Lesson Six: The Clef Signs

The clef signs are basic to reading music because they indicate the exact location on the five lines and four spaces of a particular note. Their practical use, however, has been obscured because the treble (high) sign has become an icon for the idea of music and the bass (low) clef sign is generally ignored as long as possible.

Pianists are fortunate that they have only two clef signs to observe. Cellists deal with three: A treble or G clef fixing the location of the G above middle C, a bass or F clef fixing the location of the F below middle C, and a third clef sign resembling a Gothic B which fixes middle C on the fourth line from the bottom (see cello score).

If you read music mostly by intervals (the distance between the notes), you will not fall into the trap of thinking bass clef is "left hand", a dangerous foreign territory. After all, we only have A-B-C-D-E-F-G, and then we start over. The notes are written on the lines and spaces. From any line to the nearest space up or down is a neighbor note or a second. If you know where one note is located on the music staff (the lines and spaces), it is not difficult to find the others.

Vocabulary

Clef sign: A symbol in written music showing the fixed location of a particular note.

Treble clef: Also called G clef, used for notes from about middle C and higher. The scroll of the sign curls around the line which indicates the G above middle C.

Bass clef: Also called F clef, used for notes from about middle C and lower. The two dots beside the symbol are on either side of the line which indicates the F below middle C.

Staff: The lines and spaces used in music notation.

Illustration from A Workbook for Organic Piano Playing copyright 1977 Michaele Benedict

Lesson Three: Twelve Tones

“This is an ancient way of teaching, using the simplest language and the situations of everyday life. This means the student should teach himself.” Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

There are twelve tones in music. We will start with five tones on the white keys of the piano, since the black keys (and even some of the white keys) have more than one name. a bit like the characters in a Russian novel.

Notice that the black keys are arranged in groups of two and three. The key directly to the left of the two black keys is C. Although the way music is written is the same throughout much of the world, the keys you play and the notes you read on the page may have different names in different countries: Instead of C,D,E,F,G they may be called Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So, for instance. The advantage of thinking of these five notes as the first, second, third, fourth and fifth degrees of a scale is that it gives us a sense of distance between the notes.

Reading by pattern or interval is the quickest and most accurate way to read music, and it involves more right-brain activity than the old way of thinking letters. Reading patterns also is more likely to produce real phrases than note-note-note playing by letters. However, we need the letters for points of reference so we don’t have to say “the white key to the left of the set of two black keys” every time we mean C.

So put the thumb of your right hand on C, and the adjacent fingers of the right hand on the neighboring keys. If you are still using the virtual keyboard, you will have to use your imagination, since the keys on your monitor will be too small to fit under your fingers.

Play the 1-2-3-4-5 pattern you sang in lesson one and listen carefully to each sound. The fingers of the right hand are numbered 1-2-3-4-5. Now put the little finger of the left hand on the C and play the same pattern. The notes you play will still be C-D-E-F-G, but the finger numbers are mirrors of the right hand finger numbers. The left thumb is finger one, so you will be playing the pattern with fingers 5-4-3-2-1 of the left hand.

If you are feeling bold, you can play “I Know Where I’m Going” , temporarily substituting finger numbers for notes. Don’t forget the rests. And if you want to play along with the cuckoo in the video, the notes he is chirping are C and A.

Lesson Two: The Beat Goes On

Rhythm, phrasing, expression

For lesson two, you need to know how to take your pulse or have access to a clock or timer which ticks.

Try to tap your foot in rhythm to either the ticking clock or to your pulse.

Each tap will be a beat (like a heartbeat).

Then count out loud as you tap:

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

Once you have that down, try counting skipping the second beat:

One () three, four.

One () three, four.

The skipped beats are called rests in music.

Now chant, in time to your tapping foot:

I know where I’m going (rest) (rest)

I know who’s gone with me (rest) (rest)

I know who I love (rest) (rest) (rest)

Who knows who I’ll marry? (rest) (rest)

Each line is a musical phrase.

If you are able to sing your 1-2-3-4-5 from Lesson One, you can add the melody to these words.

1-1-2-3-1-1 (rest two beats)

3-3-4-3-3-2- (rest two beats)

5-5-5-5-1- (rest three beats)

2-3-4-3-3-2 (rest two beats and repeat)

What is the mood of the lyric? If it seems happy to you, you may speak or sing it faster (if you’re still singing with your pulse, your pulse will speed up.) If you’re singing with the clock, you may have to step away so that the clock doesn’t slow you down to its speed or tempo.

If the lyric seems sad, you might want to speak or sing it more slowly.

Rhythm in music is more physical than mental, which is why you need to teach yourself to tap your foot in time with the beat or on the beat. All rhythm in music is beats, whether extended (as lasting more than one beat), divided (more than one sound to a beat) or silent.

For Lesson 3, you will need a keyboard. A toy piano or electronic keyboard will do, or you can start out with the virtual keyboard at http://play-piano.org/play_online_piano_piano.html. For now, please ignore the letters and just experiment with high notes (to your right) and low notes (to your left).

Vocabulary, Lesson Two:

Rhythm: Musical time

Beat: A unit of musical time

Rest: A silence in musical time

Phrase: A musical idea

Lyric: The words to a song.

Tempo: The rate of musical time (fast or slow)

Oliver Sachs and me

Oliver Sachs, in his book Musicophilia, says that the love of music is universal among human beings, that "it lies so deep in human nature that one must think of it as innate". Citing "biophilia" or the love of living things, Sachs says "Perhaps musicophilia is a form of biophilia, since music itself feels almost like a living thing."

I have always thought of music as a living, organic entity common to all of us. I have taught thousands of piano students and have never encountered one who could not learn to play, though I have encountered many who THOUGHT they could not play (or sing, or write, or draw), no matter what difficulty they had to overcome. Dyslexia, for instance, makes reading music harder but not impossible.

The psychological, emotional and even physical benefits of playing an instrument are well documented, so I won't dwell on them. But I will tell you a bit about myself: I am a member of Music Teachers National Association and of California Association of Professional Music Teachers, with state and national certification. I have a California credential in piano. I am an emerita of Skyline College's music department and still play with a community orchestra and chorus.