As a disclaimer, some of this post is intended to be humorous. Don't take it too seriously and don't take any of this as my personal opinion for or against any of these genres. I've tried (maybe unsuccessfully) to keep my opinion of each genre as separate from this as possible.
This is basically my definition for each of the genres of music. I won't claim to be knowledgeable about this so if I've gotten some wrong, it's because I probably don't listen to that genre very much and/or don't understand completely what it is. Again, some of these are more facetious than realistic.
Alternative - Incorporates such variety or such a wide range of styles that it doesn't fit neatly into any of them. In one word, unique.
Ambient - Atmospheric, ethereal. Few instruments, limited but just interesting enough to keep you listening. In one word, minimalist.
Bluegrass - Like Mardi Gras, but for music, not food. Jazz, but not quite. In one word, indulgent.
Blues - A fairly standard range of chord progressions which are used to evoke sad, melancholy, or depressed emotions, though those are not the only choices, nor are they always the most prominent. They are simply the most common, and hence, the name. In one word, well, blue.
Classical - Instrumental, symphonic music. Solo piano and orchestral are staples of this genre. If it could be described with one word, I would have attempted to come up with one. But it can't.
Country - A good ol' boy's got a dog, a truck, a woman, and some booze, and he sings about them regularly. The story changes from time to time, but not the subjects of his affection. Not to discount female country singers, of course - the only difference is, no dogs or trucks. They only sing about their feelings, men, and their feelings about men. And sometimes booze. In one word, trailer hitch (that's intentionally neither one word, nor an adjective).
Dubstep - Like techno, but even more repetitive; usually one vocal sample from a famous song repeated every 5 to 10 seconds, with some odd electronic/techno noises in the background. Often combined with other genres. In one word, alien.
Easy Listening - Just simple music, quite a wide variety but usually softer instruments. Jazz is often associated with this genre and the two do go hand-in-hand quite well. In one word, cool.
Electronic - Almost no real instruments or real people playing them; mostly synthesized with lots of effects. In one word, futuristic.
Funk - Rock, with a lot more sweat and head-banging. In one word, loud.
Hip-hop - Party/dance music, stuff that instantly makes you want to start jumping up and down or waving your hands in the air. Basic tenets are: an infectious beat; lots of different instruments and sounds happening all at once; and a touch of crazy. In one word, contagious.
Jazz - Swing, a certain vibe and character to the music that can be achieved with very few instruments and even the simplest of melodies. The moods can vary, but the basic idea is smooth, flowing, and glossy. Jazz works well as either fast and energetic, or slow and pensive. In one word, sleek.
Opera - Always singing, commonly with an orchestra. It is an acquired taste (meaning you can't just listen to it the first time and like it, it has to grow on you) but once you "get it" there is nothing better. Singers that can do opera justice have the strongest voices there are. In one word, grandiose.
Pop - Halfway between hip-hop and rock, with a greater variety of sound/instrument choices and more interesting melodies. Usually has a very intense, pulsating drum beat. In one word, sharp.
R&B - Rock & Blues? Reggae & Bluegrass? Your guess is as good as mine. In one word: soul.
Ragtime - Music to work to? Always a lively tune and a catchy melody, but simple, and with an air of light-heartedness. Of course, if you're working, then who's playing the music? And if you're playing the music, then who's working? In one word: funny.
Rap - Poetry with a beat and an attitude; slightly musical poetry delivered in an intense way. Sometimes quite repetitive, and often with darker themes and moods. In one word: happenin'.
Reggae - I haven't the foggiest idea what this is (nor why I've included it).
Rock - The most standard or recognizable type of modern music; usually has guitars, a solid drum beat, and vocals, with a very high-energy vibe. Think guitar hero. In one word, energetic.
Rock & Roll - Like rock but less intense and more dramatic. (The two are very similar)
Techno - Like electronic but a lot less interesting; the whole song is basically the 30-second sample on iTunes, repeated several times, with a minor change here or there to spice things up. In one word: repetitive.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Music For Nerds
In a similar vein as the "For Dummies" series, this post resides in the highly underdeveloped genre known as "For Nerds." The topic today is music! I am no expert at music, but I have my fair share of qualifications, particularly for someone who never majored in it, or otherwise, studied it intensely. I have played trumpet for over 10 years, piano for about 2 years, and dabbled in guitar until my cheapo First Act guitar broke (which wasn't very long). I also compose music, primarily solo piano and electronic. For those who are curious, I do my mixes in FL Studio Producer Edition (FL = FruityLoops), and my piano stuff in Finale. This was all self-taught during high school and college, but I've done little in that area since my career in software development officially began. As far as music theory, for seven out of eight of my college semesters, my roommate was a music education major. I absorbed no small amount of musical knowledge this way, second-hand.
Added to that, my own studies (going through all the lessons on musictheory.net in one night) provided a somewhat unstable basis for learning the actual theory. I compose primarily by ear, which may not be the best way, but it works for me. All that aside, I'd like to share some simple tricks for just about anyone. If you're a nerd like me, you will hopefully find these tricks a bit easier to remember than the old-school methods. The three tricks are how to quickly read a key signature, how to quickly read a time signature, and how to quickly read bass clef. A fourth tip is the simplest explanation I could muster for the idea of concert pitch, something that confused me to no end until recently.
Overview
Here is an overview of how to read music, what all the clef symbols and notes mean, and some of the other basic symbols on the notes.
Pitch and Clefs
Pitch is determined by the "height" of the note on the staff, and further, the staff's clef and location relative to other clefs. The higher the dot on the note, the higher the pitch. Don't look at the stems because they can point up or down, so that may be confusing (the stem is the line emerging from the dot).
For instance, on a piano score, you will see the treble clef, connected by a long vertical bar on the left side to the bass clef. The notes at the top of the treble clef are highest, and the notes at the bottom of the bass clef are lowest. The treble clef looks like a cursive letter S with a big dot at one end, but the important part is that the curl in the middle ends on the note line for G. The bass clef looks like a backwards C with two small dots to the upper right. The main shape also curls into a larger dot in the middle, a dot which would be the note F. Thus, these two clefs are often nicknamed G-clef and F-clef. Looking at their dots is one quick way to identify those particular notes.
The other clefs are actually even easier to read, because there is only one, and its position on the staff tells you where middle C is. It looks like a double thick bar on the left, with a curly bracket thing on the right (the entire thing looks like the letter B). The bracket has a sharp point going left, and this sharp point will always be on a line. That line is always middle C. Thus, this is the C-clef and is used mostly for vocal parts, except where hymns are concerned, since hymns normally have the same 4 voices (alto, tenor, baritone, and bass) and are written all on one page, using only the treble and bass clefs. When a single vocal part (say, for opera) is written on its own page, then the C clef is normally used to indicate which voice part it is.
Rhythm
The rhythm is largely determined by the type of dot in each note. The single 'beat' - the most basic unit in music - is normally the quarter-note, shown as a filled dot. Half notes and whole notes are unfilled dots. A half note is the one with the stem, and it gets two beats, while the whole note has no stem, and gets four beats. In common time or any time signature with a number 4 on the bottom, there are four beats in each measure. The small vertical lines in the staff divide the measures for easy reading.
If a note's stem has a tail on it, then it is an eighth note (if there is a tail, the dot will always be filled). A double tail indicates an even shorter note, the sixteenth. A triple tail indicates a thirdy-second note, and so on. Generally, the number used tells you what fraction of a measure the note represents, at least for common time. Thus, a thirty-second note is so fast, you could fit 32 of them into a single measure!
If two notes with a tail (eighths or shorter) are next to each other, the tails are connected, forming bars instead. Similarly, if four such notes are found together, all four tails are connected into one long bar. If the tails were double tails (for sixteenth notes) then there will be double bars instead.
A note with a smaller dot just to its right is a tricky one. You can think of this type of note or rhythm as working overtime - it gets time and a half! A dotted quarter note gets a quarter of the beat, plus half of that same value. Half of a quarter is an eighth, so a dotted quarter gets a quarter beat plus another eighth beat. It makes a lot more sense when you hear it, but the simplest way to think of it is two separate notes tied together. It sounds the same - a tie is the curvy line connecting two adjacent notes of the same pitch. Ties are normally used to connect notes across measures, since it's usually cleaner to combine them if they are in the same measure.
A slur is just a tie between notes of different pitches. This indicates that the second note isn't as distinct as the first, giving a blurred or slurred sound between them.
Finally, the accidentals - the things that make music look the most confusing! They are certainly the trickiest part since they occur when there is a modulation (when the notes or key at that spot don't match the overall key of the song). There are only three different symbols - one looking like a lowercase letter B, one that is the pound sign or hash (#) and a third that looks like a box with lines extending from two of its corners (almost like the hash with six of its 'arms' cut off). The first is the flat, causing the note to its right to go down one half-step. The second is the sharp, which does the opposite - the note it modifies goes up a half-step. Finally, the most strange looking one is the natural - it means the note is neither sharp nor flat, and assumes its normal pitch for that location in the staff. There are also double flats and double sharps, but I think that's getting a bit advanced for this post.
Quick Read Tips
Time Signature
Now, here is the quick-read tip for the time signature. In case you can't find the time signature, it is usually on the very left side of each staff, just to the right of the clef symbol. It is two small numbers, one on top of the other, both wedged inside the lines of the staff. Sometimes (if the time signature changes during the song) you may also see a time signature just before a double bar.
The top number tells you the length of each measure. If it says 4, there are four beats between each of the small vertical lines dividing the measures. If it says 8, there are eight beats instead. However, the beat is defined by the bottom number, which tells you what note is considered a single beat.
I still haven't gotten to the actual trick yet. I find that examples work best - let's say you want to understand how 3/4 time relates to 6/8 time. The two are actually very similar!
Think of it in terms of math (because that's what musical rhythm boils down to). Reduce fractions, and 6/8 actually equals 3/4. What does that tell you? The ratio between the measure length and the beat is the same! And what does that tell you? Well, for one, you can conduct 6/8 in much the same way as 3/4, waving your arms in a triangle-like shape. Second, you can tell that 6/8 is 3/4 times 2/2 which means everything is doubled. Where in 3/4 you only have three quarter-notes per measure, in 6/8 you have six eighth notes. Hey, that matches up - 3/4 = three quarter-notes, 6/8 = six eighth-notes. BAM! There's your trick. 2/4 equals two quarters (two quarter notes per measure). 9/4 equals nine quarter-notes.
Time signatures ARE fractions. Treating them like anything else only makes things confusing. Treat them like fractions, and everything will make sense from now on. But wait, that's math, not music! Oh, right - for nerds math is cool, so this actually works out better! Win.
Key Signature
Now, key signatures are a little more complicated, as you may know. Since there are twelve half-steps (distinct notes, including sharps and flats) in an octave, the combinations of which sharps and flats you have can become quite complex. One thing is on your side - except for accidentals, you will always have either all sharps or all flats. There is no key signature with both sharps and flats. The only "odd man out" is the key signature with neither sharps nor flats.
Another thing that adds to the complexity is that each key signature can be either major or minor, and it may not be obvious at a glance which one is being used. In addition to that, there are flat and sharp versions of each major and minor scale. This can all be tabulated and calculated quite easily by counting the number of sharp or flat symbols in the key signature, and then using the following chart:
0 2 4 -1 1 3 5
At first, these numbers probably seem like they could serve no useful purpose. The fact is, they already represent the seven natural keys! And the simplest part is they begin with C and proceed in alphabetical order. In music, nothing goes past G, so starting from zero you have:
C = 0
D = 2
E = 4
F = -1
G = 1
A = 3
B = 5
Now, what do the numbers mean? It's quite simple: positive numbers represent sharps, and negative numbers represent flats, while zero means no sharps or flats.
For example, if you see a key signature with two sharps, it's either D major, or the relative minor for that same key (which also has two sharps).
Determining the relative minor is just as easy! Add three. D is 2, so D major's relative minor is 2 plus 3 or 5, which is B. So the key signature with 2 sharps is either D major or B minor.
What about sharp and flat scales? G sharp (G#) major and A flat (Ab) minor and so forth? Amazingly, it gets easier yet! Simply subtract or add seven. Since flats are negative, you subtract seven to get the flat version of the key, and you add seven to get the sharp one. Ab is 3 minus 7, which is -4, so that key signature has four flats.
You can also calculate minor keys directly by subtracting three. For instance, what would C minor be? Take the value for C (zero) and subtract three. You get -3, which indicates that C minor has three flats.
Time for another example: suppose you want to look at G# major. Here, an exception occurs. We end up with 1 + 7 or 8 sharps. However, the key of G# is never used; it is purely theoretical. If a composer were to want that exact key, he or she would use the enharmonic equivalent key of Ab major instead, rather than using a double sharp and six sharps to indicate the proper eight-sharp key of G#.
In some cases you may have to add or subtract twice. For instance, what about A# minor? First, you add seven to the value of A (3) to give you A# major, which is 10. Then, you subtract three for the minor, which gives you 7. Thus, A# minor has seven sharps.
One last example: if you see three flats, well this isn't on the chart, is it? But you know one possibility - add three and you end up with zero, which is C. So the relative minor is C minor, which could be the key. Another way to get -3 is subtract 7 from 4, which is how you calculate Eb major. The key is thus either Eb major or C minor.
Credit for this system goes to musictheory.net, though it doesn't mention the detail that you can add three to get the relative minor.
Staves and Clefs
Lastly, understanding where all the notes are, independent of the clefs and staves, will greatly aid your ability to read different clefs. This section focuses only on the treble and bass clefs.
I'll assume that if you do know how to read music, you probably grew up playing a musical instrument. Unless you picked the baritone, tuba, or trombone, you are probably already familiar with the treble clef, and completely unfamiliar with the bass clef. Either way, the following should help you read the other clef a bit easier.
First, note that middle C is precisely and exactly that, when it comes to the treble and bass clefs. Treble-pitched instrument players will know that middle C resides on the first ledger line below the treble clef staff. Bass-pitched instrument players will know that middle C resides on the first ledger line above the bass clef staff. I bet both types were surprised to learn this about the other clef! In fact, let's say you situated the clefs together so that the lines match up (so the treble clef lines blend perfectly into the bass clef lines as you move downward, and vice versa). There would in this case be exactly one ledger line between both staves, with only one space in between on either side. Notes on this line would of course be middle C! How much simpler could it get?
One major helpful thing to note is that, for most notes, line notes in the treble clef become space notes in the bass clef, and vice versa. So the note G in the treble clef, a line note on the second-lowest line, becomes a space note in the bass clef, in the topmost space. Don't think about this too hard, as there are cases where it fails, but it's another handy thing to remember.
The major tip I can give you here is that the space notes (going from bottom to top) in the treble clef spell out the word FACE, and in the bass clef, they instead form the acronym ACEG (all cows eat grass). If you can just remember these two words (face = treble, bass = all cows eat grass) then you can use the space notes to go up and down and determine the other notes from there.
Tuning Systems
Concert Pitch
Concert pitch is the system in which most music is written today. Let's say I have a trumpet tuned to B flat and a cornet tuned to C. These tunings are also in concert pitch. The primary goal of this system is to prevent the difficulties that arise when the same note can have different fingerings depending on the key. With concert pitch, as long as you know the fingerings for each note, you don't have to worry what key you're in when reading the music (other than pressing all the right fingerings for that key and any accidentals).
If I am playing the same piece of music written in concert C, it will sound different depending on whether I play it on the trumpet or cornet. If I play it on the trumpet, I am actually playing in concert B flat. I wouldn't hear the difference if playing by myself, but if I played along with someone else who was playing a C cornet, it would sound quite awful indeed. So why doesn't a concert full of instruments all pitched differently sound terrible?
Relative Pitch
The trick here is all in the writing. Solo pieces can be written in relative pitch, meaning your only limitation is to write within that instrument's range. What you hear may not always be the right key, but it will sound good by itself because you have no other parts behind it for a reference. It is often written out of key (transposed) to put more of the notes within the staff and make it easier to read, but without a tuning fork or a highly trained ear, you wouldn't know that it's out of key. With no other instruments playing (no reference), all the pitches would still sound correct, relative to each other. Being out of key only makes the overall pitch of the song higher or lower than normal.
Transposing to Concert Pitch
By contrast, for ensembles and concert pieces, each part is normally written transposed to the right pitch for each instrument, using the concert pitch system. Thus, B flat trumpet parts are written in B flat concert, transposed with the key of the song. If the key is C, for instance, all notes must be transposed up a half-step. Now, by playing these transposed notes, a B flat tuned instrument is playing in C concert pitch. Likewise, for an F-tuned instrument, the notes would be transposed down five half-steps for a song written in concert C. If the key is concert B flat, then a trumpet B flat part would not need transposed at all. A notation such as "horn in F" would indicate that F is the concert pitch tuning for that instrument's part. Incidentally, F is also the standard concert pitch for horns, as is B flat for clarinets, and so forth.
Transposing Instruments
Some instruments, on the other hand, have such high or low ranges that their music always needs transposed simply to avoid having the notes so far away from the staff, requiring many ledger lines. Such instruments can be kept in the same key, but transposed up or down by one or more octaves. Examples of instruments that must always be transposed due to their range are the piccolo and the contrabassoon.
Besides extreme ranges, there are other reasons why instruments might be written transposed from concert pitch, but all such instruments written this way are known as transposing instruments. For these, concert pitch is not used as the standard. Instruments that use concert pitch are known as non-transposing instruments.
Transposed Reading
There are certain skilled individuals who can read and play music outside of concert pitch. This means they have to use a different fingering depending on which key the music is in, in order to match the correct concert pitch. If I want to play a part labeled "trumpet in B flat" but I want to actually play tuned to C concert, for instance, I would have to do the transposition myself as I am reading the music, playing each note a half-step higher than what is written. It would be far easier, however, just to obtain a "trumpet in C" part for that song!
Added to that, my own studies (going through all the lessons on musictheory.net in one night) provided a somewhat unstable basis for learning the actual theory. I compose primarily by ear, which may not be the best way, but it works for me. All that aside, I'd like to share some simple tricks for just about anyone. If you're a nerd like me, you will hopefully find these tricks a bit easier to remember than the old-school methods. The three tricks are how to quickly read a key signature, how to quickly read a time signature, and how to quickly read bass clef. A fourth tip is the simplest explanation I could muster for the idea of concert pitch, something that confused me to no end until recently.
Overview
Here is an overview of how to read music, what all the clef symbols and notes mean, and some of the other basic symbols on the notes.
Pitch and Clefs
Pitch is determined by the "height" of the note on the staff, and further, the staff's clef and location relative to other clefs. The higher the dot on the note, the higher the pitch. Don't look at the stems because they can point up or down, so that may be confusing (the stem is the line emerging from the dot).
For instance, on a piano score, you will see the treble clef, connected by a long vertical bar on the left side to the bass clef. The notes at the top of the treble clef are highest, and the notes at the bottom of the bass clef are lowest. The treble clef looks like a cursive letter S with a big dot at one end, but the important part is that the curl in the middle ends on the note line for G. The bass clef looks like a backwards C with two small dots to the upper right. The main shape also curls into a larger dot in the middle, a dot which would be the note F. Thus, these two clefs are often nicknamed G-clef and F-clef. Looking at their dots is one quick way to identify those particular notes.
The other clefs are actually even easier to read, because there is only one, and its position on the staff tells you where middle C is. It looks like a double thick bar on the left, with a curly bracket thing on the right (the entire thing looks like the letter B). The bracket has a sharp point going left, and this sharp point will always be on a line. That line is always middle C. Thus, this is the C-clef and is used mostly for vocal parts, except where hymns are concerned, since hymns normally have the same 4 voices (alto, tenor, baritone, and bass) and are written all on one page, using only the treble and bass clefs. When a single vocal part (say, for opera) is written on its own page, then the C clef is normally used to indicate which voice part it is.
Rhythm
The rhythm is largely determined by the type of dot in each note. The single 'beat' - the most basic unit in music - is normally the quarter-note, shown as a filled dot. Half notes and whole notes are unfilled dots. A half note is the one with the stem, and it gets two beats, while the whole note has no stem, and gets four beats. In common time or any time signature with a number 4 on the bottom, there are four beats in each measure. The small vertical lines in the staff divide the measures for easy reading.
If a note's stem has a tail on it, then it is an eighth note (if there is a tail, the dot will always be filled). A double tail indicates an even shorter note, the sixteenth. A triple tail indicates a thirdy-second note, and so on. Generally, the number used tells you what fraction of a measure the note represents, at least for common time. Thus, a thirty-second note is so fast, you could fit 32 of them into a single measure!
If two notes with a tail (eighths or shorter) are next to each other, the tails are connected, forming bars instead. Similarly, if four such notes are found together, all four tails are connected into one long bar. If the tails were double tails (for sixteenth notes) then there will be double bars instead.
A note with a smaller dot just to its right is a tricky one. You can think of this type of note or rhythm as working overtime - it gets time and a half! A dotted quarter note gets a quarter of the beat, plus half of that same value. Half of a quarter is an eighth, so a dotted quarter gets a quarter beat plus another eighth beat. It makes a lot more sense when you hear it, but the simplest way to think of it is two separate notes tied together. It sounds the same - a tie is the curvy line connecting two adjacent notes of the same pitch. Ties are normally used to connect notes across measures, since it's usually cleaner to combine them if they are in the same measure.
A slur is just a tie between notes of different pitches. This indicates that the second note isn't as distinct as the first, giving a blurred or slurred sound between them.
Finally, the accidentals - the things that make music look the most confusing! They are certainly the trickiest part since they occur when there is a modulation (when the notes or key at that spot don't match the overall key of the song). There are only three different symbols - one looking like a lowercase letter B, one that is the pound sign or hash (#) and a third that looks like a box with lines extending from two of its corners (almost like the hash with six of its 'arms' cut off). The first is the flat, causing the note to its right to go down one half-step. The second is the sharp, which does the opposite - the note it modifies goes up a half-step. Finally, the most strange looking one is the natural - it means the note is neither sharp nor flat, and assumes its normal pitch for that location in the staff. There are also double flats and double sharps, but I think that's getting a bit advanced for this post.
Quick Read Tips
Time Signature
Now, here is the quick-read tip for the time signature. In case you can't find the time signature, it is usually on the very left side of each staff, just to the right of the clef symbol. It is two small numbers, one on top of the other, both wedged inside the lines of the staff. Sometimes (if the time signature changes during the song) you may also see a time signature just before a double bar.
The top number tells you the length of each measure. If it says 4, there are four beats between each of the small vertical lines dividing the measures. If it says 8, there are eight beats instead. However, the beat is defined by the bottom number, which tells you what note is considered a single beat.
I still haven't gotten to the actual trick yet. I find that examples work best - let's say you want to understand how 3/4 time relates to 6/8 time. The two are actually very similar!
Think of it in terms of math (because that's what musical rhythm boils down to). Reduce fractions, and 6/8 actually equals 3/4. What does that tell you? The ratio between the measure length and the beat is the same! And what does that tell you? Well, for one, you can conduct 6/8 in much the same way as 3/4, waving your arms in a triangle-like shape. Second, you can tell that 6/8 is 3/4 times 2/2 which means everything is doubled. Where in 3/4 you only have three quarter-notes per measure, in 6/8 you have six eighth notes. Hey, that matches up - 3/4 = three quarter-notes, 6/8 = six eighth-notes. BAM! There's your trick. 2/4 equals two quarters (two quarter notes per measure). 9/4 equals nine quarter-notes.
Time signatures ARE fractions. Treating them like anything else only makes things confusing. Treat them like fractions, and everything will make sense from now on. But wait, that's math, not music! Oh, right - for nerds math is cool, so this actually works out better! Win.
Key Signature
Now, key signatures are a little more complicated, as you may know. Since there are twelve half-steps (distinct notes, including sharps and flats) in an octave, the combinations of which sharps and flats you have can become quite complex. One thing is on your side - except for accidentals, you will always have either all sharps or all flats. There is no key signature with both sharps and flats. The only "odd man out" is the key signature with neither sharps nor flats.
Another thing that adds to the complexity is that each key signature can be either major or minor, and it may not be obvious at a glance which one is being used. In addition to that, there are flat and sharp versions of each major and minor scale. This can all be tabulated and calculated quite easily by counting the number of sharp or flat symbols in the key signature, and then using the following chart:
0 2 4 -1 1 3 5
At first, these numbers probably seem like they could serve no useful purpose. The fact is, they already represent the seven natural keys! And the simplest part is they begin with C and proceed in alphabetical order. In music, nothing goes past G, so starting from zero you have:
C = 0
D = 2
E = 4
F = -1
G = 1
A = 3
B = 5
Now, what do the numbers mean? It's quite simple: positive numbers represent sharps, and negative numbers represent flats, while zero means no sharps or flats.
For example, if you see a key signature with two sharps, it's either D major, or the relative minor for that same key (which also has two sharps).
Determining the relative minor is just as easy! Add three. D is 2, so D major's relative minor is 2 plus 3 or 5, which is B. So the key signature with 2 sharps is either D major or B minor.
What about sharp and flat scales? G sharp (G#) major and A flat (Ab) minor and so forth? Amazingly, it gets easier yet! Simply subtract or add seven. Since flats are negative, you subtract seven to get the flat version of the key, and you add seven to get the sharp one. Ab is 3 minus 7, which is -4, so that key signature has four flats.
You can also calculate minor keys directly by subtracting three. For instance, what would C minor be? Take the value for C (zero) and subtract three. You get -3, which indicates that C minor has three flats.
Time for another example: suppose you want to look at G# major. Here, an exception occurs. We end up with 1 + 7 or 8 sharps. However, the key of G# is never used; it is purely theoretical. If a composer were to want that exact key, he or she would use the enharmonic equivalent key of Ab major instead, rather than using a double sharp and six sharps to indicate the proper eight-sharp key of G#.
In some cases you may have to add or subtract twice. For instance, what about A# minor? First, you add seven to the value of A (3) to give you A# major, which is 10. Then, you subtract three for the minor, which gives you 7. Thus, A# minor has seven sharps.
One last example: if you see three flats, well this isn't on the chart, is it? But you know one possibility - add three and you end up with zero, which is C. So the relative minor is C minor, which could be the key. Another way to get -3 is subtract 7 from 4, which is how you calculate Eb major. The key is thus either Eb major or C minor.
Credit for this system goes to musictheory.net, though it doesn't mention the detail that you can add three to get the relative minor.
Staves and Clefs
Lastly, understanding where all the notes are, independent of the clefs and staves, will greatly aid your ability to read different clefs. This section focuses only on the treble and bass clefs.
I'll assume that if you do know how to read music, you probably grew up playing a musical instrument. Unless you picked the baritone, tuba, or trombone, you are probably already familiar with the treble clef, and completely unfamiliar with the bass clef. Either way, the following should help you read the other clef a bit easier.
First, note that middle C is precisely and exactly that, when it comes to the treble and bass clefs. Treble-pitched instrument players will know that middle C resides on the first ledger line below the treble clef staff. Bass-pitched instrument players will know that middle C resides on the first ledger line above the bass clef staff. I bet both types were surprised to learn this about the other clef! In fact, let's say you situated the clefs together so that the lines match up (so the treble clef lines blend perfectly into the bass clef lines as you move downward, and vice versa). There would in this case be exactly one ledger line between both staves, with only one space in between on either side. Notes on this line would of course be middle C! How much simpler could it get?
One major helpful thing to note is that, for most notes, line notes in the treble clef become space notes in the bass clef, and vice versa. So the note G in the treble clef, a line note on the second-lowest line, becomes a space note in the bass clef, in the topmost space. Don't think about this too hard, as there are cases where it fails, but it's another handy thing to remember.
The major tip I can give you here is that the space notes (going from bottom to top) in the treble clef spell out the word FACE, and in the bass clef, they instead form the acronym ACEG (all cows eat grass). If you can just remember these two words (face = treble, bass = all cows eat grass) then you can use the space notes to go up and down and determine the other notes from there.
Tuning Systems
Concert Pitch
Concert pitch is the system in which most music is written today. Let's say I have a trumpet tuned to B flat and a cornet tuned to C. These tunings are also in concert pitch. The primary goal of this system is to prevent the difficulties that arise when the same note can have different fingerings depending on the key. With concert pitch, as long as you know the fingerings for each note, you don't have to worry what key you're in when reading the music (other than pressing all the right fingerings for that key and any accidentals).
If I am playing the same piece of music written in concert C, it will sound different depending on whether I play it on the trumpet or cornet. If I play it on the trumpet, I am actually playing in concert B flat. I wouldn't hear the difference if playing by myself, but if I played along with someone else who was playing a C cornet, it would sound quite awful indeed. So why doesn't a concert full of instruments all pitched differently sound terrible?
Relative Pitch
The trick here is all in the writing. Solo pieces can be written in relative pitch, meaning your only limitation is to write within that instrument's range. What you hear may not always be the right key, but it will sound good by itself because you have no other parts behind it for a reference. It is often written out of key (transposed) to put more of the notes within the staff and make it easier to read, but without a tuning fork or a highly trained ear, you wouldn't know that it's out of key. With no other instruments playing (no reference), all the pitches would still sound correct, relative to each other. Being out of key only makes the overall pitch of the song higher or lower than normal.
Transposing to Concert Pitch
By contrast, for ensembles and concert pieces, each part is normally written transposed to the right pitch for each instrument, using the concert pitch system. Thus, B flat trumpet parts are written in B flat concert, transposed with the key of the song. If the key is C, for instance, all notes must be transposed up a half-step. Now, by playing these transposed notes, a B flat tuned instrument is playing in C concert pitch. Likewise, for an F-tuned instrument, the notes would be transposed down five half-steps for a song written in concert C. If the key is concert B flat, then a trumpet B flat part would not need transposed at all. A notation such as "horn in F" would indicate that F is the concert pitch tuning for that instrument's part. Incidentally, F is also the standard concert pitch for horns, as is B flat for clarinets, and so forth.
Transposing Instruments
Some instruments, on the other hand, have such high or low ranges that their music always needs transposed simply to avoid having the notes so far away from the staff, requiring many ledger lines. Such instruments can be kept in the same key, but transposed up or down by one or more octaves. Examples of instruments that must always be transposed due to their range are the piccolo and the contrabassoon.
Besides extreme ranges, there are other reasons why instruments might be written transposed from concert pitch, but all such instruments written this way are known as transposing instruments. For these, concert pitch is not used as the standard. Instruments that use concert pitch are known as non-transposing instruments.
Transposed Reading
There are certain skilled individuals who can read and play music outside of concert pitch. This means they have to use a different fingering depending on which key the music is in, in order to match the correct concert pitch. If I want to play a part labeled "trumpet in B flat" but I want to actually play tuned to C concert, for instance, I would have to do the transposition myself as I am reading the music, playing each note a half-step higher than what is written. It would be far easier, however, just to obtain a "trumpet in C" part for that song!
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Piracy Is Wrong, Period
The following was actually meant for a previous post (the one on being regarded as a computer genius) – however, I rambled so much in my initial write-up that I simply couldn't leave this all in the same post. It had become far too big, and a post all its own. As you may know, that other post was already long enough! This one is about media sharing and piracy. Touchy topic, I know. There's also some smaller bits about CD visors and generosity.
To get things rolling, I would like to point out that music, movies, and, in general, things you think shouldn't be free, are never actually free. Sure, you can get them for free online - illegally. If your local computer genius promises you a free copy of Photoshop, for instance, be very skeptical and ensure that they are not doing something that is against the law. I don't care what edition it is; enterprise, professional, teacher, student, or hobo - if it's free, there is a 90% chance of something illegal going on in obtaining it. I'm a computer genius - I should know, right?
The worst part that only adds insult to injury is that most of the sites claiming to offer such “free” goods are the worst sites to visit, if purely from a safety standpoint. They are often bloated with malware, and links to gambling and porn sites galore. It’s simply a nightmare, and it’s not made any better by the fact that the people who, often unknowingly, access these sites have no virus protection on their computer. They end up getting something for nothing, certainly - a free computer meltdown.
Just because the RIAA, or the standards bureau for whatever industry is involved, can't prosecute 99% of the cases of media piracy (or unauthorized reproduction and distribution, whatever you want to call it) that occur online is no reason to condone it. I certainly don't, and you shouldn't, either. Don't claim that the distribution system is flawed - come up with one that isn't. Don't claim ignorance - I've now rid you of that excuse. Just pay up.
Getting something for nothing is a ridiculous idea that is taught by a society addicted to gambling, massive debt (or rather, living beyond one's means) and other such vices. Don't be taken in by the lie. Anything worth having is worth earning or buying. Getting it for free may feel great now, but it destroys your character. Free things are temporary and will only decay and wear out with use. Character is powerful and eternal. It's easy to see which matters most.
Burning CD's and DVD's is illegal too. That's not necessarily piracy - piracy in the strictest sense is copying and then selling something you don't have explicit permission to copy (much less sell). However, unauthorized copying and distributing is just as illegal as piracy. That, and the fact that "piracy" is a lot less of a mouthful than "unauthorized reproduction and distribution" leads to the popular belief that the two are the same thing. It doesn't really matter though - one is just as illegal as the other.
Now, with CD's I admit there is certainly a valid reason why so much of it goes on, perhaps more so than in the other markets. Notice, I didn't say there is a valid reason why it is legitimate. It isn't legitimate in any sense. However, many people seem to think it's okay because it helps generate interest and that any "woe" over lost sales is ludicrous compared to the buzz factor gained. I won't get into that debate; but again, I must draw the line clear and simple, black and white: it's illegal. Does that word even mean anything these days? If it means something to you, or if you have any desire to consider yourself a decent citizen, don't do it.
Technically, copying (a.k.a. 'ripping') any copyrighted CD to your computer (yes, even one you paid for and own) is an unauthorized copy; so is burning a new CD so you can have one to play in your car. I feel this is going a bit far, myself. If I paid money and legitimately own my own copy of the media, have no intention to make it available to anyone else, and have the means and the know-how to prevent that from ever happening*, I don't see what the big deal is. It's the same music, I own it, and it's up to me how I decide to use it, as long as I'm the only one doing so.
*All you really need to do to prevent this media being taken without your consent is to always lock your car - if you leave CD's in your car they are likely to be fried anyway. I recently bought a CD visor for my car, and it has a warning label that says not to use it in any "closed cars" - I'm not joking! Am I mistaken, or would that be referring to all non-convertibles? And, if a convertible is not closed - that is, if the top is down - where would one put the visor?
However, though I do think that prohibiting personal CD burning is going a bit far, it's still the law. I would hardly be justified in this anti-piracy rant if I myself was guilty of it. In the past, I certainly was, no denying that – but it’s something I have been working hard to set right. My current copy of Photoshop is legitimate, for instance – something I couldn’t have claimed even two years ago. Do I think Photoshop is worth $700 dollars? Absolutely not! I settled for Photoshop CS2 on eBay and saved five hundred bucks. Oddly enough, I like my legitimate version better – and not just because my pirated copy was the much-older Photoshop 7 (though mostly for that reason).
The same can be said about the Producer’s Edition of FL Studio (Fruity Loops, a music producer’s flagship to you non-nerds). Unlike Photoshop, I believe it was worth every penny, and that’s why I paid for it. I have no interest in obtaining such a great piece of software, which no doubt cost many other software developers like myself untold hours of labor and effort, for free. That labor and effort is worth something to me – namely, precisely the amount I paid for it.
That’s the very idea of a market. You render services and obtain goods, or you render goods and obtain goods, or some other such interaction, where the value of the items exchanged is estimated to be the same by both parties. You never render nothing and get something; the very idea is absurd. How many things on which you would place a high personal value have you given away for free in the last year? Case in point.
Giving for the sake of giving is the ONLY way anyone ever gets anything for free, and by virtue of the idea, YOU are never on the receiving end. People give to the less fortunate because they're just that - needy. Maybe they ask for help, maybe they don't. If you have a roof over your head, running water, air conditioning, and even mediocre health, you are more blessed than probably 90% of the world's population.
It’s the problem of give versus get. Getting something for free is irrational, while giving something for free is quite rational, and the mark of any stable society - a virtue which is quite rare these days known as generosity. The modern idea of generosity seems limited to a certain time of year, and is far less affordable that way.
Piracy is not wrong just because making an unauthorized copy of a CD or DVD financially or even mentally hurts someone else, even indirectly. I ran across an article recently that seems to indicate the very opposite - that piracy actually helps music sales, of all things. No, piracy is wrong because the law says it’s wrong. Piracy is wrong because the United States has a moral code that everyone is subject to uphold - namely, the Constitution.
Constitutional law used to be absolute, meaning there was no reasoning around it or changing it on a whim, or because “times have changed.” These days the term 'obsolete' has replaced 'absolute.' But back when the U.S. was founded, the law was the law, like it or not. If you don’t live by it, don’t be surprised when no one else does, either. Know what that’s called? Anarchy. Set an example and start developing some character. Rid your life of the plague of piracy and the lie that you can get something for nothing. Start giving something for nothing and see where that gets you – see where that gets our society.
To get things rolling, I would like to point out that music, movies, and, in general, things you think shouldn't be free, are never actually free. Sure, you can get them for free online - illegally. If your local computer genius promises you a free copy of Photoshop, for instance, be very skeptical and ensure that they are not doing something that is against the law. I don't care what edition it is; enterprise, professional, teacher, student, or hobo - if it's free, there is a 90% chance of something illegal going on in obtaining it. I'm a computer genius - I should know, right?
The worst part that only adds insult to injury is that most of the sites claiming to offer such “free” goods are the worst sites to visit, if purely from a safety standpoint. They are often bloated with malware, and links to gambling and porn sites galore. It’s simply a nightmare, and it’s not made any better by the fact that the people who, often unknowingly, access these sites have no virus protection on their computer. They end up getting something for nothing, certainly - a free computer meltdown.
Just because the RIAA, or the standards bureau for whatever industry is involved, can't prosecute 99% of the cases of media piracy (or unauthorized reproduction and distribution, whatever you want to call it) that occur online is no reason to condone it. I certainly don't, and you shouldn't, either. Don't claim that the distribution system is flawed - come up with one that isn't. Don't claim ignorance - I've now rid you of that excuse. Just pay up.
Getting something for nothing is a ridiculous idea that is taught by a society addicted to gambling, massive debt (or rather, living beyond one's means) and other such vices. Don't be taken in by the lie. Anything worth having is worth earning or buying. Getting it for free may feel great now, but it destroys your character. Free things are temporary and will only decay and wear out with use. Character is powerful and eternal. It's easy to see which matters most.
Burning CD's and DVD's is illegal too. That's not necessarily piracy - piracy in the strictest sense is copying and then selling something you don't have explicit permission to copy (much less sell). However, unauthorized copying and distributing is just as illegal as piracy. That, and the fact that "piracy" is a lot less of a mouthful than "unauthorized reproduction and distribution" leads to the popular belief that the two are the same thing. It doesn't really matter though - one is just as illegal as the other.
Now, with CD's I admit there is certainly a valid reason why so much of it goes on, perhaps more so than in the other markets. Notice, I didn't say there is a valid reason why it is legitimate. It isn't legitimate in any sense. However, many people seem to think it's okay because it helps generate interest and that any "woe" over lost sales is ludicrous compared to the buzz factor gained. I won't get into that debate; but again, I must draw the line clear and simple, black and white: it's illegal. Does that word even mean anything these days? If it means something to you, or if you have any desire to consider yourself a decent citizen, don't do it.
Technically, copying (a.k.a. 'ripping') any copyrighted CD to your computer (yes, even one you paid for and own) is an unauthorized copy; so is burning a new CD so you can have one to play in your car. I feel this is going a bit far, myself. If I paid money and legitimately own my own copy of the media, have no intention to make it available to anyone else, and have the means and the know-how to prevent that from ever happening*, I don't see what the big deal is. It's the same music, I own it, and it's up to me how I decide to use it, as long as I'm the only one doing so.
*All you really need to do to prevent this media being taken without your consent is to always lock your car - if you leave CD's in your car they are likely to be fried anyway. I recently bought a CD visor for my car, and it has a warning label that says not to use it in any "closed cars" - I'm not joking! Am I mistaken, or would that be referring to all non-convertibles? And, if a convertible is not closed - that is, if the top is down - where would one put the visor?
However, though I do think that prohibiting personal CD burning is going a bit far, it's still the law. I would hardly be justified in this anti-piracy rant if I myself was guilty of it. In the past, I certainly was, no denying that – but it’s something I have been working hard to set right. My current copy of Photoshop is legitimate, for instance – something I couldn’t have claimed even two years ago. Do I think Photoshop is worth $700 dollars? Absolutely not! I settled for Photoshop CS2 on eBay and saved five hundred bucks. Oddly enough, I like my legitimate version better – and not just because my pirated copy was the much-older Photoshop 7 (though mostly for that reason).
The same can be said about the Producer’s Edition of FL Studio (Fruity Loops, a music producer’s flagship to you non-nerds). Unlike Photoshop, I believe it was worth every penny, and that’s why I paid for it. I have no interest in obtaining such a great piece of software, which no doubt cost many other software developers like myself untold hours of labor and effort, for free. That labor and effort is worth something to me – namely, precisely the amount I paid for it.
That’s the very idea of a market. You render services and obtain goods, or you render goods and obtain goods, or some other such interaction, where the value of the items exchanged is estimated to be the same by both parties. You never render nothing and get something; the very idea is absurd. How many things on which you would place a high personal value have you given away for free in the last year? Case in point.
Giving for the sake of giving is the ONLY way anyone ever gets anything for free, and by virtue of the idea, YOU are never on the receiving end. People give to the less fortunate because they're just that - needy. Maybe they ask for help, maybe they don't. If you have a roof over your head, running water, air conditioning, and even mediocre health, you are more blessed than probably 90% of the world's population.
It’s the problem of give versus get. Getting something for free is irrational, while giving something for free is quite rational, and the mark of any stable society - a virtue which is quite rare these days known as generosity. The modern idea of generosity seems limited to a certain time of year, and is far less affordable that way.
Piracy is not wrong just because making an unauthorized copy of a CD or DVD financially or even mentally hurts someone else, even indirectly. I ran across an article recently that seems to indicate the very opposite - that piracy actually helps music sales, of all things. No, piracy is wrong because the law says it’s wrong. Piracy is wrong because the United States has a moral code that everyone is subject to uphold - namely, the Constitution.
Constitutional law used to be absolute, meaning there was no reasoning around it or changing it on a whim, or because “times have changed.” These days the term 'obsolete' has replaced 'absolute.' But back when the U.S. was founded, the law was the law, like it or not. If you don’t live by it, don’t be surprised when no one else does, either. Know what that’s called? Anarchy. Set an example and start developing some character. Rid your life of the plague of piracy and the lie that you can get something for nothing. Start giving something for nothing and see where that gets you – see where that gets our society.
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