UNIT 2: PITCH AND DURATION

Pitch is the quality of sound that allows us distinguish high or low sounds.
Elements that determinate the pitch are notes, scales, staff, tonos and
semitones, intervals, and accidentals
NOTES
Notes are 7 different syllables that we use to name the different pitches of
sound: DO-RE-MI-FA-SOL-LA-SI

Evolution:
In Antiquity used alphabetic notation (write the pitch of sound with letters). It
is still used in British countries.

In the Middle Ages, in the 11th century, a monk named Guido d'Arezzo
invented the notes using the first syllables of each verse of the Hymn to St.
John the Baptist: UT-RE-MI-FA-SOL-LA

In the 17th century the note Sí was added, and the note Ut was changed to Do,
to make it easier to pronounce.
In Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, etc.) notes are named with solfège
syllables—DO, RE, MI, FA, SOL, LA, SI, DO. The solfège system used in many
countries—including the United States—was revised in the 1800's so that all notes
begin with a different letter. The 7th note Si was replaced with Ti.
In American-, and British-English, the solfège syllables are DO, RE,
MI, FA, SO, LA, TI, DO. If you listen to the Rodgers and
Hammerstein song DO-RE-MI from The Sound of Music, you will
notice the lyric for the 7th note is “Tea- a drink with jam and bread”.
Solfège1 syllables are commonly used for ear training to help
students hear notes in the context of a key. Romance languages
and many other countries use a note naming system called Fixed DO. Fixed DO means
DO is always equal to the C note:

THE STAFF
The staff is a set of five parallel lines and four spaces in which music notes are written.
Each one of those lines and each of those spaces represent a different pitch, ascending
from the bottom to the top.
The staff

The lower notes are written at the bottom of the staff, and the higher notes at
the top.
THE CLEF
The clef is the symbol placed at the beginning of the stave to indicate the position of
each musical note on it. There are three different clefs, used to facilitate writing the
notes within the stave when they would otherwise occupy very many ledger lines above
or below:

G/Sol/Treble clef F/Fa/Bass Clef C/Do Clef

1 Solfège (or Do-Re-Mi) is one of the most widely known and popular systems of teaching pitch, which brings together listening, singing and
in due course, playing music. Each note of the musical scale is given a different syllable – Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La and Ti. With their open
vowel endings, the solfège names are much easier to vocalise than traditional 8-note scale names: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C, which have lots of
sounds that strain the voice. 9 Tone and semitone are units of measurement to indicate distances between sounds.
 At the bottom of the staff At the top of the staff
the stems of the notes go the stems of the notes
upwards. are directed
downwards.

The stem of the 3rd line note

We are going to use the Treble Clef that indicates that the note written on the second
line is SOL.

The treble clef is used for high melodies and the bass clef is used for low
melodies.

LEDGER LINES
Notes below or above the stave can be written with the help of ledger lines2
and additional spaces.

TONE Y SEMITONE
The semitone is the smallest distance between two sounds. It occurs naturally
between the notes E and F, and between B and C. Both the tone and the
semitone are used to measure the distance between notes.

The musical scale is made up of 5 tones and 2 semitones.

2 Ledger lines or leger lines are short lines added above or below the range of a stave.
 5 tones 2 semitones
Nuestra escala natural

ACCIDENTALS

There are signs that change the pitch of notes by one semitone.

Types:

Sharp: raises the sound of the note by half a tone.

Flat: lowers the sound of the note by half a tone.

Natural: cancels out the effect of the flat and the sharp.
SCALE
It is a set of notes arranged in ascending (low
to high) or descending (high to low) order.
This series can be extended to express all
possible sounds, both low and high.

…do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si- DO-RE-MI-FA-SOL-LA-SI-do-re-mi…

MELODIC LINE
It is the shape of a Melody. You can get it joining the heads of every note of a melody
with a line.
Types of melodic lines:
• Flat Melody: melody that hardly moves up or down and uses repeated notes.
• Ascending melody: melody that goes from low to high-pitched sounds.
• Descending melody: melody that goes from treble to bass sounds.
• Arching melody: melody that goes from low to high and back to low or vice
versa.
• Wavy melody: melody that rises and falls in small intervals forming waves.
• Zig zag or broken melody: melody that rises and falls in large intervals forming
peaks.
WRITING DURATION: NOTE VALUES AND RESTS

The names of rhythmic values differ between American-English and British-English.

Semibreve is the figure used to represent very long sounds, while the semiquaver
represents very short sounds.

There is a very simple relationship between the figures: each figure is worth twice as
much as the next.

Those figures that have stems (all except the semibreve) can be ascending or
descending, depending on the place they occupy on the staff:
• When the note head is placed above the 3rd line, the stem must always go
downwards and to the left.
• When the note head is positioned below the 3rd line, the stem must always go
upwards and to the right.
• When the note head is placed on the third line, the stem can go either upwards
or downwards:

RESTS

Silence is very important in music, and we can also represent it in writing. For this we
have some special signs that are called the same as the musical figures, they are the
RESTS
The next chart shows rest symbols and its length correspondence with note values.

PARTS OF A NOTE VALUE:

DURATION MODIFIERS: DOT AND TIE

We have seen note values with a duration of 1, 2 and 4 beats. What note value can
we use to indicate a sound with a duration of 3 beats?

There is no note value of this duration, but we can create it using one of two ways:
dot and tie.

DOT

The dot adds half its value to a note value. For example, if we add a dot to the half
note which has 2 beats, we get a sound with the duration of 3 beats (half of two is
1, 2 + 1 = 3).
 Here is the value of the figures we know so far after the addition of the dot

TIE

A tie3 is a curved line which connects notes of the same pitch and name. Only the first
note is played and then it is held for the total value of the connected notes.

3 Ties may look like slurs, but they are not the same; a slur connects to notes with different pitches and is a type of articulation.