Music Theory 101 #7: The Basic Skills of Music; Timbre

Ok, no more playing around! I will finish this post today. I've been busy with the convention, and being sick but today is the day I finish this post and get to finishing the series for the new one I have planned!

Continuing on from where we left off way too long ago, we shall talk about timbre, or more commonly called tone color. Timbre (pronouced tam-ber) is basically the characteristics that make any instrument sound the way it does. Think about it as if this would be the instrument's accent. Every language we speak has an accent to where it was created, and there is no difference with musical instruments. The major difference here is the science behind why it happens.


Looking on to why this happens, we have to get some what technical about how it works. The basic explanation is the sound wave itself has changed shapes, which then changes how we hear it. Think about the differences between the four basic sound waves: Sine/Cosine, Square, Triangle and Sawtooth. Each one has their own definite shape and sound very different. There is A LOT that is involved into explaining that, and if you are interested then click here to read what HyperPhysics.Edu have done on the topic. For those whom don't want all the details, there are two basics things to consider. The first way to analyze a sound wave is by analyzing the harmonic content of the sound, or how the overtones and harmonics are heard in relation to the primary sound wave. An organic sound wave (that being by a live instrument) is created by playing a primary frequency or fundamental pitch. That then triggers all the overtones, harmonics, and in the case of instruments with strings, similarly divided strings to play simultaneously. Sometimes these overtones and harmonics can be directly heard while other times aren't even recognizable. The second way is how the sound wave envelope is created. Every instruments has a certain way to make sound. For example, a cello normally has to bow a string. The energy to get started with the bow moving across the string helps define strings musicians because of the "lag" from the energy transfer. Compare to guitarist and pianist whom strike the string with their fingers, pick or by a hammer. The energy is transferred differently, and is creates a different sound. In case you are interested in hearing so, then check out this piece. It has played piano and bowed piano. 

After all the scientific gibberish followed by a crazy videos, what does this all mean for a simple composer? Why should timbre matter this much in my piece?

Because it can change to context of your piece extremely. The best example I think I've ever seen are these two videos: Both of a song called "Raining Blood" by Slayer. This first one is the studio version of the song by Slayer (in case the video doesn't do this automatically, skip to around 0:30 to avoid the intro)


Now let's show what happens when you go from electric guitar to another guitar-like instrument and play the same song:


The differences are really staggering here. This is a bit of an extreme juxtaposition of the song but it does show what is possible. Another example I like to share (that is a little more socially accepted) is orchestrated version of Stairway to Heaven. This one is by Triple Door Cello Quartet


Finally, let's look at one from a classical example. While this isn't the best example I can think of, this one combines the past topics to express itself.


If you would like another example, listen to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. He does a lot of things in terms of building timbres up and pushing the limits of the instruments and musicians. I hope this was worth the wait! I am really sorry about the delay on this one but between the convention (which I will share the videos once they're available to me) and being sick, I was loaded down. However, once we finish this series and then go into our next series: Explaining how all these topics and more convert into composing. Perhaps even some workshop like episodes and analysis. Also, if anyone is interested in listening to me break down music books and explain them differently then let me know! Thanks for reading!

Music Theory 101 #5: The Basic Skills of Music; Rhythm: Pt. 2

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Music Theory 101 series on ASMTB! I hate that last week was a dud but I had a lot going on I had to take care of (mostly pertaining to updating the site soon!) and posting sort of slipped my mind. I am really sorry about that, but I hope this episode and the updates will make up for this little mishap!

Today's lesson is to continue talking about rhythm in comparison to the six basics of music. If you would like to follow along with the previous ones then I made a tab above (If you're reading this from the newsletter then head on over and show us some love). As I mentioned in the last post, duration is the length a pitch is produced. I failed to bring up that it is not strictly related to pitches, but can measure rests as well. Rests are something that are not commonly mentioned because they are simpler than pitches, however they have an equal amount of importance compared relative to music. Music can be seen as a very carefully planned balance of sound and silence. Composers such as John Cage and Penderecki made sure that it was clear composers and musicians should know these differences. If you are interested in hearing these pieces, check out "4:33" by John Cage and "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" by Penderecki. Both of them are earfuls for two different reasons! Digressing from modern music and back onto my last post, we see that I explained how music is divided counting wise and what the time signature is. Now we need to continue and explain more on these concepts.

Music Terms:

~Dotted Rhythm
~Simple & Compound Meter
~Tuplets (Triplets, Duplet, etc.)

Credit: Music-Mind.com

Music does not only divide two ways, but it is possible to divide it into more divisions. The first way is to use dotted rhythm. Dotted rhythms is when you add a dot after the note. The dot represents adding half of the original value to the note. So if you add a dot to a half note, then you have a half note PLUS another quarter note, making it equal to three quarter notes. Also, adding a dot after a whole note makes it a half note added onto the whole note. If you want to add more dots, then you add half of the last value. So a double dotted half note is one half note, PLUS a quarter note PLUS an eighth note. So you half three and a half quarter notes.

The uses of this makes it possible to have compound meters. The best way to explain compound meter is through actual examples. If we take a look at most music, one can feel music in a two or as in four. This is called simple meter. It is either feeling a beat, or pulse, as "one & two &" or something that can be subdivided into half. All of these include 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, or anything related to them. Compound meter comes into play for meters such as 6/8, or 12/8 where the beat is broken into 3. For a more classical and audible examples of this, listen to Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" compared to his "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" (Click on the names to hear audio). Eine Kleine is in a simple meter because the division of the beat is in two, versus Jesu which is in 12/8 and is subdivided in three.

Credit: Scaletrainer.com

If you do not want to write a piece that is completely one way the entire time, you can use tuplets. Tuplets is the generic term used to define a rhythm in a different rhythmic subdivision. The most common example of these are triplets. Triplets are when you fit three notes in the space of two, such as fitting three quarter notes within a two quarter notes. The reverse is true as well, you can fit 2 notes in the space of 3. Using a duple, you can fit two notes within three. It is even possible to fit more in a space.

Before this drags on much longer, I'm going to wrap up rhythm here. Later on, I'll write a full post on polyrhythms and other cool things one can use rhythm for. For now however, this will be the end of this discussion and I'll start with the next topic of this series. Until then, this is Sulli signing off! 

Music Theory 101 #2: The Basic Skills of Music; Pitch Pt. 1

Hello and welcome back everyone! In the previous post from this series, I explained the basic principles of sound and how they transfer to music. I talked about the difference between Frequency, Amplitude, Duration and Timbre and how they affected the sound wave. This now leads me towards our next discussion and the one that will fuel the first part of this series: Why does all the science "mumbo jumbo" matters in a lesson series on music? I will begin to go into depth on each of the topics from an introduction to music sort of manner.

Just as a heads, this will probably take a few posts because I am putting a lot of detail in explaining everything. Just be aware that it appears dense but in actuality, it is just detail. I'm going to test out this system of highlighting key terms and listing them at the beginning of the post and see how they go. Let me know what you think of this method because I may keep using it for a while. Also, don't forget to subscribe! We love everyone who reads our posts but we need people to subscribe to our posts! All you have to do is submit your email in the box to the right and check confirm from a confirmation email. You will get emails of when we post an article and it helps us keep track of who all is reading our work regularly. Also, in the near future there will be a bio page and a link to creating a master list of our posts for your convenience. So without further ado, let's head on over to start explaining pitch!

Key terms:
-Pitch (Frequency)
-Musical Alphabet
-Octave
-Accidentals
-Sharp
-Flat
-Enharmonic

If you are going to learn to read, play or write music, you need to understand the six basic principles of every language: Pitch, Timbre, Articulations, Dynamics, Rhythm and Form (though not in this order). Now, this goes with saying that there are many different opinions and many different interpretation of how to classify basic musical concepts. Books will take several different approaches towards explaining this information. Consider this my way of saying if someone tells you something different or they teach it to you in a different way then that is ok. As long as you understand the general idea then they are allowed to do that. So then, let us head on and take a look at half of these and apply them to music!

Let us start with Pitch, or as it was called in the last episode, frequency. This is the most commonly seen parts of music even if people do not realize it. As we discussed previously, frequency was defined as the amount of waves that travel over a point during a certain time. This is read in Hertz or waves per second. Using that same 440 example as in the last post, there are four hundred and forty sound waves that go to our ear drums per second. Same for any other example you can think of from 1 to infinity. The average person can hear from 20 to 20k (20,000) hertz. As far of a spectrum as this is, music is not a random assortment of pitches. In fact, it follows a pattern of twelve (12) notes in a specific order starting with the musical alphabet.

The musical alphabet is generally defined as the first seven (7) letters of the English alphabet; A, B, C, D, E, F, G. The placement of these notes all vary in different ways depending on the clef and the location on the staff in general and changes, but let us keep it simple, seeing there is a lot of information for one page.

Picture from NetPlaces.com post on The Language of Music

Traditionally, the pitches will fall under the same way a piano is laid out, such as the picture to the left. It is traditionally seen starting on C, however we will use the example in the picture. The bracket starts on A and by going up or down, depending on how the music is written, but you wind back up on A. The genius behind the system is the notes are not the same pitch, but sound higher or lower. The far left C is higher than the C on the far right. The range of eight notes in a row is called an octave. So from the A on the left to the middle A, you have traveled an octave. Same for going from this middle A to the right most A, or any range of notes, as long as they travel to the same letter.

Picture from Penn State's Virtual Piano
Click to expand 

You may be wondering "If he said there was 12 notes, why has he only listed 7"? There is a simple answer to this question: Accidentals, or in the case of the piano all of the black keys between the white keys. They make up accidentals, or pitches that are not within a given key signature. Before we go completely off tangent, I will explain key signatures later but accidentals are important to understand now. Accidentals show to the person reading the music if you should make the original note sharp (#; raise the note up a step) or make the note flat (b; lower the note a step). So for example, we see an F on the keyboard and to the right of it is a black key. If you went up to the black key from F, you went from F up to F sharp (F#). However, looking at the G, there are black keys on both sides of it. You can go from G up to G sharp (G#) or from G down to G flat (Gb). An important concept to understand would be enharmonic spelling, or notes that are the same pitch, but spelled differently. So, as stated before, F# and Gb are the same pitch but they are spelled differently. This will be an important concept soon, however we need to move on from here.

Before I drag this post on for too long, I feel I should split it up into two posts. As always, if you like the post then subscribe and let us know! We love feedback as much as we love subscriptions! Also, for those whom have visited the page have noticed, I have a donation button up. I have a couple of projects I am trying to start up (one being a full video series for these articles and the other being donating custom rosin to the group of students I volunteer/intern with) but I need everyone's help! The more money we can raise, the better we can fund things like this to help benefit arts programs and arts education. I am considering a kick starter but I haven't completely decided on if I'm going to go about it that way. We will have to wait and see.