CK School of Practical Knowledge

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MUSIC THEORY
Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques, across or within genres, styles, or historical periods. In a grand sense, music theory distills and analyzes the fundamental parameters or elements of musicrhythm, harmony (harmonic function), melody, structure, form, texture, etc. Broadly, music theory may include any statement, belief, or conception of or about music. Music rhythm There are basically 3 categories of music rhythm symbols. 1) The Notes 2) The Rests 3) The Time Signatures Notes First we'll start with the notes. Each note is written a specific way to let you know how long to hold it. Think of it in terms of a drum beat. Each beat of the drum is a count. You need to hold certain notes down for certain amounts of counts. The music rhythm is the beat. It is the most important element in music. It drives the music forward. It is the gasoline of music. Rhythms can be simple or complicated. The Rests The next of the music rhythm symbols are rests. Rests are the places where you don't play or hold a note. They are places of silence. Time Signatures The final music rhythm symbols are time signatures. The time signature helps us group the notes so we don't get lost. It's the way we organize beats in music. It's like grouping eggs by the dozen or days by the week. The top number tells us how many beats we can have in one measure. In 4/4 time we have four beats in each measure. Essential music vocabulary Meter

It's the way we group the beats. We group eggs by the dozen. We group days by the week. We also group beats into two's or three's. That's meter. The beat. The beat can be even or uneven, steady or unsteady. Long and short sounds in music are represented by notes. White notes have longer sounds than black notes. This is the speed of the music. This is a number that appears at the beginning of the music. The top number tells you how many beats are in each measure (bar) and the bottom number tells you what kind of a note gets one beat. The most common times signatures are 4/4, 3/4, 2/4, and 6/8.

Rhythm Note Values Tempo Time Signature

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Accent Upstoke Down stoke

Accent Upstroke Down stoke

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Whole music notes These notes are whole notes. Each note is four beats long. Click the image to hear the note value.

Half music notes Here are half notes. Did you see the stems? These notes are twice as fast as whole notes.

Quarter music notes These notes are black. They are quarter notes. Each quarter note gets one beat.

Eighth music notes These are eighth notes. Notice how the stems are connected by a beam. These notes move twice as fast as quarter notes. Two notes are played for each beat of music.

Combining Note Values In 4/4 time, different note values can be combined in each measure as long as they equal four beats.

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Music tempo Tempo means speed. Musicians use Italian terms for different tempos. Here is a melody fragment. Click the image to hear the tune:

Meter Meter is how we hear the groupings of beats in music. Music will be in an even meter (groupings of 2's or 4's) or an odd meter (groupings of 3's). Even Meters Are Groupings of 2 Beats A march is played in a meter of 2, which makes it an even meter. That means you will hear the beats of the march move in patterns of two's. A waltz is played in a meter of three, which makes it an odd meter. That means you will hear the beats of the waltz move in patterns of three's.

Odd Meters Are Groupings of 3 Beats

Time Signatures The time signature helps us group the notes so we don't get lost. It's the way we organize beats in music. It's like grouping eggs by the dozen or days by the week. The top number tells us how many beats we can have in one measure. In 4/4 time we have four beats in each measure. Remember this: A beat is not the same thing as a note. Notes can have more or less than one beat. A whole note in 4/4 time has four beats. A half note in 4/4 time has two beats. An eighth note in 4/4 time has just 1/2 beat. It takes two eighth notes to make one beat in 4/4 time.

Time signatures and meter: The time signature will tell you the music's meter

4/4 Time (Common Time) It's 4/4. That means that there are four beats in each measure and the quarter note gets one beat. This time signature is also called Common Time because it is the most popular time signature in music. It's in 4/4 time. Each measure equals four beats. It is in an even meter.

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3/4 Time (Waltz Time) A 3/4 time signature would only have three beats per measure. 3/4 is also called waltz time. Dotes make the notes longer. This song is in an odd meter because there are three beats per measure.

2/4 Time A 2/4 time signature has just two beats per measure. It is called a tie.

6/8 Time A 6/8 time signature has six beats per measure. The bottom number is 8. This tells you that the eighth note gets one beat. This song goes fast, making it sound like 2/4 rather than 6/8 time. This time signature can sound like an even or odd meter because you can divide 6 by 2 or 3.

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List of Exercise
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