(MF) Pitch, Dynamics, Tone, Duration Lesson

Pitch, Dynamics, Tone, Duration Lesson

Sheet Music Image

 

Music is one of the glories of sound. We distinguish music from other sounds by recognizing four main characteristics: pitch, dynamics, tone color, and duration. When a musician plays a note of a certain pitch, the musical instrument vibrates or resonates and produces a complex pattern of sound waves made up of many different frequencies. In music, pitch is the technical term used to describe how high or low a note is. It depends on the frequency (number of vibrations per second) of the sound, which is measured in hertz (Hz).

A major scale is an important grouping of pitches in music. It consists of seven distinct notes plus an eighth, which duplicates the first an octave higher. On a piano, a major scale can be formed by playing all of the white notes from C to C.

 

The musical alphabet is only made up of the 7 letters A,B,C,D,E,F,G.

C-major piano scale Image

 

Written on a staff the C major scale looks like this:

C Major scale Image

 

 

The C Major scale sounds like this: 

 

In music, dynamics normally refer to the volume of a sound or note. In other words, how loud or soft the music is. When instruments are played louder or softer, a change in dynamics occurs.

 

The two basic dynamic indications in music are:

    • p or piano, meaning "soft", and
    • f or forte, meaning "loud.

More subtle degrees of loudness or softness are indicated by:

    • mp, standing for mezzo-piano, meaning "moderately soft", and
    • mf, standing for mezzo-forte, meaning "moderately loud".

Beyond f and p , there are also

    • pp, standing for "pianissimo" and meaning "very soft", and
    • ff, standing for "fortissimo" and meaning "very loud".

 

Tone color or timbre is the quality or characteristic of a musical note, sound, or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. Changes in tone color, as with pitch and dynamics, add a great deal of variety to music.

Duration, in music, is an amount of time or a particular time interval. It is the length of a note. A duration is a property of a note that becomes one of the bases of rhythm.

Some duration figures in music include the whole note (4 beats), half note (2 beats), quarter note (1 beat), and the eighth note (1/2 beat). Each note has a corresponding rest as well.

 

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