THE MUSIC STAFF

GRAPHICS BY VIC COSTES


A Music staff is a set of 5 horizontal lines equally spaced where the symbols of musical language are written..Lots of these signs, not just notes. But slowly you will be able to master all of them..I will also post a test after a few lessons just so you can test yourself..The answers are in what I wrote. Remember, no cheating!...:)

I will concentrate this time on the symbols of the music language. I wrote last time about notes, the building blocks of symphonies, soundtrack scores, MIDI music, and others...

But there is another symbol you will learn today, and this symbol is the opposite of notes. They are called RESTS. If you are playing an instrument reading a music score, you will play sometimes and other times you don't..These playing and non playing orders are in the staff of the music score..I have not talked yet about the value of notes ( whole, half, quarter, eighths, sixteenths, 32nds, etc...But for a beginner, all you have to worry about yet are the whole, half, and the quarter notes..

At the same time, there are whole rests, half rests, quarter rests..All of these will be on the staff...



There are two kinds of staffs ( or staves ), the F or treble staff and the G or bass staff..The kind is indicated by a symbol: the staff above is marked with the treble symbol..It is trebel staff.

The bass or G staff is marked in the beginning with the bass sign. It is like an inverted C..

In piano playing, you will be using a piece with 2 staves: the treble on top and the bass on the bottom..These two are connected with a symbol called brace. The brace look something like this symbol: { ...only much bigger to join the two staves together and a space between them..

Aside from the treble and bass symbols, the staff is also marked with a vertical short line called a bar...



This drawing is basically like the other drawing. Difference is the presence of the short vertical lines called BARS. At the extreme left are 2 bars: called double bars! The double bar indicate the starting point of a musical passage. Another double bar will indicate the end of the music selection. The area between two single bars is called a measure. A measure is another term to learn in the study of music/reading and writing....

The statement below is an advanced lesson in music writing and reading..If you count ALL THE MEASURES IN A MUSICAL PASSAGE you will always arrive at a number which is divisible by 4! Always!..Do not ask me why now but later on I will explain it..

Example. If you come across a music score of ARE YOU SLEEPING? ARE YOU SLEEPING?..If this is written with the symbol 4/4, count the measures from the beginning to the end. ( From one double bar to the other double bar. ) You will count 8 measures..Some longer selections may have more than 100 measures, but if you count them, you will always come across a number that is divisible by 4..

Well you must know that in music you must always count. Arithmetic, esp. fractions are an integral part of Music... That is why some say ( but there are exceptions to this rule ), if you are good in music, you are always good in Arithmetic and Math..!

Like a story, music is divided into phrases. A musical phrase, to me is like a paragraph in a written story..FOUR MUSICAL PHRASES makes up a Musical Passage..Depending on the complexity of the composition, a musical work can have so many musical passages the same as there are so many paragraphs in a story depending how complex or long the story is....

Until next lesson!!!

LEARNING MUSIC THE "PAINLESS" WAY

part 1 BASIC CONCEPTS OF MUSIC learned the "painless" way


Music has two main parts: pitch and timing..A good singer, they say must have good pitch and good timing so he can be accepted by his/her listening audience.

The pitch, in music reading and writing is determined by NOTES..Each note is named after an alphabet letter A to G when using the American method and in the Spanish method each note is named in the following way: C for Do, D for re, E for mi, F for Fa, G for sol, A for la, B for si or ti, C for do..These 8 notes are the white keys in a piano.

So are there only 7 notes in an octave ?..Nope. There are 12 notes. The 5 other notes I did not mention so far are: C sharp, D sharp, F sharp, G sharp A sharp..In short, these are written as C#,D#, F#, G# and A#...These notes are the black keys in a piano.

A series of notes ( a music passage) is like a ladder, it goes up ( as a music passage goes higher in pitch ) or it can go down ( when the tune of the music goes down).. A ladder is divided into steps, a simple music passage is divided into semi tones..The distance between a C and C sharp is called a semi tone..the distance between C# and D is called a semitone, and so on and so forth..But then, you might say if there are 7 white notes, arent there supposed to be 7 sharp notes too?...How come there are only 5? I assume you are in front of a keyboard at this time and you are looking at an octave of notes starting with C..



The very first white key on the left is an A ( La ), 2nd is B, 3rd is a C..All music lessons, whether in reading, writing or playing the piano starts with identifying the location of the note C

Okay, C has a C#, D has a D#, then E..How come there is no E#?..Is there an E#?..By appearance, there is no E#, but in actuality, the note F is E#..F has F#, G has G#, A has A#..then again we come to the note B..There is no B#..or there seems to be no B#..Bu there is a B# and the B# is C!

I forgot to mention that white notes are sometimes called NUETRAL notes. Black notes are called SHARPS, you know this. But here comes another brain twister..Let me introduce the flat notes...

To explain this in writing ( without any drawing or illustration ) let me tell you that a semitone goes up..C goes up one semitone to become C#..BUT a semitone can also go down..With this premise, C# is called a Dflat or Db...D# is also called Eb..E is called Fb although you seldom if ever call E as Fb but call it just simply F!!

Confused?..I bet you are if you are studying music for the first time. For long time musicians, the statements on the previous paragraphs are clear as a bell because they have studied that in Solfeggio or reading notes or in basic music writing using a Music note book of blank staff lines...What is a staff?..That will be the next topic next time..:)



The best time to teach Music to children is when they are young. Many children are natural musicians...


copyright by Victorio Costes

LOVE AND DEVOTION PIANO SCORES

cover page














The above images are piano scores of the much sought for piano music LOVE AND DEVOTION much loved by Filipinos who lived in our country during the '50s-60's era...I am one of them.

If you were studying piano before either under the late Mrs. Fe D. Acosta or a certain Miss Villanueva from Binalonan, LOVE AND DEVOTION must have been one of the recital pieces.

To copy the pages. just click on one image, press copy from a pop up menu. Then open a new file page, place your mouse on the empty page and click paste with your mouse..Do this procedure with all the pages so you will have a permanent folder of the piano scores in your Desktop.

To make a print of the pages, click each page then press Print on the pop up menu..Be sure the page area of your printer is set to 8.5 x 11..Be sure to use a sturdy paper stock so that it will stand firmly on your piano music sheet holder.

The cover is just optional.

The following link shows my rendition of the piece, transposed into key of C..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AneIsZXhimY

MIGGIE WITH JF McCURDY

One of the more famous Canadian writer/story tellers Miggie met last weekend was Joan Fitzgerald McCurdy who was born in PEI, Canada.

During the lunch break, she and Miggie exchanged works. Miggie got a copy of her THE SERPENT'S EGG and in turn she gave Joan a copy of her WHY AM I BROWN. Joan charges quite a sum for her author's visits but upon knowing that Miggie is the branch head of Queen/Saulter, she said she could come and talk in tat library branch for nothing. Just so she has a chance to promote more of her books. Of course, Miggie would not go for that because the TPL have budgets for events like these.

Some call her Canada's Rowling. The LORD OF THE RINGS series influenced her a lot in mapping out a career in writing fantasy novels. Her books include: "The Serpents Egg", "The Burning Crown", and "The Twisted Blade". She is currently working on a new trilogy called "The Mole Wars". Maybe she is also a fan of George Lucas the director who put SciFi movies in a new perspective when he made STAR WARS IV.


Her previous jobs include a documentary film writer and a lawyer. She now lives in Ottawa, Ontario with her husband and her son.

WALLACE EDWARDS is another well known Canadian author-illustrator which Miggie met during the story tellers' symposium. ( see photo below ). He won the 2002 Governor General's Award for his book Alphabeasts. He is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art.

On October 16, 2007 Wallace Edwards was nominated for the Governor General's award (children's book illustration) again, for his most recent book, "The Painted Circus." To date, Edwards has published five books, of which three have been nominated for this, Canada's most prestigious literary award.


Miggie with award winning illustrator WALLACE EDWARDS



Miggie posing with JOE MAPLE a Canadian Indian singer/story teller..He gave Miggie one of his CDs in exchange for Miggie's book..

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ABRAZOS DESDE COLOMBIA

A POEM ABOUT TORONTO

Summer in Toronto is about to end,
The leaves are turning brown
The winds are starting to shake them off,
And whisk them to the ground

The EX is here for just one more week
And it packs them all right in
To see the sights, to hear the sounds
Oh to be a child again!

Some streets were sealed up yesterday
And tables appeared from nowhere
Instead of cars, we folks walked about
Yonge became a street fair!

Today, things are back to normal
Thanks God for Monday, some would say
Back to work, at home or in the office
While dreaming again of Friday!!
---Vic Costes