Notes And Rests
Keeping time
In order to maintain a rhythm to our music we need to keep a regular time or beat. If you look at the C Major scale below, you will see that it is made up of a series of notes. In this example each note receives one beat. In order to keep these beats even and regular we can employ the use of a metronome. We will cover the subject in much more detail in the next lesson when we discuss time signatures and keeping time. In Example 1 below, each time the metronome clicks we will sing or play a note or rest. Play and listen to it now.
Note and Rest Values.
Notice the squiggly vertical line just after the top C and the small black rectangle at the end. These are known as rests. Often in a piece of music a period of quiet is required. Rests are used to indicate these periods and, like notes, they are of different values. Diagram 1 demonstrates the most common note and rest values. It can be clearly seen that for every note value there is a corresponding rest value.
After studying this list and committing the data to memory we will have attained enough knowledge to read or compose very simple tunes and songs. Of course we will need to know quite a bit more before we can try anything more complex, but we should by now be starting to see how the sheet music can assist in encoding and decoding music for the written page. If we study the notes and rests in Diagram 1 we can see that the notes and rest values have a distinct mathematical relationship. For the purpose of this discussion we shall talk about notes, but be aware that what is said about notes also applies to rests. A whole note is equal to two half notes and one half note is equal to two quarter notes and so-on. This means that there are sixteen of the smallest notes to one whole note (there are more, but these are the most common). Although these note values are set in stone they can be altered dynamically within the score. For example, placing a dot after a note or rest increases it’s value by half. So a half note or rest, which normally receives two beats, receives three beats when a dot is placed after it. Similarly a quarter note or rest, which usually receives one beat receives one and a half beats, and so-on. See examples below. We shall learn more about dynamically altered notes in a future lesson.
Another way to alter the length of a note is to tie it to the following note. The symbol for tied notes is similar to the symbol for a slur and although the slur will be covered later, an example is shown here to illustrate this difference.
The important difference to note is that a slur can extend over notes of different pitches, whereas the tie must connect notes of the same value. Ties can be used to increase a note’s value by something other than a dotted note. in the example an eighth note (or quaver) is tied to a a quarter note (or crotchet) both within the first bar and across the bar-line between bars one and two.
Accents.
Often in music the composer will want to articulate a particular note to introduce colour and variation. The examples in diagram 3 demonstrate three examples and these three are probably the most common. Often the performer will want to give a slightly different interpretation of the written music and so will play dynamically altered notes in a different way to that which the composer intended. For example, staccato (more later) should normally be given about half the duration of the notes full value, but the performer may decide to make it longer or shorter than this. Even when these accents are not present, many experienced musicians and singers will introduce them to allow their personal interpretation to prevail.
The parts of a note
It is important to notice that notes of smaller value than a quarter note have flags. It is these flags that determine the value, or length, of the notes (see diagram 4).
Note beams
When two or more notes of smaller value than a quarter note are consecutive they will usually be joined together by lines called beams.
The example in Diagram 5 shows how notes of different values can be joined together by beams. See how the first three notes are joined by a single beam whilst the next two are joined by a double beam. When two notes of different values are joined together (as are the notes A and G) the smaller value note has a beam which goes only part way. Note how the beam values are directly related to the stem flags i.e. a single beam equates to an eighth note and a double beam equates to a sixteenth note and so-on.
Putting it all together.
Examine Exercise 2 -“Red River Valley”. You should now have enough knowledge to be able to follow along as the piece is playing apart from three exceptions: a) the note above the staff with the number 90 following it, b) The note above the staff (G) in bar 4 and c) The final note A in bar 7 which has a little symbol very much like the letter ‘b’ in front of it. The first determines the tempo, or speed, that the piece is played. The second is the note G which we will be looking at shortly, and the third lowers the pitch of the note to which it is attached by a semi-tone. All three of these subjects will be covered soon, so for the time being try and follow all the other notes and symbols. You should be able to identify the following: Treble clef sign (also called G clef), bars (or measures), rests, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, beams and ties. A bonus point is awarded if you can also recognise the time signature (briefly mentioned in the previous lesson). If you cannot recall all of these terms then please go back to the previous lesson and revise them. It is important that you familiarise yourself with these concepts before continuing.