Archive for February 2015

Hey, it's my tenth post! I've decided to stop labeling my posts as '7th Post, 8th Post, etc.' because the title will go over the things that I'll be talking about. Instead of the title being incredibly vague and you going to another blog in exasperation, the title will clearly tell you what I'm going over in the post and THEN you will go to another blog because you're too busy to be bothered with it. With that being said, let's move on to what I'm going over today.

As you can see above, this is a sheet of music. However, you cannot see any key signatures. Why? I don't know; ask the person who made the music. Now, I'm not deliberately trying to berate (ooh, big words) the person who made this sheet, I'm just trying to point out what she did wrong... and what she did wrong was not include any key signatures. Now, it may not seem like a big deal, but it makes things a lot more convenient. Look at the notes. Pretty much all of them have either a sharp or a flat next to them. Wouldn't it make it easier, for both the player of the song and the writer of the song, to just include a key signature? The only thing that you have to do is to put a few naturals here and there that need to be placed, and that's it! If I'm confusing you with words such as "key signatures" and "naturals", then click here if you want to know what they mean. Or just scroll down if you're too lazy to be bothered with clicking.  Although, despite saying the stuff before, writing music is a very hard and boring thing to do, so I have to commend the person that made this. At least she tried, right?

Okay, so yes I sort of lied when I said in the last post that the next post would be a video. The NEXT post will be a video, I promise maybe.

Oh man! I've almost posted ten posts! The number ten is a two digit number, if you didn't know. Today, as I said in my last post, I'll be taking about pianissimo and staccato and a few other things as well.

This is... this is like a key signature but with sharps. The sharps replace every note in that bar with the sharp in place. For example, if there's a sharp on G, then there every G in that bar would be a G sharp. I hope I'm explaining this right.

This is a key signature with flats. Like the key signature with sharps, the key signature with flats replaces every note in that bar with the sharp in place. For example, if there's a flat on F, then every F in that bar would be a F flat.

This is a natural. It negates key signatures with sharps/flats. That means that the natural does not apply to the key signatures with sharps/flats. For example, let's say that a G sharp is in a key signature. That means that every G that is written on a bar is a G sharp. However, if there's a natural beside a certain G, then that G is just a G, not a G sharp.

This is a piano. No, not the piano that you'd think. A piano is a symbol that tells you, "Hey, make it a bit quieter, okay?" This is useful because sometimes you need to ensure a certain mood when you're playing the piano. If you're playing a real sad song, you want to be quiet. If you're banging on the keys and being all loud, then people wouldn't really get the impression that it's a sad song. If you play it all quiet-like, then most people would get the impression that it's a sad song. There's quieter versions of piano, too. There's pianissimo, which is very soft, and pianississimo, which is like barely touching the keys at all. Pianissimo is shown with two p's, and pianississimo is shown with three p's, but you'll rarely see pianississimo.

This is a forte. If you're wondering why it's so blurry, then I'm sorry; I don't know. It just seems to be the way it's rolling right now. A forte is the opposite of a piano; it tells you, "HEY MAKE IT LOUD ALRIGHT?!" This is useful if you're trying to be dramatic, or when you're playing a section that has a lot of action in it. It's similar to piano in the way that when shown with multiple "f's", it will be louder. There's fortissimo, which is like really loud, and there's fortississimo, which is pretty much trying to break your piano keys... You won't see fortississimo very often, though.

This is a crescendo. These guys tell you to gradually become louder and louder. I guess it creates suspense in a piece. The crescendo looks like a mountain sideways.

This is a decrescendo. These guys tell you to gradually become quieter and quieter. It does not create suspense in a piece. Well, maybe. I wouldn't know. I don't write piano songs. The decrescendo also looks like a mountain sideways, but instead of to the left it's to the right.

This is a staccato. This makes the note shorter than usual and peppy. I would use this note in a happy sounding song. Very jumpy and nice. Also I really like the name. Staccato, staccato, staccato. A staccato looks like a dot. I will be very disappointed in you if you don't know what a dot is.

This is a fermata. This pauses the note. You can pause the note as long as you want. I would say that this usually indicates the end of a song. A fermata looks like an eye-ball. Okay well that's what I learned for today. The next time I'll be posting a video, I think. I guess it depends on how motivated I am.