Music Theory for Beginners

1. Introduction: Are you struggling with music theory? I did too. I used to hate reading long, boring books on notations, accidentals and ties. And wish that there was a course out there that explained music theory in a concise manner. Hi everyone. My name is Mahima. I am currently a science student working towards my piano diploma and grade 8 organ. Although I've always had a passion for classical music, I started learning piano at age 11, and haven't looked back since. Since I've gone on to pick up the violin and the organ. A universal concept that applies to all instruments is music theory, you either hate it or you like abit like marmite, I I've put this course together to give you a whistle-stop tour on beginners music theory. This will help you get on your feet and will help you to be able to play and read music. We will aim to cover all the basics of music theory with topics including stave notation, accidentals, note duration. And naturally, this will give you a strong foundation on your journey and have fun on the way. Hopefully catch you on the course. 2. Class Project: Hi guys, thanks for joining the class. I'm super excited to see you here. And hopefully it will be fun for you guys to watch too. Now for the class project, I thought it would be a great idea for you guys to test yourselves and compose a four bar melody. Now, you have two options. You can either compose your melody in 4/4, or common time or for those more comfortable, try composing in 3/4 or 6/8. I'm really excited to see what you guys come up with. I will be keeping an eye out on the project page. And I will also try and play some of my favorite compositions in a later video. I hope you have fun getting stuck in if you have any questions, ask away. So, Let's get into the course. 3. Staves: Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm so excited that you are here. I've been wanting to do these videos for so long now. And I finally gotten around to doing it. And I hope you're as excited as I am. Let's get to it. So in today's video, we are going to be learning about the stave, also known as the staff in America. But since I live in the UK, we're gonna be using the stave. What is the stave? Well, the stave is the foundation on which all music is written. And it comprises five lines and four spaces. Every line and space on the stave represents a white key on a piano or keyboard. When a node is on a line or in a space, that note corresponds to a key on a piano. For example, if we put this note on this line, that would mean that you'd have to play this key on the piano. All music starts with a blank stave. It's important that music is organized in a way that is easily readable for players. So by using a stave, it gives us an universal foundation that everyone understands. That's all there is to know about staves. Next, we will talk about clefts. See you there! 4. Clefs: So let's talk about class. Assign individual notes to certain lines and spaces to class on normally used. The trouble cloth and the base class. Fast. Let's talk about the trouble class, also known as the Duke Law. So why do we call it the G-Clef? Well, it's known as the G-Clef because the line which wraps around the CMS g, which we can see here, the stave line, the clef wraps around, becomes the note G. From that we can figure out any note above or below that followed the space above the line becomes an a. On the space below the J line becomes the note that the line above the note a is B and the line below is a. This process is repeated to give us all the notes on the stave. Easy, right? Next we're going to talk about the bass clef. Bass cough is also known as the F class. This is because the line which goes through the dot represents the new. The bass clef is also similar to the treble clef, but it has its own stave and it's a way of representing notation. Lower pitches, notes and the trouble class go up from middle C to G, whereas notes in the bass clef go from middle C to ask before we start using ledger lines when we run out of space. Here are some acronyms that you guys might find really useful when it comes to reading music. I've definitely use these when I first started to play piano. The fast acronym is imageable cost, and it's called face. It represents the notes are F, a, C, and E. Similarly in the bass clef, wheels have an acronym, is cooled, all cows eat grass. And this represents the notes C, E, and G. Now all of these nerves are found in between the lines. So that basically located in the spaces on the stave. I hope that makes sense. The treble clef is normally associated with the right-hand and the base class is associated. Now sometimes the class can be interchangeable. So you find the base class in the treble clef and the treble clef and the bass clef. But that's a bit too complicated for now, will get stuck into that later. Let's stick to the basics fast. Some of you might be thinking what happens when we run out of room to play snakes. My next video explains justice. Stay tuned. 5. Ledger Lines: In our previous video, we found ourselves in a bit of a pickle. What happens when we run out of room to place notes? Ledger lines solve this dilemma. The highest note we can go up to on the treble clef before needing the help of a ledger line is G. What is above G? We have already learned it's A, but where does it find itself on a stave? Without a ledger line, It's unclear what notes follow. Here you can see the notes from Middle C up to the last note on the stave, which is a G. The A that follows is hanging on an invisible line. Drawing a line through indicates the note shown. Ledger lines mimic the stave below A, so the notes above follow as they would on a normal stave. The same applies to the bass cleft, with the last note on the stave being an F. From this point onwards, ledger lines are used just as we saw in the treble clef. I know that's a lot of informations to take in. Don't worry if it hasn't clicked just yet. Continue to practice your stave notation. You'll get there! 6. Note Duration: In this video, we're going to be learning about note duration. Why are notes different likes. And how does this affect the musicality of a piece? Let's start with the basics first. Note duration is the amount of time a note is played for. The longest note, there is to play is called the semibreve. The note is held for a duration of four beats. A minim has half the duration of the semibreve, which is two beats. Two minims, occupy the same duration as one semibreve. A crotchet is half that of a minim, which is one beat. And two crotchets occupy the same duration as one minim. And therefore four crotchets, occupy the same duration as a semibreve. Makes sense so far? Now, the last note we need to know is the quaver. Any guesses on how long this note might be? You've got it, the quaver is half that of a crotchet. And two quavers are the same duration as one crotchet. Four quavers are equal to one minim and eight quavers are equal to one semibreve. Ugh that was a mouthful. You can go on to semiquavers, demisemiquavers or even hemidemisemiquavers. Don't worry about that. These are the four main notes we need to know right now. Let's just do a quick recap. So we have the semibreve, the crotchet, the minim, and the quaver. Well, that's all for now. Want to know what we are learning next? Keep watching! 7. Measures and Time Signatures: We now know all about notes, note duration and how they are placed on the stave. But how are notes divided into a format that go from a jumble of notes on a stave to an actual piece of music? Measures and time signatures are essential for music to come to life. Without these two components, music would have little sense of direction. Vertical black bars called bar lines, divide the stave into measures. So as you can see here, the stave shown is split into two measures. Time signatures define the amount and type of note that each measure contains. The most well-known time signature is called 4/4. Also known as common time. The number above indicates the beats in a measure. The number below indicates the type of beat in a measure. If it's a four on the bottom, the type of beat we have here is a crotchet. And if it's an eight, it's a quaver, and a two, that would be a minim. Now the first measure as seen here, is shown in 4/4. Now if we count each note accordingly, we have 1, 2, 3 and 4. So that's four beats in a bar. Now, if we remember, one crotchet beat is equal to one beat. And here we have four crotchet beats, which is equal to four beats. Therefore, it satisfies the time signature in the bar. Now onto the next diagram, for the time signature 3/4, we still have the type of beat as a crotchet. However, if you've noticed the above number is a three. So now we can only have three beats in a bar. In this measure, we have one minim and one crotchet. Do you think this satisfies the number of beats in a bar? Have a think. Yes it does! Well done, you've cracked it. Now. When the bottom number is an eight or a two, just a quick recap, an eight is a quaver and two is a minim. The same rule still applies. So it's just the type of beat which has changed. So only quavers or minims can be used in that measure. Sadly, you can't use a crotchet. Just to help you along. This chart shows all the time signatures you might come across when you begin to read music. Try to practice music with different time signatures. It will help you a great deal, especially when we start adding different components into the mix. Like rest duration. Which is coming up next! 8. Rest Duration: Hey guys, glad to see you here again. This video is all about silence..... In music, silence is often used to create a dramatic effect, or sometimes even used for technical reasons. If you're jumping from an octave to the other, this might prove to be a little bit difficult. So to make things a lot easier, the composer might add in a rest, to improve the musical fluidity. Rest represent periods of silence in measures. Each rest shown here, a duration with its corresponding note. For example, both a crotchet rest and a crotchet note occupy the same duration, one beat. While the note makes a sound, a rest remains silent. What about the quaver note and the quaver rest? Well, they're exactly the same. Just remember to add these four main rests to your muscle memory, and you'll be sorted! To demonstrate this, let's fill a measure with four crotchet notes. Now, if I take one crotchet note out and I replace this with a crotchet rest. How do you think that might sound? Sounds good, right? A little task for you. Try listening to some music and see if you can pick out silences. Try and understand how and why they're created and what effect does it have on the music? See you at dots and ties! 9. Dots and Ties: So, let's talk about dots and ties. What are ties? Ties are actually called tenuto markings. It looks like a line joining two notes of the same pitch together. These are used to let the duration of the note travel over barriers, such as the measure line in this example. An augmentation dot, on the other hand, is a dot after the note and increases the time that the note is played for. For example, if we add a dot to a crotchet, this now makes the note duration a beat and a half. And if we add a dot to a quaver, it now makes the note duration a quaver And a half. Put simply, both are used to change the duration of a note. When used effectively, they are powerful tools in changing the atmosphere of a piece. By varying the lengths of the notes we can really alter the dynamic of the piece. That's it for dots and ties. Catch you in the next video! 10. Semitones and Accidentals: Well done. We're nearly at the end of our course. In this video, we will be talking about accidentals and naturals. From looking at the diagram here, we can see that all the white keys have a black key in-between them, apart from E to F and B to C. When going from a white key to a black key, such as C to C sharp, we call this a semitone. When there isn't a black key between two white keys, such as E to F and B to C. This is still called a semitone. So basically, a semitone is the smallest step it takes to get to the next key. A whole tone as the same distance as two semitones. For example, key one to key two, is the first semitone, and key two to key three is the second semitone. Put together, this makes a whole tone. Accidentals and naturals are types of semitones. Accidentals are signs used to raise or lower the pitch of the note. The first accidentals we will discuss are sharps and flats. Flats lower the note by a semitone, whereas sharps raise the note by a semitone. If we had a C and we raised that note by a semitone, we would have a C-sharp. And if we had a D and we lowered that note by a semitone, we would have a D flat. So these are both still the same black key. However, they just have two different names. This is something that you will often see in music. Let's take another example, E and F. Here there are two white keys without a black key in-between. In this case, E could also be called an F flat, since it's the semitone below F. And F could also be called an E-sharp, since it's a semitone above E. I know it's tricky, but you'll get the hang of it soon. And finally, we need to talk about naturals. Naturals cancel out any accidental and return it to its original white key. When you see a natural in front of a note, you just play the normal note, not a sharp or a flat. That's it for accidentals and naturals. See you in the next video! 11. Final Thoughts: Thanks for watching the whole course and getting to the last video. I hope you learned a lot along the way and had some fun too. Everything that we've learned will help you in reading and playing music. I loved putting this course together. I'd be grateful for any feedback that you have. This was just a beginners course on music theory. If you enjoyed it, please comment down below, and I can make another course on some more advanced topics. I can't wait to see all your class projects, so please be sure to post them. Don't forget, I'll be keeping an eye out and I'll be picking out my favorites and playing them. Hopefully see you again soon. Thanks!