Music Theory 101 #4: The Basic Skills of Music; Rhythm: Pt. 1

Hello and welcome to the next part of the Music Theory 101 series. In our last post we finished our discussion on the first basic principle of music, pitch. For a complete coverage on that topic then click here for the complete list of posts, but here is the quick summary: Pitch is the first of 6 basic principles of music that helps define music. Pitch is the sound that we hear. Think of it as if it’s the clay for our sculpture because without pitch we would not have music. It is the foundation of sound and the foundation of music. Also as mentioned previously, it is measured in Hertz or waves per second. The more waves that pass by a point per second, the higher the frequency is produced and the higher the pitch is. Lower the number of waves that pass by the same point lowers the frequency and the pitch. Finally, the pitch is notated in music by placing notes on the staff. The two common staffs are treble and bass clefs. Each other indicates their own range of notes, and have their own shapes but remember that there are more than those two. There is one more thing I need to bring up. The thing I have yet to mention yet is key signatures, but I will make sure it has its own episode later on after I cover the basic six parts to music.

Music Terms:
Duration (Length)
Note values (Quarter note, eighth note, sixteenth note, etc.)
Dotted notes
Time Signature

Moving on from pitch is the next thing on is the length of the pitch, mentioned as duration in the first post. As I mentioned, duration is the length the pitch is produced. So it can be played at a certain rate (say 440 Hertz for example) for as long as you want it to be played. However, in order to keep everyone together, there must be a system to make sure that they are together. This is where beats come in. Beats or pulses help define what we feel drives it along. For example, if you've tapped your toe to a piece of music then you understand the way beats work. However, we need to begin by explaining the math behind beats before we combine everything.

Source: PocketMusician

Notes are broken down into values much like fractions are. The best place to start is the quarter note. The quarter note works like a fraction because you combine them and divide them. A quarter note can be subdivided into two eighth notes, or four sixteenth notes. Something good to know is the more it is subdivided, the more flags it will show. So a sixteenth note has 2 flags then an eighth note, which has one. Reversely, two quarter notes equal a half note and two half notes equal a whole note. Just as the smaller notes gain flags, the patter for these is not quite as obvious. The half note looks like a quarter note without a solid body. The whole note is like the half note but without a stem. These are not the only division however because there are other ways to combine them. The largest note value that is notated, but is not the largest possible is a breve (pronouced Brev) or a double whole note. The smallest most commonly seen is a 64th note, or a 16th note of a 16th note. These extremes are not usually used, but it helps to know they exist.

Another thing to understand is how dotted notes work. Dotted notes work as their value plus the value of half of itself. So if you have a dotted half note, then it is read as a half note plus the value of half of itself or a quarter note. So dotted half notes are worth a half note and a quarter note, or three quarter notes. Same for a dotted eighth note. It is worth an eighth note plus a sixteenth, or half its value. So it is worth 3 sixteenth notes in length.

4 notes per measure
quarter note gets the beat
Source: donrathjr.com

Now that I've explained how beats work, and how to visually see them, time to wrap everything together. The way most composers and musicians group beats into manageable groups is the time signature. The time signature is the fraction like section of the staff that shows us where the beats of the piece are. The time signature also makes it possible to break up music into measures. A measure is a section of the staff that is enclosed by two bars. Each bar contains the right amount of beats to follow the time signature.The trick to the time signature is understanding how it works. Each number represents a type of division of time. The numerator (the number on top) represents how many beats are in a measure. It can be any number you want but commonly things are either in 3, 4 or 6. The denominator (the bottom number) is what value gets the beat. There is a limited number that can be used for the denominator because these are the fractions. So in the example above 4/4 time means 4 notes are in a measure and the quarter note gets the beat.

Next time I will go into more detail about how these work together. Thanks for reading and sorry about the delay of this post!