Beyond Notes
(Some other musical Shapes)
(entry for 7/12/2024)
As mentioned in the last post, about Note Shapes, the above picture is not of any kind of note. It's a 'Final Barline.' It's time now to go over some of the shapes used in music other than notes themselves, and get rid of some mis-impressions and misinformation that exist on the subject.
The first thing to do is to clear up some confusion over the words 'bar' and 'barline.' In the USA the two words are sometimes uses interchangeably, as though they both meant the same thing. They don't.
To make matters clearer, let's go for a moment to the usage in the rest of the English-speaking world. In England, etc., the word 'bar' means the same thing that those of us in the USA mean when we say 'measure.' So I guess we'd better explain what we mean when we say 'measure'!
The simplest way to describe a measure is to say that it the horizontal space between two barlines. But since a barline is defined as the marker between bars (!), the circular reasoning of those two definitions is no help at all.
So to really define 'measure' and 'bar,' we need to introduce another concept: meter.
Now this kind of meter has nothing to do with the metric system! It has to do with counting. A marching song, for example, matches the rhythm of a pair of feet actually marching: left right left right. Or one two one two. Thus a measure or bar mimicking this kind of rhythm would contain two 'beats.' If each beat consists of the length of one quarter note, for example, the resulting meter would look like this:
On the other hand, if each beat consists of the length of one half-note, the meter indication (also called a Time Signature) would look like this:
And finally, the most familiar meter of all; if the rhythm is four beats per measure (or four beast per bar), and if each beat is a quarter note, then the time signature will look like this:
Now the most common way of reading that last example is to say, "Four four time." But that's technically incorrect. Since each beat of the measure is represented by a quarter note, the correct way of saying it is "Four quarter time." This may seem like a picky difference, but it helps us realize what we're really counting.
The two-two time example (above) then ought to be said as "Two halves time," or "Two half" time. But absolutely nobody says it that way. Even though that's what it means. So I guess we're going to have to give in and say it the familiar way, even though it's wrong.
It might help some if the meter indications looked like this instead:
In fact, some composers and arrangers do use these kinds of time signatures. It hasn't really caught on, yet, but I wish it would. It would make the explanation of 'triple meters' in a later post so much easier!
Another piece of mis-information has to do with a very strange symbol:
Now this means exactly the same thing as 4/4 time, and it's sometimes thought to mean 'Common Time,' as 4/4 time is indeed the most common time signature of all. But it doesn't mean that. The truth is much more interesting!
In the Middle Ages, in fact soon after the time of Mr. Guido, there were only two time signatures available: a complete and perfect circle, and a circle with a chunk cut out of it. The first one meant 'Perfect Time,' since it consisted of 3 beats per measure. (Holy Trinity. Get it?) The broken circle meant 'Imperfect Time.' It meant any number of beats per measure other than three. That imperfect circle eventually became the letter C seen in the example above, and it doesn't mean 'Common Time.' It means 'Imperfect Time'! But nobody calls it that. Oh, well. Also, it has come to mean specifically 4/4 time, rather than just any signature other than 3. (The 'perfect circle' time signature, meaning three beats per measure, was eventually abandoned, about six hundred years ago or so. Only the 'imperfect circle' stayed on, becoming the letter C, probably due to a simple misunderstanding of what it meant. Too bad the gap wasn't facing straight up or to the left! Then we wouldn't have had any excuse for thinking it was a letter. (By the way, the perfect circle time signature, now obsolete, meant the same thing as the 3-halves signature above.)
Now, after a rather long detour through the meanings and backgrounds of various time signatures, we can at last define what we mean by the word 'measure.' (Or 'bar.') The measure is the amount of horizontal space needed to complete one instance of the time signature.
Huh?
OK, let me get more specific. Let's say the time signature is 4/4, or a C. In that case one instance consists of four quarter notes, or two half notes, or one whole note. Or, for that matter, eight eighth notes. Or any combination thereof; for example: One half note, two eighth notes, and one quarter note. At the end of that many notes, you draw a vertical stroke, called a barline, and that's the end of one measure (bar). Then you begin another measure and start the count all over again. Etc. Etc.
If you change the meter during a piece, you revise the count, and the size of the following measures, accordingly. That's why there's a barline just to the left of all the time signatures in the above examples. It's best practice to change meters only at the beginning of a new measure. If you think about it for a couple of moments, you'll see why.
Now, you've met two types of barlines. One is the 'final barline' at the head of this post. It's used only at the very end of the final measure in a piece of music. The second is the simple barline in each example so far, above. But there are at least two more kinds of barline, and here they are. First a double barline, then a dashed barline.
A dashed barline is used most often to show sub-divisions of a measure when the meter and/or the note patterns are complex. (There are other uses also, but we'll not go into them at this time.) And a double barline is most often used when the key signature of a piece changes.
So we'd now better talk about key signatures!
A key signature is made up of either sharps or flats (rarely both), showing what 'key' a piece is in. For example, a piece written in D major or B minor has two sharps in its key signature. Here's what that looks like (for treble clef), complete with double barline in front of the signature:
Sharps and flats are alterations in the pitch of a note. A sharp is used to indicate that a pitch is slightly higher than the pitch of the unaltered note, and a flat is used to indicate that a pitch is slightly lower than the unaltered note. (Please be aware that the symbol always comes before, that is, to the left of, the note head.)
Sharp:
Flat:
This is an A-flat (ditto).
If the sharp or flat is placed directly in front of (to the left of) a note head, it alters the pitch of that note. It is then called an accidental, meaning the opposite of a constant. (Because it applies only to that note, not to all notes of that pitch in the whole piece.) The sharp or flat symbols in a key signature are not called accidentals, contrary to much popular belief. They're called 'elements' of the key signature. They're not accidentals in this case, because they are constant; that is, they pertain to every instance of that note throughout the piece, or until there is a change of key signature.
When music is played on a fretted instrument, or one with keys, the sharp means that the note is played using the next higher fret or key than the one that note-name usually means.
Likewise, a flat means the note is played using the next lower fret or key.
There is also another accidental: the 'natural.' This cancels a previous sharp or flat, whether that previous sharp or flat is in the key signature or somewhere earlier in the same measure where a sharp or flat accidental occurs. (Accidentals are meant to last until the next barline, except in extremely modern music where there are many accidentals in the same measure.)
Here's what a natural looks like:
This one means C-Natural (in treble clef), and is probably being used to cancel a C-sharp. (It could be canceling a C-flat, but C-flats are extremely rare.)
There are also double-sharps and double-flats: Here they are in treble clef: (The double sharp is first.)
In this case, the A-double-sharp would be the same as the pitch B. And the E-double-flat would be the same as the note D. Why not just say B or D then? There's a very good answer, and it will be in a later post.
There's one more type of non-note shape to cover before we finish this post. Namely, rests.
For each note type that shows the pitch of a note and how long it lasts, there is a corresponding rest that shows the equivalent length of silence, between notes. (This is not what Simon and Garfunkel meant with their song "The Sound of Silence"!)
You already know the various note names and their relative lengths, from an earlier post. Here are all the note types we've discussed, and on the same line, after the note, we show the equivalent rest. The rests have the same names as the notes; that is, the rest equivalent of a whole note is a whole rest. Eighth note, eighth rest. Longa note, longa rest. Etc. (It helps you to learn them if you say the names to yourself as you look at them, i.e. maxima note, maxima rest, longa note, etc.)
A couple of comments in passing: The whole rest and the half rest look very much alike. They are exactly the same shape. But one hangs below its line, and the other sits on top of its line. The way I learned this, and the way I recommend to you, is this idea: the whole rest is 'heavier,' so it falls through the line. The half rest is 'lighter,' so it floats on top of the line. Rather silly, I know, but it works.
There is an important exception to all of the above rest images. To show a completely empty measure, with no sounds in it at all, you use the same shape that you use to show a whole rest (semi-breve rest). Regardless of what the time signature is. Like this.
But in this case, it isn't called a Whole Rest anymore. In this sort of usage, it's called a Measure Rest or Bar Rest, and it doesn't mean a certain number of beats.
That's it for this time. Next post is on the importance of the Italian language in all things having to do with music.
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