The_Complete_Idiot%27s_Guide_To_Music_Theory

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158 Part 4: Accompanying Note When you hear notes or melodies inside your head (in your inner voice), you’re internalizing the music. This is how you actively listen to a song. You’re not listening for enjoyment (you can do that separately); you’re listening to learn—and to remember. Once you can recall a part exactly, from memory, you’re one step closer to figuring out the notes behind the part, and transcribing it to paper. Developing Superhearing As part of your active listening, you have to be able to discern the component parts of the music. You have to be able to hear discrete pitches and intervals, hear different rhythms, and even hear the individual pitches within each chord. Sound difficult? It is—which is why you need to practice. Hearing Pitch Lesson 1, Track 2 The first part of the music you need to hear is the pitch. You need to be able to listen to a pitch, isolate it, and then replicate it. In plain English, that means you need to be able to sing back any specific pitch you hear in a song. To do this, you have to develop what is called tonal memory, or pitch memory. This is simply the ability to recall a specific pitch, outside the context of the song or melody. You can develop your tonal memory with this simple exercise. Take a half-full glass of water and hit it (gently!) with the edge of a spoon. The glass will produce a distinct pitch. Listen to the pitch, and fix it in your head. Wait until the glass stops ringing, then wait a few seconds more, then sing or hum the note that you heard. While you’re singing (or humming), hit the glass again; if your tonal memory was on target, the second tone generated by the glass will be the same as the tone you’re singing. If not, try it again—and pay more attention this time. Repeat this exercise, adding more time between hitting the glass and singing the note. The longer you can hold the note in your head, the better developed your sense of tonal memory will be. Next, try to find that pitch on your instrument. (Use whatever instrument you like—piano, guitar, trumpet, whatever—it doesn’t matter.) Hit the glass, wait a minute, sing the pitch, and then try to play that pitch on your instrument. Don’t worry if you can’t find the pitch right off. You might need to poke around a few related notes until you find the one that matches what you’re singing. That’s natural. With practice, you’ll be able to more quickly identify individual tones. Obviously, you want to verify the note you’re playing with the source—the ringing glass. Play the note on your instrument while you hit the glass; if you have the right note, they’ll be in unison. You can extend this exercise by generating different notes with different objects. (You can also fill the glass to different levels to produce different pitches.) When you’re comfortable with your progress, put on a CD and pick a single note from the melody. Repeat the exercise, this time trying to reproduce that melody note. Restart the CD to replay the melody and check your accuracy.
Hearing Intervals Lesson 2, Track 11 Note Interestingly, about 5 percent of musicians (just musicians—not the general population) have something called absolute pitch or perfect pitch, which means they can wake up in the morning and, with no prompting or assistance, correctly sing or identify any given pitch in the scale. Some people claim to be able to help you develop this skill, but in general it is virtually impossible for anyone over the age of five or so to learn perfect pitch. (Not 100 percent impossible, but almost.) In any case, you don’t really need this kind of long-term pitch memory to transcribe music. You can get along fine with the short-term pitch memory that we all possess, along with a good interval memory, which we’ll discuss next. If you can hear and reproduce a single note, what about two of them? That’s right: The next step is to develop your tonal memory to decipher and reproduce pitch intervals. Before you begin your exercises, you need to develop an internal database of relative interval relationships. That means internalizing all the different intervals within a given object—remembering what each interval sounds like. The best way to do this is to sit down at your instrument and play each interval until it’s burned into your brain. Play a minor second, and a major second, and a minor third, and a major third, and so on, until you have each interval committed to memory. Can you sing a minor third? If not, you need to study some more. Of course, there are shortcuts you can take. If you can remember specific snatches of melody, you can associate those melodies with particular intervals. The following table provides some melodic shortcuts for your interval training: Intervals Found in Popular Melodies Interval Song-Specific Phrase ASCENDING Minor second Theme from Jaws Dum-dum … (bass line) “As Time Goes By” (from Casablanca) YOU MUST remember this … Major second “Frere Jacques” FRE-RE Jacques … “Happy Birthday” Hap-PY BIRTH-day to you … Minor third “To Dream the Impossible Dream” TO DREAM the impossible dream … Brahm’s Lullaby LULLA-BY and goodnight … Chapter 12: Transcribing What You Hear 159 continues
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Music Theory Second Edition by Mich
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Contents at a Glance Part 1: Tones
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Contents Part 1: Tones 1 1 Pitches
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Finding Your Way ..................
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Instrumental Solo .................
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Good Keys and Bad Keys ............
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During the summer of 2001, I taught
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xvi The Complete Idiot’s Guide to
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xviii The Complete Idiot’s Guide
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xx The Complete Idiot’s Guide to
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xxii The Complete Idiot’s Guide t
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Pitches and Clefs In This Chapter
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Some instruments produce a broader
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If you’re reading ahead and want
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Notes on a Piano Keyboard A good wa
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Above—and Below—the Staff The b
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The grand staff looks like this: Th
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Exercises Exercise 1-1 Write the na
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Intervals In This Chapter ◆ Chang
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Two half steps equal one whole step
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Major and Minor Intervals When you
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Beyond the Octave You don’t have
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And take special note of those inte
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Scales In This Chapter ◆ Putting
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The Intervals of the Major Scale No
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Tip When you’re playing a piece o
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Scale Notes D minor D-sharp minor E
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Scale Notes E minor F minor F-sharp
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Scale Notes F minor F-sharp minor G
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The Intervals of the Ionian Note Ha
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F Lydian mode is relative to the ke
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B Locrian is relative to the key of
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Major and Minor Keys In This Chapte
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Key Key Signature and Scale D Major
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Same as This Scale Notes Major Key
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Accidents Will Happen When you assi
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How to change to the key of C. The
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2 Part Rhythms You don’t have to
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58 Part 2: Rhythms Taking the Measu
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60 Part 2: Rhythms Definition A not
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62 Part 2: Rhythms How to count var
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64 Part 2: Rhythms Tip Another way
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66 Part 2: Rhythms Exercise 5-4 Wri
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68 Part 2: Rhythms Note Classical m
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70 Part 2: Rhythms When you have an
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72 Part 2: Rhythms Tip In most musi
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74 Part 2: Rhythms Exercises Exerci
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Tempo, Dynamics, and Navigation In
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Italian Tempo Terms Tempo Means …
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When you see a fermata, hold the no
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Two accent marks and a marcato. Mor
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Another navigation technique uses a
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writing lots of individual measures
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3 Part Tunes Discover how to put to
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92 Part 3: Tunes The complete melod
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94 Part 3: Tunes The melody for Bac
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96 Part 3: Tunes Definition A passi
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98 Part 3: Tunes A four-measure mel
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100 Part 3: Tunes A simple four-not
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102 Part 3: Tunes Note Ironically,
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104 Part 3: Tunes Simplifying a rhy
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106 Part 3: Tunes You can achieve t
Page 132 and 133: 108 Part 3: Tunes Note See Chapter
Page 134 and 135: 110 Part 3: Tunes Exercise 8-3 Comp
Page 136 and 137: 112 Part 3: Tunes Note The notes of
Page 138 and 139: 114 Part 3: Tunes Note In this and
Page 140 and 141: 116 Part 3: Tunes Chord Extensions
Page 142 and 143: 118 Part 3: Tunes Minor seventh cho
Page 144 and 145: 120 Part 3: Tunes Seventh, ninth, a
Page 146 and 147: 122 Part 3: Tunes Note In classical
Page 148 and 149: 124 Part 3: Tunes Changing chords i
Page 150 and 151: 126 Part 3: Tunes Exercise 9-3 Writ
Page 152 and 153: 128 Part 3: Tunes Let’s use the k
Page 154 and 155: 130 Part 3: Tunes Note These exampl
Page 156 and 157: 132 Part 3: Tunes Let’s put toget
Page 158 and 159: 134 Part 3: Tunes Note In classical
Page 160 and 161: 136 Part 3: Tunes I-ii-IV-V This pr
Page 162 and 163: 138 Part 3: Tunes Note The blues pr
Page 164 and 165: 140 Part 3: Tunes Old Johann was ab
Page 166 and 167: 142 Part 3: Tunes Writing a Melody
Page 168 and 169: 144 Part 3: Tunes Exercise 10-5 Cre
Page 170 and 171: 146 Part 3: Tunes Parts of a Song W
Page 172 and 173: 148 Part 3: Tunes Tip When you have
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Page 176 and 177: 152 Part 3: Tunes Exercises Exercis
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Page 181: Listening—Actively Before we get
Page 185 and 186: Interval Song-Specific Phrase Major
Page 187 and 188: many measures long the melody is, a
Page 189 and 190: Exercises Exercise 12-1 Play each o
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Page 193 and 194: A chord sheet—no melody. Working
Page 195 and 196: Block Chord Accompaniment The easie
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Page 199 and 200: Once you’ve figured out the chord
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Page 203 and 204: These scenarios are more common tha
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Page 207 and 208: or hold to their original pitches.
Page 209: 5 Part Embellishing Discover how to
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Page 214 and 215: 190 Part 5: Embellishing A common c
Page 216 and 217: 192 Part 5: Embellishing Making Har
Page 218 and 219: 194 Part 5: Embellishing Definition
Page 220 and 221: 196 Part 5: Embellishing The lower
Page 222 and 223: 198 Part 5: Embellishing Avoid exte
Page 224 and 225: 200 Exercises Part 5: Embellishing
Page 227 and 228: Chord Substitutions and Turnarounds
Page 229 and 230: Altering the Bass Here’s another
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Substitution Example (for the G7 ch
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Turnaround Example (in C) I-♭III-
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Exercise 16-6 Add a two-measure tur
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216 Part 5: Embellishing Definition
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218 Part 5: Embellishing Tip If you
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220 Part 5: Embellishing What’s c
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222 Part 5: Embellishing Exercise 1
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18 Chapter Composing and Arranging
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Voice Range (Concert Pitch) Write I
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Brass Brass instruments typically a
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Transposition Range Sounds Instrume
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listed (they’re grouped by family
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Instrument Range (Concert Pitch) Wr
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Instrument Range (Concert Pitch) Wr
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Exercises Chapter 18: Composing and
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Lead Sheets and Scores In This Chap
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Make It Simple Even simpler than th
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A typical chord sheet. Chapter 19:
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A four-part choral arrangement. Jaz
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A score for big band. Note A marchi
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A score for full orchestra. Chapter
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Today, thanks to computer technolog
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The Least You Need to Know ◆ Lead
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Performing Your Music In This Chapt
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That means you need to know a littl
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3 1 Conducting in three. Finding th
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Just because you’re done with thi
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The Complete Idiot’s Music Glossa
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The Complete Idiot’s Music Glossa
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key A combination of a tonic and a
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pitch The highness or lowness of a
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transposition Translating pitch. tr
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276 Appendix B
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Answers to Chapter Exercises Here a
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Exercise 2-3 Exercise 2-4 Exercise
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Chapter 4 Answers to Chapter Exerci
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Exercise 5-7 Exercise 5-8 Chapter 6
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Exercise 9-7 Exercise 9-8 Chapter 1
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Exercise 14-2 Exercise 14-3 Exercis
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Exercise 17-7 Chapter 18 Exercise 1
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294 Appendix D 11. Lesson Two: Inte
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296 Appendix D 31. A 32. C 33. G 34
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298 Appendix D Scale Exercises (Tra
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300 Appendix D Melody Exercises (Tr
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302 Appendix D Chord Exercises (Tra
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Index Symbols/Numbers I chord, 130-
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preparations, 257-258 rehearsal rou
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Lydian mode, 40-41 lyrics melodies,
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performing music, conducting 2/2 ti
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tacet (dynamic marking), 83 tempo,
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