With all those lines, dots, and other strange markings, reading music on paper can be very difficult or frustrating at first. In fact, music is easy to learn how to read. Included are the many definitions of each of the basic symbols used in music.
This article has most of the basics for reading music, enough to get you started. It's said that if you can read it, you can write it, true with music. If you'd like to make your own songs and be able to play them, you could try out Noteworthy to create and play MIDI files. The download is a trial program with saving and printing limitations.
What is music?
Music is sound. Sound is created by the vibration of the molecules in a medium, like air or water, even dirt. Sound comes in two types: noise and music.
Noise is any sound that has no distinct pattern in the sound wave. Try tapping on a box once. Just one small jolt of sound comes from it, nothing else. This image below shows you a typical example of a noise, the sound of a floppy disk drive copying files [with the computer fans in the background of course]:
Music is different. It has a repeating pattern. A typical wave for a cello, one of many musical instruments, would look like this approximated wave:
Music basics
At first glance at sheet music, it may look very confusing with all those lines, dots, and other figures. In fact, it's easy to learn how to read! If you're a quick learner, reading the information the article has would be more than enough, and if you can read it, you can write it!
Music consists of nine basic parts, each described in it's own section: The staff, the clefs, time signatures, the notes and rests, tempo, special "add-ons" for notes and rests, dynamics, key signatures, and lyrics.
The staff
A staff consists of lines, spaces and bars. Each line and space represents a location for where a note or rest would go. More is explained on notes and rests later. On a typical staff, there are always five lines and four spaces. Each represents one of the seven letters used as a tone. A tone is a sound of distinct pitch, quality, and duration for a given instrument. The seven letters used to denote a specific tone are A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Where these are depend on which clef you're using.
A bar is placed to group measures. A measure is a set of notes who's total duration equals the time signature. You'll learn the information about time signatures and notes later. These bars help keep the music organized.
Clefs
Clefs tell where on the diatonic scale notes are placed. Two major clefs are treble and bass [The word "bass" is pronounced as "base" like bases in baseball]. In a staff with a treble clef, the second line from the bottom indicates the G tone. This would mean that, to help compare, it would be one line just below the bottom line is where the C tone is. In a staff with a bass clef, the C tone is the fourth line from the bottom.
Some other clefs are the soprano clef, the alto clef, and the tenor clef. The soprano clef is a clef on a staff in which the C tone is the bottom line. The alto clef is a clef on a staff in which the C tone is the third from the bottom line. The tenor clef has the C tone on the fourth from the bottom line. Note that a tenor clef is identical to a bass clef, only a different icon is used.
To help you organize this, if you were to place a note on the very center line in a staff with each of the clefs given, the order, from the highest to the lowest frequency for that same position would be:
- treble
- soprano
- alto
- tenor/bass
If you would like to sample this case for each of these five clefs for that note in the center, in the order in the list above, click play in the player below. [Note, you need to be able to hear the MIDI file.]
Time signatures
Above all, besides the notes, staff and clef, time signatures are of very high importance. Time signatures are like fractions. They come in many types, but the most common are these:
3 4 6 8
4 4 8 8
Time signatures can be of 5/8, 3/8, 7/4, 16/16, and many more, but these are typically rare. All time signatures must be of the following format: x/y. X is the value that appears on top, and y, on the bottom, is based on a power of 2, usually 4 and 8, but may include 2, 16, and 32 as well. 4 and 8 are the two most common you'll see, especially 4.
There are some other special time signatures as well that resemble the letter "c".
The one with a "c" means that the song is of common time, where the time signature is of a 4/4, the most common, hence the name. The one with a slash through it means cut time, also known as the Alla Breve, where the half note is the base unit of time [resembles that of 2/2 time].
If you were to add up all the values in music between measures, the fraction equals that of the time signature. Consider this small piece of music below:
This is a simple 4/4 time signature song, or 4/4 for short. The time signature is read as "four-four". "six-eight" would be the 6/8 time signature, not "six-eighths" as you would say for a fraction. More information is explained about notes is explained in the next section. If you'd like to, you can play these notes as they are using the player below.
Notes and rests
Without notes, there would be silence, and without rests, there wouldn't be silence [except when the song ends of course]. Notes come in 7 main types, whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second, and sixty-fourth. The name says their length. A whole note lasts one full measure in 4/4 time. A half note lasts half of a measure, a quarter lasts 1/4 of a measure, and so on. Smaller notes take a shorter time to play them than larger ones. They each have their own looks that follow an interesting pattern as described below:
| Note |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Value | Whole | Half | Quarter | Eighth | Sixteenth | Thirty-
second | Sixty-
fourth |
Rests are much like notes as well, only telling the difference between whole rests and half rests can be tough as they look exactly alike, though the placement on the staff tells you the difference. This below shows you what each of the 7 rests look like. Like notes, the rests seem to follow an interesting pattern as well.
| Rest |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Value | Whole | Half | Quarter | Eighth | Sixteenth | Thirty-
second | Sixty-
fourth |
Tempo
Just tossing in notes and rests isn't enough for a song, but with the staff, clef, time signature, and the notes and rests, you can make a song, however, some songs are faster than others while others are slower, even with identical note patterns. This speed is referred to as the song's tempo. A song with a high tempo has it's notes played in a shorter period of time, thus making it seem fast. A song with a low tempo has it's notes played in a longer period of time. Tempo is often expressed as this:
This means that, in a full minute, 120 quarter notes [and the equivilent] are played. If it was 160, then 160 quarter notes [or the equivilent] would be played in a full minute. Most songs are from 100 to 160 quarter notes per minute, often referred to beats per minute, but beats per minute can be of something else, depending on the time signature. If you had an 8/8 song played at 120 beats per minute, it would be the equivelent of 60 quarter notes per minute. The time signature, 8/8, means that there are eight beats per measure. It takes four quarter notes to make one full measure, which is why 120 beats per minute and 60 quarter notes per minute are equal in the case of an 8/8 song.
Special add-ons
In many songs, you'll see all kinds of lines, markings, and other special symbols around notes and rests. Here's a list of all of them as well as what they all mean and what they're for. Note, the red object or area in each image of the object in question is the one in focus for each "add-on" below.
- flat - the "b" before a note indicates that the note is to be played a half a step below it's position. Note, between each of the lines are 2 main steps, 4 possible without duplication.
- sharp - the "#" before a note indicates that the note is to be played a half a step higher. Like the flat, there are 4 possible positions for the span of each line.
- natural - This indicates that a note is neither flat nor sharp, typically the default, unless key signatures are used. Key signatures are explained a little later on.
- dotted duration - the small dot after a note or rest indicates that a note or rest is to be played 50% longer. For example, a dotted quarter note is the equivilent of playing a quarter note and an eighth note without a single pause or gap and the notes must be of the same tone.
- double dotted duration - the two small dots after a note or rest indicates that the note or rest is to be played 75% longer. For example, a double-dotted quarter note is the equivilent of playing a quarter note, eighth note, and a sixteenth note consecutively all without a single pause or gap and of the same tone.
- tie - the line between these notes means that you are to play them consecutively without a single pause or gap like that of a dotted note. The line may not jump over other notes, and the notes must be of the same tone. Also, this line's ends are very close to the actual notes being tied.
- slur - the line, more distant from the notes than the tie, indicating that these notes should be played smoothly without a break, typically found in a note placement like the image.
- grace - a note, smaller than normal, that is an embellishing note, usually one step above or below the note it precedes and not counted in rhythm.
- accent - A note with an > indicating emphasis or prominence given to a note or chord, as by an increase in volume or extended duration.
- staccato - the small dot below the bottom of the note that indicates that a note is cut short in an instant, usually played as a eighth note followed by a rest equal to the amount remaining as the note specifies. [i.e. a quarter staccato note would play as if it was an eighth note followed by an eighth rest and a half staccato note would play as if it was an eighth note followed by a dotted quarter rest [a quarter and an eighth rest].]
- tenuto - indicates that a note should be played for it's full time and that the next note plays immediately after the tenuto note ends. Usually, a note, say a quarter note, would have like a sixteenth rest for the last bit of it. That is, it would resemble a full-length dotted eighth note and a sixteenth rest. The tenuto removes this special rest on the end.
- beam - no effect, however, they are only used on eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second, and sixty-fourth notes and relate to the number of flags on these notes. The image demonstrates eighth notes and may be any number of notes and either eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second, and sixty-fourth notes only.
- triplets - beamed notes with a 3 above them indicating that the three notes are played as two normal ones. That is, 3 eighth notes in triplets would be the equivilent of having each note last 2/3 of the normal length, and 3 triplets at 2/3 the play time makes two whole notes of that type, thus 2 eighth notes in time, but 3 plays.
Dynamics
With the notes and rests and their special add-ons, the staff, time signature, tempo, and clefs, you could create quite a decent song. Though some songs are to be played louder or softer than others. These are noted by dynamics. There are 8 dynamics used, they are, in order from the loudest to the softest:
The 3 letters used derive from Italic roots. From Dictionary.com [do a search for ff, f, mf, etc.], the "f" stands for "forte" meaning "loud", the "m" stands for "mezzo" meaning "half". MF means "half loud" or "mezzo forte". The "p" stands for "piano" meaning "soft". MP means "half soft", or "mezzo piano". "PP" stands for "pianissimo", the Italian superlative of "piano", or "very soft" in a sense. "FF" stands for "fortissimo", the Italian superlative of "forte", meaning "very loud" in this same sense.
Key signatures
A key signature is the group of sharps or flats placed to the right of the clef on a staff to identify the key. You can see a reference to key signatures here.
Lyrics
If you like to listen to music CD's, songs downloaded from the internet, or listen to the radio, the lyrics, for any song, is the easiest part to pick out than any other part of a song. Lyrics is what the song is composed of as far as words go. Without lyrics, there would be only instrumental songs, a song in which no words of any kind are used, only instruments, hence the name. Lyrics have many features, verses, and refrains.
Verses and refrains
Many songs have more than one verse. An example is Old McDonald's farm, which has more than five verses [*****look up the exact value and correct if needed*****]. If you try to hum the song aloud through all verses without using any of the words, you'll soon realize that the song is repeated many times, often equal to the number of verses in the song. If a song had 8 verses, it would loop eight times, once for each verse. Each verse has it's own set of words, different each time, or most of the time.
Sometimes, to prevent boredness with the song looping so many times from having a lot of verses, there's a special part used called the refrain. After so many verses are done, a song often relates to the refrain. A typical example for a song that uses this is *****find one*****. Let's say that a song had 8 verses and a refrain. In this imaginary song, after every 2 verses are played, the refrain is referred to. After the refrain is done, the song continues with 2 more verses then goes back to the refrain continuing like this until the song ends. Yet, a refrain can be done on every verse, every third or fourth verse, anything, even odd patterns. Refrains are always the same set of notes and lyrics and never change, though some songs might have more than one different refrain.
Reading lyrics
The Lyrics are extremely easy to pick out in sheet music as it's the only words you'll find, found directly below the staff. Lyrics are almost always syllablificated, or broken up into syllables. For example, in the song "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", it starts as "Twin - kle Twin - kle Lit - tle star". Each hyphen represents a break for syllablification. Sometimes, a word is not syllablified as is said as one whole word [even if it can be broken up into syllables], though this is rare.
Ever since man started making music during the cavemen days beating on rocks rhythmicly, man have been creating music. It's an invention several thousand years in the making. And now, with the age of computers and other very high-tech equipment like speakers, music has come a long way from it's prehistoric times. The future of music has many outcomes possible. One is where a songwriter, often called a composer, could very easily create their own song and masterpieces and listen to it as if they were at a real band. Knowledge of music may not be neccessary with the advanced computers of the future. Sometime soon, maybe within the first half of the 21st century, computers would be able to interpret brain waves, read them, and create the music exactly as one is imagining it, all within a small fraction of a second.
