MUSIC 



4022 



MUSIC 



Crescendo (ores.) or < gradually becoming 



louder 



Decrescendo (decres.)lor > gradually becom- 

 Diminuendo (dim.) J ing softer 



Sforzando (sf.) suddenly loud 



Quality, or timbre, is a very broad term, but 

 list motions are very easily recognized. Any- 

 one, for instance, hearing four sounds made 

 by a piano, an organ, a violin and the human 

 voice, could tell the difference immediately 

 >uld distinguish the various timbres; 

 for quality or timbre depends upon the kind of 

 vibrating substance which gives forth the sound. 

 is a very important matter, and con- 

 09 the highness or lowness of a tone. Turn- 

 ing once more to the stretched wire, pluck it 

 and listen carefully to the tone produced. 

 drive a staple into the wooden background 

 hat it crosses the wire about in the center, 

 and rests upon it. Vibrate either half of the 

 string. Is the resultant tone the same as that 

 a out by the whole string? Is it higher or 

 lower? 



If your division of the string marks the ex- 

 act center, the tone given out by the half will 

 be in unison with that produced by the whole, 

 but will be higher in pitch. The relations which 

 govern the length of sounding bodies and the 

 consequent differences in pitch have been 

 worked out carefully, and it has been discovered 

 that bisecting the vibrating string or air column 

 doubles the number of vibrations produced, 

 and raises the pitch exactly an octave. That 

 is, if that fundamental tone known as middle 

 C has 256 vibrations to the second, the C above 

 will have 512, and that below 128. This entire 

 question of pitch of octaves and the tones in 

 between, is taken up in a later lesson on 

 Scale. 



Duration refers to the length of time a cer- 

 tain tone is sounded. The wire referred to may 

 be struck and then touched instantly so that 

 the tone ceases abruptly, or it may be allowed 

 to vibrate until the tone dies out. In either 

 case the tone is the same, but the duration is 

 different. In the latter instance the intensity 

 changes, too, as the vibrations become less and 

 less wide; but there is and can be no variation 

 in pitch. 



One of the important points to remember 

 from this early study is that a vibrating body 

 of a given length can produce only one tone. 

 Intensity may vary, duration may vary, but 

 the pitch cannot change. 



The subject of duration is discussed in a later 

 lesson, under the heading Time. 



A Lesson on the Staff. All that has gone be- 

 fore concerns itself practically with the theory 

 of music, hut thr student comes very early in 

 his study to certain definite symbols, for music 

 lias a notation all its own. First of all, he 

 must learn about the staff. This consists of five 

 horizontal lines, equidistant from each other, 

 and looks like this: 



On it are written characters called note*, which 

 represent the tones, and a tone is higher or 

 lower according as its representative' noi. 

 higher or lower on the staff. 



Added Lines. Each line, and each space of 

 the staff is called a degree, but there are not 

 enough of these degrees to allow for the placing 

 of all the notes used in music, and it is fre- 

 quently necessary to add, above and below the 

 staff, short lines called added lines, or leger 

 lines. These lines, of course, provide extra 

 spaces as well, and these are spoken of as the 

 first space below, the second space above, and 

 so on, while the lines are referred to as the 

 first added line above, and so on. 



The Clefs. Now it is clear that it would be 

 possible with the use of just one staff to place 

 all the notes ever used, merely by adding an 

 indefinite number of lines above and below; 

 but this would be very confusing, as the added 

 lines are not always easy to recognize. There- 

 fore composers make use of two staffs, a treble 

 staff and a bass staff, the latter indicating the 

 lower notes. To distinguish between these two 

 staffs, symbols known as clefs are used, and 

 only as it is marked with one of these can a 

 staff really indicate pitch. 



The treble clef is also known as the G clef, 

 for in its form it is derived from a capital G. 



It is placed at the left-hand end of a 



staff, as here pictured, 



and by the fact that its 



end curls around the 



second line, it indicates 



that it is the treble clef, for G comes 

 on that line. 



The bass clef, or F clef, is made as shown, 

 and by the fact that its head is on the fourth 

 line, it shows that in the bass 

 clef F is on the fourth line. 

 Naming the Staff Degrees. As stated above, 

 two tones whose number of variations to the 

 second stand in the ratio of one to two are an 

 octave apart in pitch. In between these there 

 are six other tones which, sounded one after 



