This is the Frame
of a music graph.
Written music specifies to the musician(s):
Which pitches to perform,
When to perform these pitches and
How long to sustain each pitch.
Also, written music will usually contain
many other details concerning the performance.
PITCH (Which pitches to perform) notation is vertical (up and down).
TIME (When to perform pitches) notation is horizontal (left to right).
LENGTH (How long to sustain each pitch) is indicated within the individual
symbol for each pitch.
This is the Frame
of a music graph.
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In order to help the reader quickly identify PITCH (that is, individual
pitches), equally spaced horizontal lines are used, as a visual reference. Many graphs (outside of music), do not use horizontal or vertical lines in this manner. However, because of the unique nature of music notation, these horizontal lines are needed to help quickly identify the pitch of notes. |
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To make identifying pitches even easier, these lines are viewed (written) in groups of five. The five lines chosen depends upon the range of the music to be performed.
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These five lines, called a stave(or staff), will have symbols placed on it (clefs, notes, rests and other symbols). Because the position of these symbols define TIME and PITCH, the "frame" of the graph is not needed. [The "frame" is the two lines with arrows labeled PITCH and TIME]. |
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This is a short section of a stave. Staves become longer (horizontally)
as needed. On a page of written music they are read left to right and top to bottom. |
3) Treble Clef, Ledger Lines, Ebony & Ivory, Bass Clef
Copyright © 2001 Dave Myers Music Services. All Rights Reserved.