MUSIC. 



These rests are shewn in fig. n. They may be 



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placed anywhere upon the staff, above or below than we have yet described is, however, required 



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it, or upon a leger-line if more convenient 



4. Accent, Time-signature. Something more 



before the written music can be self-interpreting, 



Fig. II. 



namely, that there should be sufficient indica- 

 tion of the notes upon which the stress or 

 accent is to fall. Without this, music would 



A A 



be unintelligible. Nothing, for instance, can be 

 made out of the apparently unmeaning suc- 

 cession of notes in fig. 12, although completely 



Fig. 12. 



defined as regards pitch and duration ; nor is any- 

 thing recognisable in the same phrase with the 

 accent as marked in fig. 13 ; but as soon as the 

 accent is rightly placed, as in fig. 14, we recog- 

 nise the commencement of Strauss's familiar 

 melody. In all music, the accents recur at certain 

 regular intervals, and the occurrence of the princi- 

 pal ones is marked by a perpendicular line or bar 

 placed across the staff. These bars, therefore, 

 divide the music into short sections of equal 

 absolute length. The position chosen for the bar 

 is one which seems on every account the most 

 suitable. It is always placed just before the notes 

 upon which the principal accent is to be laid. In 

 the illustration already given, for example, the bars 

 are placed as shewn in fig. 1 5, and the phrase is 

 then fully defined in every respect. The music 

 between each pair of bars may be accentuated in 

 a number of different ways, and is subdivided by 

 these lesser accents into different numbers of time- 



Fig. 13. Fig. 14. 



units, or beats. From the arrangement of these 

 beats, the different kinds of musical time are 

 named. A piece of music is said to be in common 





Ac. 



Fig. 15. 



time when each of its bars contains two or four 

 beats, and in triple time when each contains three 

 beats. The time is further described as compound 

 or simple, according as the beat itself is or is not 

 further subdivided. The time signature is a frac- 

 tion written at the commencement of every piece 

 of music, and representing the number of aliquot 

 parts of a semibreve contained in each measure.' 

 The following table gives the principal varieties of 

 time used by modern composers, with their time- 

 signatures : 



The time-signature is placed after the signature 

 of the key (to be explained presently), and before 

 the first notes of the music. It will be seen that, 

 for four-crotchet time, the letter C is used instead 



of the fraction ^ ; and for two-minim time, the 



The semibreve is adopted as the standard, because h the 

 longest note used in modern music, the brere bang only e 

 occasionally in church music A aas*rt is th sjc 

 two bars. f *. 



