Whitstable Choral Society

Basic Musical Notation

The The staff, consisting of 5 lines with four spaces between them is
Staff what musical notes are presented on.

Different pitches are named by letters. The musical alphabet is, in ascending order by pitch, A, B,
Notes C, D, E, F and G. After G, the cycle repeats going back to A. Each line and space on the staff
represents a different pitch. The lower on the staff, the lower the pitch of the note.

Clefs

The treble clef begins with the first line as E. Each successive space and line is the next letter in the musical
alphabet. The staff ends with the last line as an F. A phrase to remember the lines is: Every Good Boy Deserves
Fun. To remember the spaces, just remember that they spell FACE starting from the bottom.

With the bass clef, the lines from bottom to top are: G, B, D, F, A (Good Boys Don't Fight Anyone), and the
spaces are A,C,E,G (All Cows Eat Grass).

The vertical lines on the staff mark the bars,

Bars which are used to divide and organize music.

1. Semibreve
2. Minim
3. crotchet
4. quaver
Note 5. semiquaver
Durations

Quavers (left) and semiquavers (right) may also

look like this.

Dotted Notes

A dot beside a note increases its duration by half its original value. For example, minims, in
4/4 time, are worth 2 beats. When a dot is placed next to the minim, the resulting duration
is three beats. The curved line in the picture is a tie. Ties connect notes that are the same
pitch together to create a sustained note.
Rests

Rests are simply places where the musician does not play/sing. Rests have equivalent values to corresponding
notes of duration, as shown below.

semibreve quaver

minim semiquaver

Crochet or

Sharps raise the pitch of the

note by a semi-tone.

Sharps, flats and Flats lower the pitch of the note

naturals by a semi-tone.

Naturals cancel out any previous

sharps or flats.

Ties and slurs connect two or more notes together. Ties connect notes of the
Ties and
same pitch, forming essentially one longer note. Slurs smoothly connect notes
Slurs of different pitch.

pianissimo (very softly)

piano (softly)

mezzo piano (moderately soft)

mezzo forte (moderately loud)

Dynamics
forte (loudly)

fortissimo (very loudly)

Crescendo (gradually become louder)

Decrescendo or diminuendo (gradually become softer)

These are the begin and end repeat signs. When you reach the second, go back
Repeats to the first and repeat the music.
Key Signatures

To help understand and remember key signatures, a chart called the circle of fifths can
be used. On the outside are the major key names, separated by fifths. On the inside
are the corresponding minor key names. In the middle is the number and position of
the sharps or flats.

There is a little trick to figuring out a key signature's name. When confronted with a
key signature that consists of flats, look at the flat second from the far right. This flat is
on the line or space the key signature is named after. One flat is F, since you can't go
to the next -to-last flat. To find the name of a key signature with sharps, look at the
sharp farthest to the right. The key signature is the note a half step above that last
sharp.

Key signatures can specify major or minor keys. To determine the name of a minor
key, find the name of the key in major and then count backwards three half steps.
Remember that sharps and flats affect names.
Time Signature

• A time signature is two numbers, one above the other, at the start of a piece, after the
clef and any key signature:
o The top number gives the number of beats per bar, so this is the number you
need to count to before you start, and for each bar;
o The bottom number gives the length of each beat - 4 means crotchet.
• So in this example, there are three crotchet beats per bar:

o Up to now we have only seen crotchets as the length of the beat, which is "4" at
the bottom of a time signature:
o You may see a "2" at the bottom, meaning the beats are minims;
o "2" or "4" at the bottom is called "simple time" when each beat can be divided
into two - minims into crotchets or crotchets into quavers;
o Or you may see "8" at the bottom - then there will nearly always be "6" or "9" at
the top - this is called "compound time";

o In compound time, there are two "levels" of beat:

the quavers (the "8" at the bottom), so in this example there are 6 per
bar, but they probably go quite fast;

the quavers are grouped into threes - so each bar consists of two beats
each made up of three quavers;

To count in compound time, you normally count the higher level beats, in
this example 2 per bar.
• A time signature is very important in sight-singing:
o You should always look at it before singing;
o You then know how many to count to in each bar;
o And how to relate the notes to each count.
• The time signature is not repeated at the beginning of each new line like the key
signature but stays the same throughout a piece of music, unless a new time signature is
written:
o A change of time signature is written immediately after a bar line and then
applies to the new bar onwards;
o If a change of time signature happens to occur at the end of a line, the new time
signature is normally written at the end of the line after a bar line and then
repeated at the start of the next line;
o If the top number changes but not the bottom number, it is normally assumed
that the speed of the beats stays the same (unless the composer indicates
otherwise);
o If the bottom number changes, the composer should normally indicate what
speed the new beats should be relative to the old beats;
o This is normally done by giving two equivalent notes lengths, new = old;

o So, for example, if the time signature changes from 2/4 to 6/8 and is
written over the change, it indicates that the speed of a dotted crotchet in the
new time is equal to a crotchet in the old time.