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Music Theory

The Language of Written Music

The Musical Alphabet

A     B     C     D     E     F    G

The musical alphabet has 7 letters,

When you get to the last letter which is the letter G you repeat back to the first letter A.

The Grand Staff

This is where we place our notes, we can place notes on 

lines or on spaces, even above or below!

The Grand Staff is made up of two smaller staves.

Treble                 and                    Bass

This is where we place our notes, we can place notes on 

lines or on spaces, even above or below!

Note Types

Notes are recognized not only by letter but by note type

the note changes depending on the duration it should be held.

We count beats the same as we would count seconds. For example the whole note is held for 4 beats, we would play the note and count, 1, 2, 3,4 and then release.

Every note type has a rest that matches its duration, so that we can show when not to play aswell.

Reading

Music

Every note on the staff has one corresponding key. 

Notes on the staff go up and down in steps, just like a staircase from line to space to line to space and so on.

The keys on the piano and frets on the guitar move in much of the same way.  

C

B

A

G

F

Notes Of

The Treble Staff

The lowest note, is a very special note, it is known as middle C. It appears in both the treble and bass clefs and serves to divide them.

These are where the letters appear on the Treble Staff

We can use rhymes to help us remember note names

For the lines, Every Good Brother Deserves Friends.

For the spaces, we notice it spells out F A C E

Notes Of

The Bass Staff

These are where the letters appear on the Bass Staff

The rhymes that we use for the bass cleff are,

For the Lines, Good Boys Deserve Friends Always

For the spaces, All Cows Eat Grass

Here we see how middle C devides the treble and bass 

and how the notes follow the musical alphabet up and down the keys

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