Pitch Notation

This lesson is part of the Fundamentals of Twelve-Tone Equal Temperament category.

Objectives

• Students will be able to notate, name, and play (on a keyboard) a pitch in treble, alto, tenor, or bass clef.
• Student will be able to name notes using American note notation and/or octave notation
• Student will be able to identify notes on a piano keyboard
• Student will be able to identify pitches given the European solfege name or integer notation
• Student will understand difference between pitches, octaves, chroma, and pitch classes

Resources

Readings

• T. Rush "Notation: Pitch." (Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People).
• K. Schaffer. "Pitch (Class)." (Open Music Theory).
• R. Hutchinson. "Basic Concepts." (Music Theory for the 21st Century Classroom).
• J. Wolfe. "Note names, MIDI numbers, and frequencies." (Music Acoustics, UNSW).

Tools

• "Keyboard and Frequency Calculator." (Sengspiel Audio).
• J. Wolfe. "Frequency to Musical Note Converter." (Music Acoustics, UNSW).

Class Activities

• Discussion of the symbology of pitch in staff notation
• Discussion of notation using integer notation
• Discussion of Fixed Do Solfège
• Construction and performance of written melodies
• Melodic transcription of short excerpts of music from different genres and time periods

Assignments

• Transcription of a given written melody to different modalities (other clef, integer, solfege notations)
• Notating enharmonics

Drills

• Musictheory.net:
  • Note Identification
  • Note Construction
  • Keyboard Note Identification
  • Keyboard Note Reverse Identification
  • Fretboard Note Identification