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