The Rudiments of music are the basic elements of music theory. They include musical notation, pitch, time, scales, key signatures, time signatures, and intervals, together with their typical uses in melody and harmony. The Rudiments are those elements of theory that are normally learned, more or less explicitly, as part of learning to play any musical instrument, as distinct from the more abstract aspects of theory that would be studied as a more academic, discipline.

Intermediate Rudiments of MusicThe Key Signature is the number of sharps or flats in the left margin of the staff. There are technical reasons for the construction of the individual keys but these are beyond the scope of this tutorial. Often music is

titled in a MAJOR or MINOR key. For example, "Sonata in C Minor". The student needs to know what this means, how many sharps or flats are in the key and where

they are. Key signatures are bound by solid rules. For instance, if a piece is in F major, there is always one flat and it is always on B.

Minor keys follow the same rules as major keys. For each major there is a relative minor. Basically, major keys are 'happy' and minor keys are 'sad'. A song like "Happy Birthday" is in a major key and a piece like Chopin's "Funeral March" is in a minor key.

Try this experiment. Do not play any sharps or flats. Play the scale for low C to C', up and down. Now play from A to A', up and down. Do you hear the difference? You have just played a C major scale and an A minor scale. There are actually three scales in any minor key but that is a bit advanced for this text. Suffice it to say that the A minor scale with no accidentals is called a Natural Minor. There are also Harmonic and Melodic minor scales but these have some accidental alterations in them. Historically early musical scales were based on Modes which were natural scales beginning on a specific note and ending on the same or another note.

Rudiments of MusicThe Staff - music is written on a staff that has five lines and four spaces.

The letter names of the lines are E, G, B, D, F. It's easily remembered by the sentence: