Music Theory

  • A semibreve is a whole note, and lasts 4 beats

  • A minim is a half note, lasting two beats

  • A crochet is a quarter note, lasting one beat

  • A quaver is an eighth note, lasting half a beat

  • A semiquaver is a sixteenth note, lasting a quarter of a beat

A semitone is the smallest distance between two notes. A tone is two semitones. There are 12 different notes in music, each a semitone apart. Remember some notes have two different names, flat and sharp:

C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab, A, A#/Bb, B

Tempo is how fast or slow a piece of music is.

  • Accelerando - Gradually getting faster

  • Adagio - slow

  • Allegro - fast

  • Andante - quite slow

  • A tempo - return to original tempo

  • Lento - very slow

  • Moderato - moderate

  • Presto - very fast

  • Rallentando - Gradually slowing down

Articulation is a term for how the notes are played.

Staccato notes are short and detached, while legato notes are smooth, with no gaps between the notes.

An accent goes above or below a note. It tells us to play that note with a little extra force.

A pause goes above a note or rest. It tells us to hold the note or rest a little longer than its value. It is often used at the end of a piece of music.

A trill is a musical ornament where you move quickly between two next-door notes.

A triad is a chord which consists of three notes: a root, a 3rd and a 5th. If the root of the chord is a C, the 3rd will be E and the 5th will be G. We would call this a chord of C, because the root is C. 

  Major and minor triads are both made up of a root, a 3rd and a 5th. The root and the 5th stay the same; the 3rd is the only note that changes from a major to a minor chord. In a minor chord, the 3rd will be one semitone lower than in the major chord.

In a major chord, the 3rd is always 4 semitones above the root. In a minor chord, the 3rd is always 3 semitones above the root. In both, the 5th is always 7 semitones above the root.

The notes of the bass clef are as follows:

On the lines: G, B, D, F, A

In the spaces: A, C, E, G, B

It is common for music to use repetition – where a bar, or line, or even a full verse is repeated. A short pattern which repeats over and over is called a riff or ostinato. A sequence is a pattern which is repeated higher or lower.