.

Another clef to know : the Tenor Clef.

Look familiar? That's because it is. It is the same symbol as the alto clef, however it has been moved up by one whole space. The pointer still points at middle C, which, in this case, is on the 4th line up from the bottom. This is sometimes used by bassoons, bass violins (yes, they exist) and sometimes, even by tenor Trombones.

And finally, the last clef you will need to know : the Percussion clef. (actually, there are two of them... here they both are. They are used interchangeably.)

These are both for untuned percussion. These are kind of weird, also. The lines on the staff don't actually pertain to any specific pitches, like above. The composer specifically assigns instruments to each line. For example, snare drums could be on the 3rd space and hi-hats could be on the 5th line.

That about sums it up for clefs. And for Notes. Well done! Sit back, relax, read it over again to make sure you get it, and then, if you are feeling adventurous, do the test! Good Luck!