Applying the Musical Alphabet

Applying the Musical Alphabet

Lesson 4.6​

In your last lesson, you learned about the musical alphabet and how it repeats. Looking at the piano keyboard above, you can see that all of the A pitches are highlighted in red, showing that the musical alphabet repeats. Remember that the musical alphabet stops at a particular letter before repeating.

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Fill in the Blank

What are the letters of the musical alphabet?

Earlier in this unit, you learned about certain notes and their values.

Not only do notes determine how long a musical sound is performed, but where they are placed on the staff tells the performer which pitch to perform.

To review, the notes in the picture on the right are quarter notes. On its own, it tells you that there is going to be one beat of sound.

When the quarter note is on the staff with a time 4/4 signature, it then tells you that it is one beat of a certain pitch.

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When notes are placed on the staff, they become not only rhythm markings, but also pitch markings. Where the notes are placed on the staff determines which pitch they represent. Watch the video below of different notes with different values being played. You will not only notice that they represent the rhythm, but also hear the different pitches each one represents.

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Edio | Commonwealth Charter Academy

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Remember that each line and space represents a specific pitch that does not change.

You have been learning the pitch names of the staff when using the treble clef.

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Draw

Lable the names of the notes on the Treble Clef lines. Think about the mnemonic device you created last lesson and use the beginning letters from each word of that phrase.

Options (not in order): F B E G D

Draw

Lable the names of the notes on the Treble Clef staff spaces. Think about the mnemonic device you created last lesson and use the beginning letters from each word of that phrase.

Options (Not in order): E A C F

You learned earlier in this lesson that notes on the staff not only have rhythm value, but also determine the pitch to be performed.

Remember that the pitch names do not change; however, because the musical alphabet does repeat, sometimes a pitch can be on a line or a space.

Look at the two images to your right.

Each image shows the same pitch name twice, but one is on a line and one is on a space.

The only difference is that one will sound higher and the other will sound lower.

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Draw

Labe the two notes as the pitch they represent. Make sure you use captial letters for pitch names

Draw

Labe the notes as the pitch they represent. Make sure you use captial letters for pitch names

Draw

Draw the following pitches as quarter notes on the staff provided:

G C A