Music BASIC'S

10:06 PM 8/30/05

The BASICs of music.....by: wjnast
* First a note from th authur

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* A lot of people over the years have asked me...
How do you make music? Which for me; there is not a easy
anwser. For I aproch music in severl different ways depending on the
project, and I play a lot of different insturments in differet styles.
Programing,seqenceing, using midi,singing and playing gutair
will not be touched in this text...here I am talking mostly
about the keyboard.
Which I think is the most easiest to play and a good place to start.
That being said, I thought I'd write a little
piece on the BASIC's of music. Which are notes,chords and the placement
and names of these fundmentel objects on the keyboard.
I will only talk a little about on Rhythm/timing.
With this under your belt you should have a good easy understanding
of music notetation and a good fuondation to work with on your own project
and/or projects.
Here I will try to help break down and clear up a lot of questions.

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The BASICs of music.....by: wjnast


Notes on your keyboard are just made up of 12 notes that
repeat over and over.

There are 7 white keys....

They are ABCDEFG....
but to make it easy, as you write or read/play start w/ C
SO it would look like this,

CDEFGAB


Now, there are 5 black keys and they come in sets of 2 and 3..

NOTE: Each one of these black keys have 2 names but are the same key.
( tricky huh ?? )..

When you play these notes to the RIGHT ( UP the board ) you have a SHARP ( # )
When you play LEFT ( DOWN the board ) you have a FLAT ( b )

they are:


C# = Db
D# = Eb
F# = Gb
G# = Ab
A# = Bb

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Now, C is the white key left of the the 2 black keys.
No matter where you look on the board.

Again, all these notes repeat UP and DOWN the board.

Every time you play these notes to the RIGHT you also go UP a octive.
When you play LEFT you go DOWN a octive.


The C closest to the center of your board is called Middle C
( hence the name MIDDLE )


As far as reading or writing music,

Every (line)

F (space)

Good (line)

A (space)

Boy (line)

C (space)

Does (line)

E (space)

Fine (line)

As you can see the lines spell
Every Good Boy Does Fine
And the spaces spell
Face

NOTE: This is just a way to remember the names. EGBDF...could spell,
Every Good Banna Does Flips.....or whatever...you get the point.
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Rhythms

I will not talk alot about Rhythm. ( You ethier got it or you don't.)
If you ever claped or taped your fingers to a favarite song you got it.
If you don't try this...

Whole Note = 4 beats
Half Note = 2 beats
Quarter Note = 1 beat
2 Eighth Notes = 1 beat
4 Sixteenth Notes = 1 beat

If that doesn't work; QUIT MUSIC !!!!


Just teasing...LOL !!!
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Chords

Chords are made up of ( for the sake of argument ) 2 or more notes played together.
There are 1000's of chords and 1000's of INVERTED forms of chords to be played.
Inverted chords are a way of rearranging the notes of a chord.
Thus making smooth transtions and playing easier.

Even thou there are 1000's of chords, you really only need to know about 36 of them.
There are 3 catogoise to these chords.

They are:

Major
Minor
and Seventh Chords.

I will list them here:

[Major Chords]
CDEFGA Db Ab Gb Bb Eb

[Minor Chords]
Cm Em Abm Dbm Fm Am Dm Gbm Bbm Ebm Gm Bm

[Seventh Chords]
C7 E7 Ab7 Db7 F7 A7 D7 Gb7 Eb7 Bb7 G7 B7

( Seventh Chords are really just the same chords. You just add a extra note on the end
and it makes these other chords sound pro. if you will... )


Root - the root of a chord is really just the 1st note in the chord.
( for our use - Music BASICS) if you look at the 1st note in the chord
it usaul is the name of that chord.
I.e. A c chord starts with the note C
The a chord starts with A and so on....

7:39 AM 8/7/05
10:53 PM 8/8/05
10:49 PM 8/30/05
w.j.nast
(c) 2005