Introduction to Reading Music
Homework 5
15-212, Fall 2006
This document introduces the basics of reading music. This is not meant to be complete,
nor does it give an insight into how music notation is tied to the feel of music. It just
provides sufficient background to enable you to complete this assignment. If you are
already familiar with music, we strongly recommend that you use your own reference for
understanding the notation.
Notes: Pitch, Duration and Tempo
At a very low-level, any piece of music is just a sequence of sounds that vary in pitch and
duration. Each continuous sound of fixed pitch is called a note. Music is a sequence of
notes. Each note has two defining characteristics: pitch and duration. For practical
reasons, pitches and durations allowed in composed music are discrete.
The pitch of a note tells you how shrill a note is; it is represented by a pair of two
elements: an octave and an alphabet. The octave is a natural number between 1 and 8.
The alphabet is a letter from the ordered sequence S = [C, D, E, F, G, A, B]. Notes are
ordered in increasing shrillness given by the lexicographic order (Octave, Alphabet).
Observe that alphabets are not ordered in the usual order A-G, but they start from C and
end at B. As an example, the note (2, G) has a lower pitch than (2, A) and (1, A) has a
lower pitch than (2, C). The first few notes in increasing order of pitch are:
(1, C), (1, D), (1, E), (1, F), (1, G), (1, A), (1, B), (2, C), (2, D)…
Sometimes you want to have a note which has a pitch between the pitch of two
consecutive notes in the above sequence. Such notes are represented using a modifier: a
sharp (?) or a flat (¨) sign. The note becomes a three-tuple (Octave, Alphabet, Modifier).
The modifier ? means a note which has a pitch midway between the given note and the
one above it. Thus (1, C, ?) is a note having pitch between (1, C) and (1, D). The
modifier ¨ denotes a note of pitch between the note and the one below it. Thus (1, D, ¨) is
a note between (1, C) and (1, D). In fact (1, C, ?) and (1, D, ¨) are the same note. For
uniformity, we often make all notes three-tuples. If there is no modifier, we just write §
(called natural) for the modifier.
Not every note can be sharpened or flattened. In music, E and B in any octave cannot be
sharpened. Similarly, F and C cannot be flattened.1 Thus in any octave n, there are twelve
possible notes. In increasing order of pitch they are:
1 This is not completely accurate. But for the purpose of this homework, it is alright to assume this.
(n, C, §), (n, C, ?) = (n, D, ¨), (n, D, §), (n, D, ?) = (n, E, ¨), (n, E, §), (n, F, §),
(n, F, ?) = (n, G, ¨), (n, G, §), (n, G, ?) = (n, A, ¨), (n, A, §), (n, A, ?) = (n, B, ¨), (n, B, §)
The duration of a note is represented by a fraction whose numerator is 1 and
denominator is a power of 2. Valid note durations are 1, ?, ?, 1/8… In this assignment,
we are concerned with notes of duration 1/64 or more. The duration of a note is only a
measure of its relative length: a note of duration 1 is twice as long as a note of duration
?, which is twice as long as a ? note etc. The most commonly used notes in music have
durations 1/8 and 1/16. Sometimes we need notes of intermediate duration. This is done
using the modifier “.” (period, without the quotes). A period after the duration of a note
means that the note is 1.5 times as long. For example the duration ?. means a note of
duration ? + 1/8 = 3/8.
The absolute length of a note is determined by writing at the top of the music how long a
particular note is. This is called a tempo marking. For example, a piece of music may
say that there are 120 1/4th notes per minute. Then the duration of a 1/4 note is 0.5s, and
hence a ? note has duration 1s, a 1/8 note has duration 0.25s, etc.
Sheet Music
Music written as sequence of four-tuples (three for the pitch and one for the duration) is
very hard to read. Most music is written in graphical format, often called sheet music.
Just as children write English on 4-lined notebooks in elementary school, music is written
on 5-lined sheets. Such a set of five lines is called a Staff (plural Staves or Staffs).
Consecutive notes are written on these five lines one after the other much like
consecutive alphabets of the English language. Here’s an example:
The duration of a note is represented by the shape used to write it. Here are the shapes
used to represent notes of different durations:
Shape Duration
? 1
? ?
? ?
? 1/8
? 1/16
1/32 and 1/64 notes are written like 1/8 and 1/16 notes with additional flags. The vertical
line in notes of duration ? and less may be drawn pointing upwards or downwards. If
there is a sequence of notes of duration 1/8, it is commonly written by connecting them
with a line:
Similarly, consecutive 1/16 notes can be connected with two lines:
In complete analogy, 1/32 and 1/64 notes can be written with 3 and 4 lines respectively.
The period (.) modifier on a note can be written as such in sheet music. For example, a
note of duration 3/8 can be written as ?. The modifier (?, ¨, §) is written before the note.
If there is no modifier, it is assumed to be natural (§) by default.
The pitch of a note is represented by its position relative to the five lines on which it is
written. There are several possible conventions for doing this. Such a convention is called
a Clef. There are two common clefs in music: the treble clef and bass clef. The clef
being used is indicated at the beginning of a staff. If a staff splits into multiple rows, it is
written at the beginning of each row for the reader’s convenience. The symbols used to
denote the two clefs are the following:
Symbol Clef
? Treble
? Bass
Here’s our old music written with the treble clef symbol (ignore the 4/4 after the clef
symbol for the time being):
The rules for writing notes in both the treble and bass clefs are similar. Each note’s
circular portion is either exactly between two lines, or it is cut in half by exactly one line.
On the treble clef, a note whose circular portion is exactly between the lowest two lines
of the staff is (4, F) (the last note in the above example). The next higher position, a note
whose circular portion is cut in half by the second line from the bottom is the next higher
note (4, G) (second last note in the above music). The next higher position is a note
whose circular portion lies between the second and third lines from the bottom of the
staff and this denotes the note (4, A). This continues. If the pitch of a note runs beyond
what can be represented on a staff, additional lines may be drawn above or below the
standard five lines. Following this convention, the music written above denotes the
following notes in sequence (the duration of each note is ? and the modifier is natural):
(6, C), (5, B), (5, A), (5, G), (5, F), (5, E), (5, D), (5, C), (4, B), (4, A), (4, G), (4, F)
The bass clef follows exactly the same rules as the treble clef except that a note whose
circular portion lies between the lowest two lines is (2, A). If written with a bass clef
symbol instead of the treble clef symbol, the above music would represent the pitches:
(4, E), (4, D), (4, C), (3, B), (3, A), (3, G), (3, F), (3, E), (3, D), (3, C), (2, B), (2, A)
Measures and Time Signatures
A typical 5 minute piece of music may contain several thousand notes. If written in a
sequence one after the other, it may be very hard for a player to keep track of where she
is at a particular point of time. Keeping the performer’s convenience in mind, music is
divided into sets of notes called measures or bars. Measure boundaries are indicated in
music by vertical lines across the staff. For example, in the above music, there are three
measures, each containing exactly 4 notes.
Each measure in a piece of music must have the same duration, i.e. if you add the
durations of the notes in each measure, it must come out to be the same. This duration of
each measure is called the time signature. It is written right after the clef symbol. For
example, the time signature of the above piece of music is 4/4 or 1. Thus the duration of
each measure must be 1. You can verify this easily: each measure in the above music has
4 notes of 1/4th duration. Hence the total duration of each measure is 1. The time
signature is written only once in the entire sheet (as opposed to clefs which are drawn on
every row). Also note that the time signature above could have been written 2/2 instead
of 4/4: it makes no difference.2 Common time signature are 4/4 (called common time,
also written c), 2/2 (called cut time, also written like the American cent symbol), 2/4, 3/2,
?, 3/8, 6/8 and 3/16.
The modifier-measure convention: As a rule, if a particular note is sharpened or
flattened, then the sharp or flat is assumed implicitly on the note till the end of the
measure, or until another modifier appears on the same note. This reduces the number of
modifiers written on a sheet.
Chords, Multiple Staffs and Key Signatures
Chords. Very often in music, a single pitch does not produce the desired sound. In such
cases, we can superimpose sounds by playing several notes together. Such a set of notes
played simultaneously is called a chord. Chords are typeset by writing the notes of the
chord one over the other on the same staff. All notes in a chord must have the same
duration.
2 2/2 and 4/4 are the same for the purpose of this homework. In actual music, the time signature also
indicates the rhythm of the music. In that sense, 2/2 and 4/4 are different.
Multiple Staffs. In many cases, music is meant to played simultaneously by many
musicians, or in the case of piano, by a single musician with two hands. In such cases,
there are multiple sequences of notes that must be played simultaneously independent of
each other. Such music is typeset by writing several staffs one below the other, one for
each instrument or hand. Note that even though the staffs represent independent lines of
music and may be written using different clefs, they always have the same time signature.
Key Signatures. In many pieces of music, the same set of notes is always sharpened or
flattened. For example, if you look at Beethoven’s Ode to Joy all C’s and F’s in it are
sharpened. Rather than writing a ? sign before every C and F in the music, this is noted
on the staff, right after the clef symbol. This is called a key signature. A key signature is
simply represented by an alphabet in the set [C, D, E, F, G, A, B] along with a modifier
(this is called the key of the music). You don’t have to worry about key signatures in this
assignment, except to parse them accurately.
Here’s an example of music for Piano taken from Beethoven’s Ode to Joy showing
chords, two staffs and key signatures:
Rests
Sometimes in music we want to induce silence for a fixed duration of time. This is
technically called a rest. A rest is like a note in that it has a duration. It means that the
artist should stop playing for the specified duration of time. Rests are very common in
music with multiple staffs because not all instruments (or hands) are playing at all times.
Here is the notation for rests of different durations:
Rests are counted as notes when totaling the duration of notes in a measure.
Two staffs: the upper one is
the right hand, lower one is
the left hand
Key signature: All C’s
and F’s are sharpened
Chord: Two
notes played
simultaneously
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