Category Archives: Music Reading and Theory

Reading notes: are you sure that you know quavers and semiquavers?

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solfeggioQuavers and semiquavers

Do you know the meaning of quaver? Do you know exactly what semiquavers are and how they are represented graphically?
They are two notes that need to be known perfectly in order to read music notes with their correct duration.

Today I will explain why quavers and semiquavers are introduced and how they are used. We will learn how to read these notes in a bar.
So after today’s lesson you will be able to recognize the principal symbols that express the duration of a sound, essential in learning to read a piano sheet music or of any other instrument.

In order to put into practice what we have learnt so far in these lessons, we will do many exercises by combining notes of different duration. Thanks to the new interactive didactic system, you will be able to practise on your own and later check your answers.

Just like a real lesson!

Preview of this video lesson

Learning material of this lesson

5 videos 35 mins
Introduction 2m 35s
1. What are quavers and how to read them 9m 54s
2. What are semiquavers and how to read them 8m 27s
3. Practice pt.1 8m 10s
4. Practice pt.2 7m 09s
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Why are there three types of minor scales and how to find all the notes (Part 1)

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IMMAGINE-PENTAGRAMMA4The minor scales

Up to now we have only discussed major scales. Of course, scales aren’t limited to major scales, there are minor scales too. Minor scales are often a hard obstacle for those starting out in the study of music.

There is a very precise reason for this: while there is only one type of major scale, there are three types of minor scales.
And this often creates great confusion. It’s difficult to understand how this can happen.

In today’s lesson I will show you why there is the need for three minor scales instead of one. Through a logical path I will try to explain how these scales are created.
You’ll see, by the end of the lesson everything will be more clear and I hope, more interesting.

That’s because musical theory, if studied to understand the reasons that are behind the origin of all these rules, which are sometimes overlooked and made to study by heart, can be a very interesting and captivating subject.

Also, I believe that studying theory in depth may allow to have the tools to approach the subject of harmony and composition more easily, other than allow you to play a piece on the piano or the instrument you play with more ease and simplicity.

Now I don’t want to lose myself in all talk. I’ll leave you to the video lesson.

It all begins when we introduce the concept of a “relative minor”…

… but what is this relative minor?

Relative to what??

Have a nice vision!

Learning material of this lesson

3 videos 32 mins
1. The relative minor scale 10m 21s
2. The natural minor scale and the harmonic minor scale 9m 35s
3. The melodic minor scale 12m 15s
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Reading notes, today I’ll be explaining the first essential concepts you must know

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solfeggioReading notes

One word you probably heard uttered hundreds of times is rhythm.
But what is rhythm exactly?
Rhythm is that aspect of music that deals with the duration of sound through time.

The duration of sound is the first property of sound that we want to depict graphically.
This is the first thing we have to learn to understand how to read and write music.
In today’s lesson, starting from a series of intuitive and common concepts, we will be able to understand how to represent the various sounds and their duration through time.

How can we graphically respresent the silence?

And it won’t end there: music is also made up of silence, the alternating presence of silence and sound.
But since silence has a duration too, we have to understand how it can be graphically depicted.

After today’s lesson you’ll have seen the basic knowledge necessary to begin reading (and writing) notes, among others;

  • What a bar is in music, and its’ beats
  • What notes are and how to distinguish them by their duration
  • What we mean when talking about crotchet, minime and semibreve
  • What rests are and how to graphically depict them on paper

But you’ll especially have taken the first step into learning to read music, which is the first step to being able to play it on piano or any other instrument from the music sheet.

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Learning material of this lesson

3 videos 27 mins
1. What does it mean to keep time and what is a bar? 8m 27s
2. The first graphical symbol to represent sound: a quarter note 8m 07s
3. Other notes of different durations and musical rests 10m 39s
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Musical alterations (second part): you’ll know them well from today on

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IMMAGINE-PENTAGRAMMA4Double alterations

Before presenting the second part of the lesson regarding alterations, I want to highlight just how important knowing them is: this will allow you to completely understand the topics of harmony, chords, and composition in general.
Today we will dive deep: after having introduced, in the previous lesson, the most simple accidentals, today we will understand, for example, where the need for double alterations come from.

We will examine how to alter the degrees of the scale in any situation, at the piano.
In this way we will need to introduce more graphical symbols, that will allow us complete contro lover the alterations.

Aftert this part you’ll be able to understand:

  1. the difference between temporary alterations and permanent alterations
  2. how to cancel the effect of alterations that are already present
  3. how, why and when to use double alterations

After this lesson, basically, musical alterations will not be a mistery for you anymore!

For a better under standing of today’s lesson, I’d reccomend, if you haven’t yet, to watch the first part of the lesson: Alterations (part one), here is a simple way to really understand them.
If you already watched the first part of the lesson, to help you keep up with today’s topics I added a video, the first, in which I summarized the content of the first lesson.

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Learning material of this lesson

3 videos 21 mins
1. Where did we leave off last time? 5m 10s
2. Temporary accidentals and permanent accidentals 6m 45s
3. What are double accidentals? 9m 11s
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Here is the key to learn to read musical notes

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solfeggioHow to read musical notes

Today we start our path into the world of reading musical notes.
If you will follow the path where I will lead you, musical writing will not appear as obscure as it probably was for you up to now.

To try to progressively under stand these concepts, we will try to put ourselves into the shoes of those who listen to music and want to find a musical aplhabet to represent it graphically.

With the videos that follow you will learn some fundamental concepts that will allow you to learn to read musical notes.

Learning material of this lesson

2 videos 11 mins
1. How to graphically represent music 4m 13s
2. The properties of sound 7m 04s
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Alterations (part one), here is a simple way to really understand them

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IMMAGINE-PENTAGRAMMA4Musical alterations

Alterations, chromatisms, accidentals, sharps… how often have your heard these terms without really understanding them?
Yet the concept of musical alteration is extremely important to start understanding music and to be able to play the piano or any other instrument.

As with every other musical theory concept, alterations are born from essentially practical needs.
This is the path I will use to try to explain these concepts in depth, by explaining where and how these thoeries are born.

Since this lesson is pretty long and demanding, it has been split into two parts.
In today’s lesson we will try to understand the two main reasons why introducing musical alterations is an absolute necessity.

This way you will finally be able to completely understand the function of those graphical symbols that are calleds sharps and flats, and generally speaking of all the other “musical accidentals”.

Enjoy!

Learning material of this lesson

3 videos 12 mins
1. The accidentals (sharp and flat) 3m 17s
2. Diatonic half-tones and chromatic half-tones 2m 51s
3. The A major scale case 5m 44s
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Musical intervals, how to properly name them (first part)

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IMMAGINE-PENTAGRAMMA4

The musical intervals

Have you ever heard or read terms such as “diminished fifth”, “minor seventh”, “augmented fourth”, and so on?

All these names, apparently obscure and cryptical, each define differenty types of musical intervals.
Today we deal with the way that the various intervals are called to be distinguished one from the other. And we will do this using a logical and clear ‘path‘ that will soon let you learn how to name each interval correctly.

Being able to define an interval with its’ proper name is essential, because it allows you to determine the relation that there is between two or more notes (in this case, relative to pitch).
After all, music is the art that allows us to put different sounds in relation with each other.
You will see that once these concpets are clear to you, you’ll be able to put them to use in various fields.

Among other things you will be able to:

  • start delving into the extremely vast world of harmony
  • understand how chords are built, of any type and of every degree of complexity
  • make the melodies that you are composing better, thanks to a precise use of musical intervals

Let’s start to discuss the musical interval more deeply.

Learning material of this lesson

3 videos 18 mins
1. Melodic intervals and harmonic intervals 3m 14s
2. How to determine the ‘generale name’ of an interval 6m 56s
3. How to find the ‘generale name’ in case of sharps or flats 8m 33s
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The major scales: how to remember every note at any time

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IMMAGINE-PENTAGRAMMA4

The major scales

It’s not an easy task to remember every musical scale of the tonal system by heart.
Sometimes, especially for the scale in tonalities  far apart from the C, it’s difficult to remember if a note is either sharp or flat or if it’s natural.
There is a very simple system that lets you remember at any time every note of every scale.
Today we will be discussing major scales.

Interval, whole tone, half tone

This system is based on the concepts of musical interval, whole tone and half tone.
In the next videos I will try to explain these concepts in a simple fashion at the piano, which will empower you to do the following:

  • Find at any given time every note of every major scale (we will take into consideration minor scales later on in the course) without having to pull out manuals or charts.
  • Start to move the first steps in the world of harmony and chords, which are both based on the concept of musical interval.
  • Understand in depth the most important aspects of theory and musical practice.

So let’s start talking of major scales… of course in the next videos.

Learning material of this lesson

6 videos 23 mins
1. 1.What is a musical interval 3m 01s
2. The half tone and how to find it on a piano or guitar 3m 23s
3. The whole tone 3m 05s
4. How to find every note of every major scale 6m 05s
5. Practice 1: the G major scale 4m 21s
6. Practice 2: the E flat major scale 3m 26s
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Scale and tonality, the two keys to really understand the chords

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IMMAGINE-PENTAGRAMMA4

Scale and tonality

To better learn music theory, harmony and chords it’s important to introduce two essential concepts:

  • scale
  • tonality

So in the today videolesson I will try to explain the two concepts of scales and tonality that will be the concepts that wil enlighten us and allow us to understand the relationship between the different chords.

Via these two concepts you will see how chords will shine under a new light for you and most importantly you will be able to build all the chords you want easily.

These two concepts will also be the main tools to learn music theory in depth.

Then we will explain other important concepts as tonic, dominant and leading note. These all are some very important degrees of a scale and their knowledge will be fundamental to uderstand the world of Harmony and chords.

In the following videos we approach these concepts.

Learning material of this lesson

4 videos 18 mins
1. The musical scale 2m 39s
2. The tonality 3m 48s
3. The role of notes in different tonalities 4m 58s
4. Chords and tonality 6m 12s
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Reading music, why it’s important to be able to

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solfeggio

Reading music

Many folks I know often ask me, ‘Is it really that important to know how to read music?’
In this piece we will be approaching the problem and we will look for an answer to this question, that will open up new possibilities of how we can define the study of musical reading.
For starters, we have to admit that it’s not that easy to answer the question ‘Is it really important to be able to read music?’ because everyone has different musical requirements: some people are happy with playing everything exclusively by ear without studying, while others, who have started by self-teaching themselves music, have never studied the issue deeply and now feel they have a lack of knowledge in this sense.

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