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Music Theory Unplugged By Dr. David Salisbury

Rhythm (Ungrouped) Ifthiswasalltheexplanationneededwecouldstoprightherebutwithoutgroupingsandlenghtsofnotesitwouldbelikethissentencewithallthewordsruntogethermakingitimpossibletoreadandunderstand. (Grouped) If this was all the explanation needed we could stop right here but without groupings and lengths of notes it would be like this sentence with all the words run together making it impossible to read and understand. One way this is achieved in music is through the use of meter or time signature, units or groupings of pulse or beats.

1.1.1 Meter or Time Signature Most music uses a time keeping principle called pulse or beat. This is the equivalent of the ticking of a clock in other words a regular and repetitive measurement of time. In music the pulse is commonly grouped into units such as two, three and four, and is normally indicated by a fraction called a meter or time signature at the beginning of a piece or section of music. If we use a grouping of four pulses or beats as a unit and indicate it visually by two vertical lines as discussed earlier in this chapter this is called a measure or bar. If the pulse or beat represents four even divisions of the measure or bar as in any fractional situation you would end up with four equal quarters of the original whole unit and this is shown by the fraction 4/4 or four quarters which equals one if you divide four into four. Similarly if we use a grouping of four pulses or beats as a unit and divide the whole unit into two even divisions of the measure or bar you would show this as the fraction 2/2. To clarify this a bit more the top number or the numerator of the fraction represents the number of pulses or beats in each measure or bar and the bottom number or the denominator of the fraction represents the value of each beat in the measure or bar. So that when the measure or bar is divided into three even divisions of quarters this is shown by the fraction 3/4. The top number may then be an odd number but the bottom number must always be an evenly divisible number such as 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32. Note each subsequent denominator is twice the previous number. Although there are some more points to discuss regarding meter or time signature the need to explain notes and note values is just as important as there is a direct relationship between the two elements.

1.1.2 Notes and Note Values


We must digress for a moment to clarify a quandary that exists in Australian music training and that is the perpetuation and continuation of the British style of nomenclature for the names of notes and note values. It has already been established that the units of measurement in music occur as fractions as shown above in the discussion of meter or time signature. Yet most beginning music students in Australia are indoctrinated into an archaic system that uses the terms semi-breve, minum, crotchet, quaver and semi-quaver to indicate note values of whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note and sixteenth note respectively. Where do these terms come from? Dennis Collins has compiled a brief list of the etymology of the word crotchet:

[ME. a. F. crochet hook, dim. of croche crook, hook: see crochet.] 7. a. Mus. A symbol for a note of half the value of a minim, made in the form of a stem with a round (formerly lozenge-shaped) black head; a note of this value. 1782 Burney Hist. Mus. (ed. 2) II. iv. 303 Notes in a lozenge form: these, whether the heads were full or open, were at first called minims: but when a still quicker note was thought necessary, the white or open notes only had that title and the black were by the English [called] Crotchets: a name given by the French with more propriety, from the hook or curvature of the tail, to the Quaver,

(D. Collins - http://lists.shsu.edu/pipermail/finale/2001-May/028960.html) Although there is visual relationship to the word crotchet being the shape of a note with a hook on it (an eighth note not a quarter note) there is no relationship musically especially as has just been pointed out that all of the music we are involved with occurs within a meter so consequently fractional names are more appropriate. Jon Fitzgerald states in his book as a note at the bottom of page two, “The term ‘semi’breve seems a little odd for what we now call a whole note. It relates to earlier times when a note called a ‘breve’ (written ll ll) was the longest note, and had a duration double that of the semibreve” (Fitzgerald, 1999, Hazelmount, Lismore). It is proposed that for the purposes of eliminating further confusion over the names of note values that the use of fractional names is less confusing in the long run in that they relate more clearly to the meter or time signature aspect of the music in which they occur. As mentioned earlier another aspect of visually representing music is when each pitch occurs over time and how long a pitch occurs over time. This is called rhythm and duration or notes and note values (see Dr. Blood’s charts and explanation below, Examples 1.8 & 1.9). Notice that two specific terms have been highlighted with bold specifically the occurrence of crotchet in the English column and croche in the French column to emphasize the conflict between the two similar sounding names having two different note values:


Chart of Note and Rest Signs

English American Italian French German Sign Rest

number equal to

1 semibreve

breve double whole note breve

carrée (meaning square)

Doppeltaktnote 0.5

semibreve whole note semibreve ronde (meaning round)

Ganze Taktnote 1

minim half note minima bianca

blanche (meaning white)

Halbe Halbenote Halbe Taktnote

2

crotchet quarter note

semiminima nera

noire (meaning black)

Viertel

or

4

quaver eighth note croma croche (meaning hook)

Achtel

8

semiquaver sixteenth note semicroma

double-croche (meaning double hook)

Sechzehntel

16

demisemiquaver thirty-second note

biscroma triple-croche (meaning triple hook)

Zweiunddreissigstel

32

hemidemisemiquaver sixty-fourth note semibiscroma

quadruple-croche (meaning quadruple hook)

Vierundsechzigstel

64

rest rest pausa silence pause Pause

(Example 1.8) (Dr. Brian Blood – http://www.dolmetsch.com)


Dr. Blood then goes on to demonstrate the three essential components of notes and note values, note-heads, stems and flags.

1.1.2.1 Note-heads, Stems, and Flags

In music the denomination of 'coinage' is the note or note sign. One can use either term. Each note sign is a construct of three distinct parts. The note-head, whose position on the stave actually sets its pitch, can be open (white) or closed (black). For all notes except the double whole note and whole note, each note has a stem and, for the notes of shorter time-value, a flag or tail (one flag for a quarter note, two for a eighth note, and so on). The stem can rise from the note-head, in which case it lies on the right-hand side of the note-head, or fall from the note-head, in which case it lies on the left hand side of the note-head (see the two quarter notes).

In either case, the flag lies on the right-hand side of the stem (see the two eighth notes).

(Example 1.9)(Dr. Brian Blood – http://www.dolmetsch.com)

1.1.2.2 Simple and Compound Time Now that we can recognize the note values in the following examples, we will continue with the discussion of meter or time signature to explain another aspect of meter that is the concept of simple and compound meter or time. Simple time include meters of 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 2/8, 3/8, 4/8 this is due to the fact that each pulse is equal to a simple divisible note such as 2/4 which has two beats each the value of a quarter (see Example 1.10). Beats 1 2

2/4

(Example 1.10)


Compound time includes meters of 6/8, 9/8, 12/8, which is often felt in groups of three (see Example 1.11). Group-Pulse 1 2 Beats 1 2 3 4 5 6

6/8

(Example 1.11)

1.1.2.3 Dotted Notes In the example above the quarter notes have a dot beside them. The use of the dot is a short cut for showing that the two quarter notes in (Example 1.11) are longer by one eighth note each so instead of writing them as shown in (Example 1.12),

(Example 1.12) The dot is used as a short cut and represents half the value of any note that it follows. So one half of one quarter is one eighth, and therefore the full value of the note is now three eighth notes in length or the value of one and one-half beats. So a half-note with a dot equals three whole beats, an eighth note with a dot equals three quarters of a beat and so on.

1.1.2.4 Ties and Beams In (Example 1.12) the use of the tie has now been introduced as a way of lengthening the value or any note. Another visual tool that we use, to show the grouping of smaller subdivisions to larger values is the use of beams. Note that in the chart below (Example 1.13) the top note is a double whole note (breve) worth eight beats or pulses in total. This is then represented by two whole notes, four half notes, eight quarter notes and sixteen eighth notes that in this example are beamed in groups of two to correspond to each quarter above them. The sixteenth notes are then beamed in groups of four,


still corresponding to a single quarter note, by two beams because a sixteenth notes have two flags as shown previously. Finally the thirty-second notes are in beamed groups of eight, still corresponding to a single quarter note, by three beams because thirty-second notes have three flags as shown earlier. The possibility of going further with this concept exists for example sixty-fourth notes would have four flags or beams and so on.

(Example 1.13) (Dr. Brian Blood – http://www.dolmetsch.com)

1.1.2.5 Triplet figures (quarter, eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second) There is another rhythmical element that needs to be explained and can be a difficult one for students to understand and that is the triplet figure. This is the concept of placing three notes in the space where two notes normally occur. Dick Grove gives the following explanation of triplets in his August 15, 1998 notes.

‘The normal definition of a triplet figure is to execute three attacks in the time normally allotted to two attacks. Therefore it is possible to find:

a. whole note triplets (very seldom found, and only in super-fast cut-time tempos)

b. half note triplets (again, rare and only in fast cut-time Broadway type tempos)

c. quarter note triplets (subject of this article) d. eighth note triplets (the most common of triplet figures) e. sixteenth note triplets (found in embellishments of melodies) f. thirty-second note triplets (rare - found in slow ballads)


g. any of the above with rests substituted for notes (complicates the triplet)’

(http://www.dickgrove.com/dgenl/MusicNotesAugust15th1998.htm) Below is an example of how triplets relate within a 4/4 measure of music (see Example 1.14a).

(Example 1.14a) One of the ways to understand how a slower triplet works across the pulse is to use the next higher subdivision and to tie the notes together to get the feel of the sower triplet. The best example is the universally misplaced quarter note triplet. First get the feel of the eighth note triplet and then tie each two notes together to understand the placement of the quarter note triplet (see Example 1.14b)


(Example 1.14b)

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