Notation

Quarter Notes and Half Notes

Music is made up of short and long tones, which are writter with notes.

A quarter note is written as follows:

This note has a count of $1$. A half note is written as follows:

This note has a count of $2$.

The Whole Note

A whole note is written as follows:

This noe has a count of $4$.

Eighth Notes

Two eighth notes are played in the time of one quarter note.

Time Signature

Music has numbers at the beginning of a score called the time signature. Where the upper $4$ means $4$ beats per measure and the lower $4$ means that a quarter note get one beat.

Dynamic Signs

The signs that tell up how loud or soft to play are called dynamic signs. For example:

A $\textit{p (piano)}$ tells us to play soft.

A $\textit{mf (mezzoforte)}$ tells us to moderately loud.

A $\textit{f (forte)}$ tells us to play loud.

A $\textit{ff (fortissimo)}$ tells us to play very loud.

A $\textit{mp (mezzopiano)}$ tells us to play medium soft.

Tied Notes

Whe notes on the same line of space are joined with a curved line, we call them tied notes. And the key is held down for the duration of both notes.

Dotted Half Note

A dotted half note gets $3$ counts ($2$ counts for the half note, plus $1$ count for the dot).

Dotted Quarter Notes

A dotted quarter note is equivalent to a quarter note tied to a eighth note:

The Grand Staff

The bass staff and the treble staff, when joined together with a brace, make up the grand staff.

Slur and Legato Playing

A slur is a curved line over or under notes on different lines or spaces. Slurs means play legato (smoothly connected), they often divide the music intro phrases (a musical thougth or sentence).

Incomplete Measure

Some pieces begin with an incomplete measure, that is it has one missing count:

The Sharp Sign

The sharp sign before a note means to play the next key to the right (wether black or white).

When a sharp appears before a note, it applies to that note for the rest of measure:

The Flat Sign

The flat sign before a note means to play the next key to the left of said note.

Staccato

The dot over or under the notes indicates the staccato touch, which means: make the note very short.

Half Step

A half step is the distance between a key and the key directly above or below it (black or white).

Whole Step

A whole step is equal to two half steps.

Syncopated Notes

Notes that are played between the main beats of the measure and are held across the beat are called syncopated notes.

Natural Sign

The natural sign cancels a sharp or flat, so a note after a natural sign is always a white key.

Accent Sign

An accent sign mean that we have to play a note with special emphasis:

Overlapping Pedal

The following sign is used to indicate the overlapping pedal:

And this is how you play it:

Eighth Note Triplets

When three notes are grouped together with a figure $3$ bove of below the notes, the group is called a triplet.

The three notes of a eighth-note triplet group equal one quarter note.