Basic Notes in Music Theory The Musicians Alphabet Let’s explore the element of music theory notes. Music notes are the symbol used to convey several pieces of information to the musician. Without music notes you would not be able to get every one on the same page when you wanted to play music with someone else. This section touches on some overall basic information for  notes. The Notes: The note symbol is used to convey the following...

Your Journey in Music Rhythm Introduction: Your journey to learn and master the music theory  rhythm begins in this section of the Music Learning Workshop. The music  rhythm workshop provides us with the basics needed to get rhythm down cold. below we  link to the beginner series of lessons. We start with the essential building blocks of how to fundamentally know rhythm and then expand our knowledge of rhythm music theory and know how until we...

Quick Reference Table for Major and Minor Keys Constructing a Music Theory Key Signature The starting point for Key Signatures is with the key of C. It has no flats or sharps in the major scale. Refer to the music scales page for definitions of major scale. The table below shows the development of keys by going up a fifth. The minor key signatures are a minor 3rd down from the major key. There are three types of minors which are shown here to...

Your Instrument and Applying Music Theory With each Musical Instrument there are several factors that are associated with learning music theory.   Each instrument has it own unique way of addressing how notes will be played, what the configuration of fingering for a scale will look like, playing a broken chord staccato or legato, and other such nuances. But what usually controls the vast majority of learning an instrument is the specific...

Basic Key Signatures – Where Music Theory becomes the Musicians Playground Let’s explore the element of music theory key signatures.  Music Key Signatures (Keys for short) are the playground used by chords and scales.  They provide the structure for moving around the harmonic system with chords and scales. Thus giving definition to the movement of music.  The key signature defines and places sharp and flat notes with in a system...

How Note Beat Relationships Work with the Time Signature Here’s where we begin to get it together in counting rhythm beats.  The fun is about to begin. We are going to spend a lot of time here, because this is the foundation that will launch you to new heights in your ability to play music. A beat gets one count.  4/4 Time Signature Let look at time signature of 4/4. Quarter note gets one beat and one count. So our basic counting is “one...

How to Work with Rests In Counting Here are the three things you have to remember about counting rhythm with rests. A Rest means silence A note is not held over into a rest  Once you get it, it is easy Let’s get started and count rests in rhythm. First we’ll start by looking at 6/8 time and eighth notes and rests. If we had a eighth note and an eighth rest, then we would play and release.  Look at what we’ve done here with rests in...

Practice and Answer Sheets The symbol practice sheet is not a test; it is an aid that you can complete as many times as necessary to practice note symbol recognition. Click on this link to bring up the sheet that asks you in words what the symbol should be and you can fill in with the right symbol. A pdf file that you can print and complete. Music Note Symbol Practice Once you have tried to complete it you can then access this pdf file for the...

Terms Used to Define Rhythm How to Give Meaning to Rhythm w/ Definitions To explore music we have to define rhythm with characteristics and terms that we can recognize with sight and convey meaning to others. Several items and descriptions are used for our rhythm definitions. As we encounter them, don’t be intimidated by these definitions they will become clear as we progress through our efforts to learn music. As we encounter them, don’t be...

Learn to Recognize and Use the Symbols of Music Notes Symbols: The music note symbols are similar in shape and easy to recognize. We need to start with some basic symbols to be able to work with rhythm. We start with only showing symbols for music notes here. We will further define relationships in Music Math Theory. If you are familiar with notes, rests, beams, and ties you can skip to the next section. But review the symbols so you know what...

Rhythm Subdividing in Two Part Beats Here we will move into dividing beats into parts. We start with Defining how we divide beats How to count a divided beat.  Start with subdividing the beat by two. One beat gets two counts. Previously you’ve probably become familiar with rhythm for straight beats. Then you explored what happens when we use notes which take up more than one beat. We also added rests to allow for silence as part of the...

Beat and Time for Note Symbols So let’s explore the music theory math next and give all these symbols some meaning. Music Theory and Music Math: Music is mathematical and is in the rhythm we learn here and the sound pitches we will learn about in the music staff. Here we start with the concept of note time value. Our basic understanding starts with the symbols used above where we can assign time to the note. First let’s look at the relationship...