Kada gledamo film ili predstavu znamo da su glumci verovatno naučili tekst iz scenarija, koji im u suštini govori šta i kada
When we watch a film or a play, we know that the actors probably learned their lines from a script, which essentially tells them what to say and when to say it. A piece of written music operates on exactly the same principle. In a very basic sense, it tells a performer what to play and when to play it. Aesthetically speaking, there's a world of difference between, say, Beethoven and Justin Bieber, but both artists have used the same building blocks to create their music: notes. And although the end result can sound quite complicated, the logic behind musical notes is actually pretty straightforward. Let's take a look at the foundational elements to music notation and how they interact to create a work of art. Music is written on five parallel lines that go across the page. These five lines are called a staff, and a staff operates on two axes: up and down and left to right. The up-and-down axis tells the performer the pitch of the note or what note to play, and the left-to-right axis tells the performer the rhythm of the note or when to play it. Let's start with pitch. To help us out, we're going to use a piano, but this system works for pretty much any instrument you can think of. In the Western music tradition, pitches are named after the first seven letters of the alphabet, A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. After that, the cycle repeats itself: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and so on. But how do these pitches get their names? Well, for example, if you played an F and then played another F higher or lower on the piano, you'd notice that they sound pretty similar compared to, say, a B. Going back to the staff, every line and every space between two lines represents a separate pitch. If we put a note on one of these lines or one of these spaces, we're telling a performer to play that pitch. The higher up on the staff a note is placed, the higher the pitch. But there are obviously many, many more pitches than the nine that these lines and spaces gives us. A grand piano, for example, can play 88 separate notes. So how do we condense 88 notes onto a single staff? We use something called a clef, a weird-looking figure placed at the beginning of the staff, which acts like a reference point, telling you that a particular line or space corresponds to a specific note on your instrument. If we want to play notes that aren't on the staff, we kind of cheat and draw extra little lines called ledger lines and place the notes on them. If we have to draw so many ledger lines that it gets confusing, then we need to change to a different clef. As for telling a performer when to play the notes, two main elements control this: the beat and the rhythm. The beat of a piece of music is, by itself, kind of boring. It sounds like this. (Ticking) Notice that it doesn't change, it just plugs along quite happily. It can go slow or fast or whatever you like, really. The point is that just like the second hand on a clock divides one minute into sixty seconds, with each second just as long as every other second, the beat divides a piece of music into little fragments of time that are all the same length: beats. With a steady beat as a foundation, we can add rhythm to our pitches, and that's when music really starts to happen. This is a quarter note. It's the most basic unit of rhythm, and it's worth one beat. This is a half note, and it's worth two beats. This whole note here is worth four beats, and these little guys are eighth notes, worth half a beat each. "Great," you say, "what does that mean?" You might have noticed that across the length of a staff, there are little lines dividing it into small sections. These are bar lines and we refer to each section as a bar. At the beginning of a piece of music, just after the clef, is something called the time signature, which tells a performer how many beats are in each bar. This says there are two beats in each bar, this says there are three, this one four, and so on. The bottom number tells us what kind of note is to be used as the basic unit for the beat. One corresponds to a whole note, two to a half note, four to a quarter note, and eight to an eighth note, and so on. So this time signature here tells us that there are four quarter notes in each bar, one, two, three, four; one, two, three, four, and so on. But like I said before, if we just stick to the beat, it gets kind of boring, so we'll replace some quarter notes with different rhythms. Notice that even though the number of notes in each bar has changed, the total number of beats in each bar hasn't. So, what does our musical creation sound like? (Music) Eh, sounds okay, but maybe a bit thin, right? Let's add another instrument with its own pitch and rhythm. Now it's sounding like music. Sure, it takes some practice to get used to reading it quickly and playing what we see on our instrument, but, with a bit of time and patience, you could be the next Beethoven or Justin Bieber.
da kažu. Komad zapisane muzike funkcioniše na potpuno istom principu. U osnovi, on kaže izvođaču šta da svira i kada da to svira. Govoreći estetski, postoji svet različitosti između, recimo, Betovena i Džastina Bibera, ali oba umetnika su koristila iste sastavne delove da bi stvorili svoju muziku: note. Iako krajnji rezultat može da zvuči vrlo komplikovano, logika iza muzičkih nota je u stvari prilično jednostavna. Pogledajmo osnovne elemente muzičkog zapisa i kako oni međusobno komuniciraju da bi stvorili muzičko delo. Muzika se piše na pet paralelenih linija koje se protežu preko stranice. Ovih pet linija se zovu linijski sistem i on deluje u dva pravca: gore i dole i sleva nadesno. Gore-dole osa kaže izvođaču visinu note ili koju notu da svira, a levo-desno osa mu kaže notni ritam ili kada da to svira. Počnimo sa visinom tona. Radi pomoći, koristimo klavir, a ovaj sistem funkcioniše za skoro svaki instrument koga se setite. U muzičkoj tradiciji Zapada, visine tonova su nazvane prema prvih sedam slova abecede, A, B, C, D, E, F, i G. Posle toga, ciklus se ponavlja: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, i tako dalje. Ali kako su ovi tonovi dobili svoja imena? Pa, na primer, ako ste odsvirali F, a zatim još jedno F više ili niže na klaviru, primetićete da oni zvuče prilično slično u poređenju sa, na primer, B. Nazad na linijski sistem, svaka linija i svaki razmak između dve linije predstavlja posebnu visinu tona. Ako stavimo notu na jednu od ovih linja ili u neki od praznih prostora, govorimo izvođaču da svira taj ton. Što je nota na višoj liniji, viši je ton. Ali, očito postoji mnogo više tonova od ovih devet koje nam daju ove linije i prazna mesta između njih. Veliki klavir, na primer, može da svira 88 posebnih tonova. Kako onda da skupimo 88 nota na jedinstven notni sistem? Koristimo nešto što se zove muzički ključ. Muzički ključ je čudan simbol koji se postavlja na početak linijskog sistema i deluje kao referentna tačka koja vam govori da posebna linija ili prazno mesto odgovara posebnoj noti na vašem instrumentu. Ako želimo da sviramo note koje nisu na linijskom sistemu, mi onda kao lažiramo i crtamo ekstra linijice koje se zovu pomoćne notne linije i crtamo note na njima. Ako nam je potrebno da ih mnogo nacrtamo to onda postaje zbunjujuće i tada treba da promenimo ključ. Dva osnovna elementa kontrolišu kada izvođač treba da svira note: vrsta takta i ritam. Vrsta takta je deo muzike koji je sam po sebi dosadan. Zvuči ovako. Primetite da se ne menja samo veselo opstaje. Može biti spor ili brz ili kakav god poželite. Suština je da, kao mala kazaljka na časovniku koja deli minutu na 60 sekundi, gde sve sekunde isto traju, takt deli muzički komad na male vremenske fragmente koji jednako traju, taktove. Sa stabilnim taktom kao osnovom, možemo da počnemo da dodajemo ritam našim tonovima i tada se muzika zaista i događa. Ovo je četvrtinka. To je najosnovnija jedinica ritma i njena je vrednost jedan udarac. Ovo je polovina i njena vrednost je dva udarca. Ovo je cela nota i ona vredi četiri udarca, a ovi mališani su osminke koje su polovina udarca. "Sjajno", kažete, "šta to znači?" Možda se primetili da duž linijskog sistema, postoje male linije koje ga dele na male delove. To su taktice jer svaki segment je takt. Na početku muzičkog komada odmah posle ključa je nešto što se zove oznaka za takt koja kaže izvođaču koliko udaraca ima u svakom taktu. Ovo kaže da su u svakom taktu dva udarca, ovde tri, ovde četiri i tako dalje. Donji broj nam kaže kakva nota će biti osnovna jedinica za merenje takta. Jedna odgovara celoj noti, dva – polovini note četiri – četvrtini note i osam – osmini note i tako dalje. Tako da nam oznaka za takt kaže da ima četiri četvrtine note u svakom taktu, jedna, dve, tri, četiri; jedna, dve, tri, četiri i tako dalje. Ali kao što sam ranije rekao ako se držimo ritma postaje dosadno, pa ćemo zameniti neke četvrtine drugim ritmovima. Primetite kako iako se broj nota u svakom taktu promenio, ukupan broj udaraca nije. Kako naše muzičko delo zvuči? Zvuči OK, ali je možda malo nepotpuno, zar ne? Dodajmo još jedan instrument koji ima svoju visinu tona i ritam. E sad zvuči kao muzika. Svakako, potrebno je vreme da se naviknemo da je čitamo brzo i sviramo na instrumentu ono što vidimo, ali sa strpljenjem i vremenom možete da postanete sledeći Betoven ili Džastin Biber.