Basic Music Learning

Time

Time is the same thing in music that it is everywhere else in nature. It is what passes while a piece of music is being played, sung, or read. It is like the area of the surface upon which the musical structure is to be erected, and which is measured or divided into so many units for this, so many for that, so many for the other portion of the musical Form. Time is that quantity which admits of the necessary reduction to units (like the feet and inches of a yardstick), whereby a System of Measurement is established that shall determine the various lengths of the tones, define their rhythmic conditions, and govern the co-operation of several melodies sung or played together. Time is the canvas upon which the musical images are drawn—in melodic lines.

Tempo

This refers to the degree of motion. The musical picture is not constant, but panoramic; we never hear a piece of music all at once, but as a panorama of successive sounds. Tempo refers to the rate of speed with which the scroll passes before our minds. Thus we speak of rapid tempo (allegro, and the like), or slow tempo (adagio), and so forth.

Beats-per-minute (or BPM) indicate how fast a song is played. Each beat corresponds to one note of the type indicated by the bottom number in the key signature. For example, a song with 60 BPM will have 60 beats in a minute, or one beat per second. A song in 4/4 time at 60 BPM will have 15 bars in a minute, with 4 beats per bar; one each quarter note. A song at 120 BPM will have 30 bars in a minute and 2 beats per second. The number of beats per minute is usually specified at the beginning of a piece using one of two conventions. The first is something like, "M.M.=115". M.M. stands for Mälzel's metronome. (Johann Nepomuk Mälzel was the inventor of a successful early metronome.) The other common notation is a picture of the note value receiving the beat, an equals sign (=), and the BPM. Most musicians, even professionals, own and regularly use a metronome or drum machine for practicing or recording in order to ensure they play at the desired tempo.

Beat

The basic rhythmic unit of a measure, or bar, not to be confused with rhythm as such; nor is the beat necessarily identical with the underlying pulse of a given piece of music, which may extend over more than a single beat. The number and relative positions of accented and unaccented beats furnish the basis of proper metric articulation, with the strongest accent usually falling on the first beat after the bar line. In Western musical notation the number of beats to the measure is indicated by the upper figure of the time signature at the beginning of a musical composition, while the time value of each separate beat (e.g., a quarter or eighth note) is indicated by the lower figure.

Bar

(Redirected from Bars)

A bar (or measure) is a group of beats. The beats are added together, in measures, to obtain a larger unit of time, because larger divisions are more convenient for longer periods; just as we prefer to indicate the dimensions of a house in feet rather than in inches.

[edit]Bars/Measures and Bar lines

Composers and performers find it helpful to 'parcel up' groups of notes into bars, although this did not become prevalent until the seventeenth century. In the United States a bar is called by the old English name, measure. Each bar contains a particular number of notes of a specified denomination and, all other things being equal, successive bars each have the same temporal duration. The number of notes of a particular denomination that make up one bar is indicated by the time signature.

The end of each bar is marked usually with a single vertical line drawn from the top line to the bottom line of the staff or stave. This line is called a bar line.

As well as the single bar line, you may also meet two other kinds of bar line.

The thin double bar line (two thin lines) is used to mark sections within a piece of music. Sometimes, when the double bar line is used to mark the beginning of a new section in the score, a letter or number may be placed above it.

The double bar line (a thin line followed by a thick line), is used to mark the very end of a piece of music or of a particular movement within it.

In music scored for keyboard instruments, where the music lies across two staves, the upper indicating the notes to be played by the right hand, the lower indicating the notes to be played by the left hand, bar lines are commonly drawn from the top of the upper line on the upper staff to the bottom line on the lower staff. This is illustrated below.

[edit]Bar/Measure Numbers and Letters=

It is common practice, when a piece of music is extended, to number the bars either at the beginning of each line or periodically - for example, by marking every fifth or every tenth bar. In this way, a group of musicians, performing from individual parts, can easily start from points within the piece of music by going from a particular bar. You will see, from the first example below, that the bar number is placed at the beginning of the bar just above the bar line that marks the end of the previous bar.

If only marking the first bar of every line, as in the second example, the bar number is placed at the very beginning of the staff.

From the nineteenth century rehearsal letters began to appear in scores to mark the beginnings of sections within the work. A conductor wishing to take an orchestra from, say, the beginning of the third section, which is marked in the score with a letter B, would ask the orchestra to 'go from letter B'.

[edit]Bars/Measures and Ties

Notes can be sustained over bar lines by linking them with ties. This is shown in the example below. 

Rhythm

This word signifies arrangement,—a principle applied, in music, to the distribution or arrangement of the tones according to their various time-values. The system of measurement (or metric system) furnishes tone material with all the details of division, proportion and comparison; but this, alone, is not rhythm. The metric system affords the basis for rational and definable rhythm, but "rhythm" itself does not enter into the proposition until differentiated factors are associated and opposed to each other.

The first measure of this hymn is, by itself, merely an exponent of the metric principle, for it consists of three uniform quarter-notes. The second measure, however, is a rhythmic one, because, by dotting the first of the three beats, three different time-values are obtained (dotted quarter, eighth, and quarter). Further, by association and comparison with each other, both measures assume a collective rhythmic significance.

The rhythmic disposition of the tones is to a certain extent optional with the composer, but by no means wholly so; the rules of rhythm are probably the most definite and obvious of all the rules of music writing. They do not concern the analytical student intimately, but at least the general distinction between regular and irregular rhythm should be understood:—We have seen that the natural accent (the "heavy" pulse) is invariably represented by the first beat of a rhythmic group; and that one or two lighter pulses intervene before the next accent appears. Further, it is self-evident that the rhythmic weight of a tone is proportionate to its length, or time-value; longer tones produce heavier, and shorter tones lighter, impressions. The deduction from these two facts is, then, that the rhythmic arrangement is regular when the comparatively longer tones occupy the accented beats, or the accented fractions of the beats; and irregular when shorter tones occupy the accents, or when longer tones are shifted to any comparatively lighter pulse of the measure or group.

On the other hand, the following is an example of irregular rhythm:

The longer (heavier) tones are placed in the middle of the bar/measure, between the beats; the tie at the end of bar/measure 3 places the heavy note at the end, instead of the beginning, of the bar/measure, and cancels the accent of the fourth measure. These irregular forms of rhythm are calledsyncopation.

Melody

Any succession of single tones is a melody. If we strike the keys of the piano with two or more fingers of each hand simultaneously, we produce a body of tones, which—if they are so chosen that they blend harmoniously—is called a Chord; and a series of such chords is an illustration of what is known as Harmony. If, however, we play with one finger only, we produce a melody. The human voice, the flute, horn,—all instruments capable of emitting but one tone at a time,—produce melody.

Melody constitutes, then, a line of tones. If, as we have said, Time is the canvas upon which the musical images are thrown, Melodies are the lines which trace the design or form of these images. This indicates the extreme importance of the melodic idea in music form. Without such "tone-lines" the effect would be similar to that of daubs or masses of color without a drawing, without the evidence of contour and shape.

A good melody, that is, a melody that appeals to the intelligent music lover as tuneful, pleasing, and intelligible, is one in which, first of all, each successive tone and each successive group of tones stands in a rational harmonic relation to the one before it, and even, usually, to several preceding tones or groups. In other words, the tones are not arranged haphazard, but with reference to their harmonious agreement with each other. For a model of good melody, examine the very first sentence in the book of Beethoven's pianoforte sonatas:—

The tones bracketed a, if struck all together, unite and blend in one harmonious body, so complete is the harmonic agreement of each succeeding tone with its fellows; the same is true of the group marked c. The tones bracketed b and d do not admit of being struck simultaneously, it is true, but they are all parts of the same key (F minor), and are closely and smoothly connected; hence their concurrence, though not one of harmony (chord), is one of intimate tone relation and proximity. Further, the whole group marked 2 corresponds in its linear formation, its rising, poising and curling, exactly to the preceding group, marked 1. This, then, is a good melody,—tuneful, interesting, intelligible, striking and absolutely definite.

In the second place, the tones and groups in a good melody are measured with reference to harmony of time-values; that is, their metric condition, and their rhythmic arrangement, corroborate the natural laws already defined:—uniformity of fundamental pulse, uniform recurrence of accent, and sufficient regularity of rhythmic figure to insure a distinct and comprehensible total impression.