The earliest form of musical compositions was found way back when around 2000 B.C in the Middle East, specifically Iraq. But like usual, the greeks stole the idea of music and made it their own because they’re mean and like to steal things, like math. Luckily, they were smart enough to write it down. This is a picture of an ancient greek tablature displaying different tones in music. Finally, Persia came around 1250 B.C and thought they were doing everything wrong because these symbols just represented notes, and not their desired rhythms. They also started to develop the theory behind music.
The theory part of music is the study of how it works. So, instead of just playing it and knowing the note to play, it explains the point and definition behind it. We’ll start with pitch. Pitch is basically the lowness or highness of a sound, with you singing one solid, steady note for a certain period of time. Perfect pitch is when someone can identify and sing a note by just simply being ask to sing it. It’s arguable but it’s supposedly something you are born with and you can’t be taught. Although singers are musicians, they are in a different family due to most people not having perfect pitch. If someone is singing a Bb scale for example, they won’t know if they’re singing a C scale or not unless they’re told. That’s why perfect pitch can be annoying. They wouldn’t have to change anything unlike musicians who have to note flats or sharps at the beginning of a piece. A Melody is a certain line of notes or pitch to make a line of music. This is what most people sing in their songs, from ancient hymns to Lady Gaga songs. Rhythm is just how you would dictate your melody in time. A meter in music addresses time such as in a measure or bar. Harmony, in my opinion, is the coolest part of music. Yes, melodies can be very pretty but to hear a harmony with it makes it so much more intense and sound. A harmony is basically a relationship between a note in the melody. You could picture it like this; if a note in the melody goes with a note in the harmony, than you can say they have a good relationship, but if it doesn’t go and sound well together, then they are on bad terms. There are different scales in music, which sort of go along with their key signature. If you have a C Major scale, chances are you are in the key of C Major. More on that Later though. Expressive qualities are sometimes the best thing in music because they are what makes the piece emotional. Dynamics are markings in the music that tell you to either play loud or soft.
A time signature tells you how many and what kind of notes per measure there are. The number on top is the number of notes per measure, and the bottom number is what kind of note. In a musical score, the time signature appears at the beginning of the piece, as a time symbol or stacked numerals.
A key signature is a series of sharps or flats placed on the staff before the time signature letting you know which notes are to be raised or lowered in that Key. Key signatures are generally used in a score to avoid the complication of having sharp or flat symbols on every instance of certain notes. Each major and minor key has an associated key signature that sharpens or flattens the notes which are used in its scale. However, it is not uncommon for a piece to be written with a key signature that does not match its key, for example, in some Baroque pieces.
The Circle of Fifths shows the relationships among the twelve tones of the chromatic scale, their corresponding key signatures, and the associated major and minor keys. This is pretty much the musician’s guide to knowing key signatures and their relative minor. Without this, I could admit that I wouldn’t know key signatures as well.
Modern music in today’s world is very similar to European Classical Musical Notation. Modern Music uses a five-line staff, which is used to indentify pitch by putting it on a certain line. The different Clefs in music consist of Treble Clef (G Clef), Tenor Clef (C Clef), Alto Clef, and Bass Clef (F Clef). Right behind the key signature is the time signature
Soulfege is used with singers to identify different notes in the melodic scale. Do refers to the one note, or C, which is the starting note of the same key. Re refers to the 2nd degree of that scale, or D in the case of C Major. Mi refers to the 3rd degree, and so on and so forth.
A composer is someone who makes music by musical notation or oral tradition.
This is the sound that is slowly taking over the world of music. You might already know this but you know how everyone knows T-pain for what he does with auto-tune, but tons and I mean tons of people use auto correction when recording and even during live concerts. It became popular and was first used by the artist Cher back in 1998. Now it’s making a come back with T-Pain, Akon, and all the current hip-hop, and rap stars.