There are a number of ways to group the keys, the most usual being a combination of four principal attributes: Continue reading…
Archive for the 'Music' Category...
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I’ll keep it as simple as possible, there’s just a few things to describe here that are necessary to cover the basics. Latin is definitely not required . Continue reading…
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There are a small number of simple methods to work out keys & their key signatures. Knowing these removes the mystery and increases both understanding & the ability to move beyond a single key.
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“What’s an octave?”. Apart from saying “the same note played higher”, I can’t really answer that question without stepping back and giving a bit more of the picture. Continue reading…
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I wanted to write a simple introduction to keys and key signatures as a way of helping my children as they started learning the theory side of playing music. Let’s face it, once you’ve decided to move beyond playing the standard introduction1 to an instrument and actually learn it you don’t get far before at least encountering a key signature.
This article is about the western musical system which splits each octave into 12 notes (or semi-tones), the best representation of which is the piano keyboard. There are other systems from a range of cultures, they’re not covered here.
The goal was to make this introduction understandable by children – no fancy words, convoluted terminology, fluff or esoteric nonsense that you can find in any of a hundred books – just plain everyday language.