COMPONENTS OF
MUSIC
Coming to a quiz and final near you…
Our Learning Targets for Today
• KNOW THE FOUR COMPONENTS OF SOUND
• LEARN WHEN THE DEVELOPMENT OF STANDARD
NOTATION TOOK PLACE IN EUROPE
• LEARN WHO DEVELOPED THE STANDARD NOTATION
• LEARN WHY THE STANDARD NOTATION WAS DEVELOPED
• LEARN ABOUT EARLY PITCH NOTATION
• Hint, hint…items in ORANGE may show up on a quiz or final…
Stay in the game!
• Put your name on your pink
“Standard Music Notation Paper”
• You will need it to study later
• Read the text on the paper
• Take notes in the margins or
highlight information that you think
will be useful later!
The Four Components
• Frequency/Pitch
• Duration/Rhythm
• Volume/Dynamic
• Tone Color/Timbre
The History of Music Notation
• There is evidence that various systems of music notation
were used by the great ancient civilizations: Egypt,
Greece, Japan, China and India
• Written language systems required the creation of
symbols to represent verbal sounds of the language
(alphabet, words…)
Music Notation
• A Music Notation System requires the development of
various symbols and symbol creations that represent the
music of a culture.
• Written language focuses on vowel and consonant
sounds, but music has to focus on all four
COMPONENTS OF SOUND (That’s a little more
complicated…)
So how did music get passed on before
notation?
• It all had to be imitated and passed on
to others by ear! As you can imagine,
it was not an exact science!
The 11th Century
• In the European churches, chants were sung for
each event of the liturgy (part of the service)
• All of these were learned by ear and passed on to
other singers
• What’s the danger in this? They could be
forgotten!
• Any existing notation were simple markings to
indicate that the melody was rising or falling
Early Notation
• The first forms of notation were created
to preserve thousands of
melodies/chants and only had the
following characteristics:
• Male voices (monophonic)
• Narrow intervals between pitches
• No dynamics
• Rhythms were controlled by the text
So who got the notation ball rolling?
A Monk Named:
Guido d’ Arezzo
(Italy 990-1050)
The Middle Ages
Why did Guido create this?
• As the liturgy grew, there needed to be a way to
remember all of the different melodies
• The Catholic church wanted a standardized,
written record of their music, known as
Gregorian Chant (sung by males, one part-no
harmony, narrow pitch range, minimal
dynamics and rhythms all to deliver parts of
the liturgy or church service
What did he create?
Four line
staff
Shapes/boxes to
represent
pitches. These
are called
NEUMES.
Words over
the top define
rhythm
Let’s take a listen to some Gregorian
Chant and find out more about this Guido
character:
http://youtu.be/LxkstaYPztM
High-Five to Guido for Paving the Way!
His notation system helped to catalogue the
music of the church across Europe during
the Middle Ages and standardize a system
of music notation that paved the way for not
only modern day notation, but the concept of
a composer as a creative artist whose work
could be shared and preserved.
NOTATION OF PITCH
Grab your pencil and pink paper-it’s note taking time!
Neumes and the staff
• Neumes were the symbols to represent pitch.
They were not pitch specific and did not show
time. They simply showed a relationship between
the neumes around each other
The First Staff
• Sometime in the 10th century, Guido placed a red
line above the text that gave the singer a fixed
note: F=fa
• A Second line, yellow for C=ut (do) was added
later
• These two pitches represented the beginning and
middle of a scale
• Black lines were added later (five lines in France
and six lines in Italy)
• It was not until the 16th century that the five line
staff was the standard
What did Guido think of next?
• Guido decided to ditch the red and yellow lines
and use letters to indicate the pitch of certain
lines. From one assigned pitch, the remaining
lines and spaces followed.
• Bass and Alto clefs identifying the note F and C
became the standard
How do you put the music into the
different ranges of the singers as females
got added?
• CREATE DIFFERENT CLEFS:
• F clef/bass clef
• G clef/treble clef
• C clef/alto-tenor clef (moveable)
This also helped to accommodate the addition
of instruments to the liturgy, too.
Modern Day Grand Staff
• How do we show pitch in modern notation?
Movement up and down on a staffrelationship by height!
Time to reflect!
Turn to a neighbor and discuss:
• How was music learned before notation?
• Who created the first notation system and why?
• How did his system using neumes compare to
your drawing from last week when Mrs. Binder
was the high priestess and asked you to be her
scribe?
• Why was a notation system such a big deal?
• Guido’s system was not perfect. What is not
getting shown in his system?
Key Signatures
• Key signatures as we know them today developed in
the latter part of the 18th century
• Before that time, composers thought more in modes
or scale patterns that lacked a sense of gravitation to
a tonic note
• As instrumental music became more popular, the
harmonic system became simpler and led to a huge
development: major/minor tonality (diatonic v.
modal). It became more important to be able to play
in any key.
What did key signatures look like early
on?
• In the Medieval period, one-flat key signatures were
developed
• More than one flat did not appear until the 16th century
and sharps did not appear until the mid-17th century
• As more complicated key signatures came about, the
order of flats was not standardized. In the 15th and 16th
centuries, it was common for different voice parts in the
same composition to have different signatures
Accidentals
• In our notation, accidentals alter the written pitch
• The use of symbols for sharps or flats began very early
and were derived from gothic letters.
• For a time, 2 different note shapes were used for B
natural and B flat: a square for natural and a rounded one
for flat.
• Our symbols for flat and natural signs came from those
letters. Extending the gothic “b” symbol’s lines in all
directions gave us our symbol for the sharp: #
NOTATION OF RHYTHM
Music is the art of sound, organized in time.
First Thing’s First!
• Rhythm ≠ Beat ≠ Meter ≠ Tempo - They’re all different!
• Rhythm: Duration of Sounds and Silences
• Beat: The underlying pulse
• Tempo: The speed of the beat
• Meter: A recurring pattern of strong and weak beats
(Gregorian Chant didn’t have meter!)
Note and Rest Duration
• News flash- a quarter note does not always = 1!
• Without a meter signature, which ORGANIZES the beat,
the only thing we can say is that a quarter note is twice as
long as an eighth note.
• In modern notation, the RELATIVE duration of each
note type is shown by its shape and color.
Note Values
Whole Note
Half Note
½ of
Quarter Note
¼ of
Eighth Note
1/8 of
Sixteenth Note
1/16 of
or ½ of
Thirty-Second Note
1/32 of
or ½ of
Sixty-Fourth Note
1/64 or
or ½ of
or ½ of
or ½ of
Notes consist of up to 3 parts- a note head (open or filled in), a
stem, and a flag. Each flag added to the stem decreases the
value by one half.
Rest Values
Whole Rest
Half Rest
½ of
Quarter Rest
¼ of
or ½ of
Eighth Rest
1/8 of
or ½ of
Sixteenth Rest
1/16 of
or ½ of
Thirty-Second Rest
1/32 of
or ½ of
Sixty-Fourth Rest
1/64 or
or ½ of
The value of rests correspond exactly to notes with the same
name. Again, additional flags added to the rest decrease its
value by one half.
Dots and Ties and Bears (Oh My!)
• Just kidding about the bears. Sorry.
• A dot added to the right of a note increases the value
of the note by one half.
Let’s do some math!
• Dotted half = half + quarter = quarter + quarter + quarter
• Dotted quarter = quarter + eighth = eighth + eighth + eighth
• Dotted whole note (WHAT?) = whole + half
Dots and Ties and Bears (Oh My!)
• A Tie connects two note values of the same pitch. It’s
like an addition sign.
Let’s do some math!
• Half note tied to half note= whole note
• Quarter note tied to quarter note = half note
• Half note tied to quarter note= dotted half note
Meter Signatures
• Remember, note and rest values do not indicate a
fixed length of time. A meter signature (time
signature) is necessary to show the performer the
rhythmic organization of the music.
• Meter is a recurring pattern of weak and strong beats.
The top number of a meter signature tells us how
MANY beats are in each group (measure) of the
pattern.
• The bottom number tells us what TYPE of note that
receives 1 beat (and it’s not always the quarter note!).
Meter Signatures
• Because the bottom number shows a TYPE of note, we
could replace it with a picture.
4 =
4
4
Number
of beats
per
measure
Type of note
that = 1 beat
6 = 6
8
Meter Signatures
• Since the top number represents a QUANTITY, it can
be anything!
• Because the bottom number represents a TYPE of
note, it can only be a number that represents a note
duration.
(1, 2,4,8,16,32…)
NOTATION OF DYNAMICS
This is rather subjective…
Symbols that show dynamics
• Our dynamics are typically in Italian…why?
• Pianissimo
• Piano
• Mezzo piano
• Mezzo forte
• Forte
• Fortissimo
pp
p
mp
mf
f
ff
very soft
soft
medium soft
medium loud
loud
very loud
• You can also have ppp or fff (don’t try this at home)
How is a change in dynamics shown?
• Crescendo (cresc.) = to get louder
• Decrescendo (decresc.) = to get softer
• (Diminuendo)
• Subito forte (or any other dynamic) = suddenly loud
• Crescendo or Decrescendo poco a poco = get louder
or softer little by little
Why are dynamics so subjective (up to
someone’s opinion) or tricky?
• They are related to the piece that they are in.
Should a forte in There Will Come Soft Rains or the
beginning of Irish be the same volume as a forte in
Thunder and Roar?
Heck, no!
Is the dynamic in your music specifically for you or is it
for the whole ensemble?
It is for the whole ensemble!
Percy Grainger might have been on to
something
He never used conventional dynamics because he thought
they were unclear.
He used: lessen; louder bit by bit; to the fore; slacken
NOTATION OF
TONE/TIMBRE
Huh?
How do you do this?
• How do you notate tone? Most of the time, you can’t
• Sometimes, it can be done:
• Adding mutes in brass instruments
• Specifying mallets in percussion