Catherine Johnson

22 October 2005

Webdropin #4

5 Activities on Basic Music Theory

Activity #1

Visit this site: http://datadragon.com/education/reading/clefs.shtml

And answer the following questions.

1) The two basic kinds of clefs are treble and bass. Treble is for instruments with a higher range, such as violin, and bass clef is for instruments with a lower range, like bassoon. Can you name a few more instruments that might use treble and bass, based on your knowledge of the orchestra?

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Activity #2

This diagram from above is called the Circle of Fifths. Each letter here is 5 notes away from the next one on the keyboard.

For example, the first key at the 12 o’clock position is C. C is 5 notes from G. C…D…E…F…G. Then take G. G is 5 notes from D. G…A…B…C…D. That continues all the way around. The same as a clock! Between the 12 and the 1 on a clock, there are 5 minutes! So, between the C and the G, there are 5 notes. (Remember our musical alphabet? ABCDEFGAB…..)

Your activity:

I will pick 3 starting notes. F, E, and A. (Notice I’m not picking flats.) Your job is to name the notes from F to C, from E to B, and from A to E.

1) F…

2) E….

3) A…

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Activity #3

Musical Notes

Visit this link: http://datadragon.com/education/reading/typenote.shtml

This is a staff:

On a piece of blank paper (not notebook) copy this as best as you can. Practice writing whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, and 16^th notes. Write from left to right. Don’t write above or below something. Write like you write in class. Left to right.

Just a quick note on the different notes…

A whole note is a note that gets 4 beats.

A half note gets 2 beats.

A quarter note gets 1 beat.

An eighth note gets ½ beat.

And a 16^th note gets ¼ of the beat.

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