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Master the basics of music notation
When reading or playing music from the page. there are two things you need to know about every note: what the pitch is (how high or low it is), and how long you should play the note for. Musical notation conveys this information, and much more, using a highly readable and economical system. The short example is taken from the horn part of JS Bach's Mass in B Minor.
* The length of a note is signified by the precise shape of the tadpole-like symbols on the page. A black note with a stick-like tail is played for one beat.
* A note with a curly hook on its tail (or, when they occur in pairs, with a thick horizontal lid) is played for half a beat.
* A note with a doubled tail or lid is played for a quarter of a beat.
* The five lines of the stave, and the four gaps between them, represent the notes of the scale. The higher up stave the note is placed, the higher the note to be played.
* Each space or line on the stave is one note up the scale.
* Other symbols represent rests: an instruction to the player to be silent for a set duration such as one beat (a vertical squiggle) or half a beat (shaped like a curly '7').
There are many other symbols signifying, for example, how to play rather than what to play - quietly, crisply, running the notes together.
Name Number of beats
semibreve 4
dotted minim 3
minim 2
crotchet 1
quaver ½
semiquaver ¼