Playing a Melody
Congratulations, you’re almost on your way to reading music!
Scales
First, let’s look at scales. A scale is made of eight consecutive notes, for example, the C major scale is composed of C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. The interval between the first note of your C major scale and the last is an example of an octave. The C major scale is very important to practice, since once you have the C scale down, the other major scales will start to fall into place. Here’s how a C major scale looks on a staff.
Scales are a major part in band (no pun intended). Competitions and warm-ups heavily rely on them. They are a great way for increasing your range on your instrument and help in understanding of other tones, which we will discuss below. Every major scale you’ll play has the same pattern, whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half. (we'll discuss those later)
Semitones
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The C Scale is, what I like to think of the base scale. It has only whole tones. However, in music, there are many more tones. They are half tones or semitones, and they allow us to write an infinite variety of sounds into music. A sharp, denoted by the ♯ symbol (not a hash-tag!), means that note is a semitone (or half step) higher than the note head to its right on sheet music.
![Picture](/uploads/2/5/7/7/25771265/49288_orig.jpg)
Conversely, a flat, denoted by a ♭ symbol, means the note is a semitone lower than the note head to its right.
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A keyboard is a great way to visualize how flats, sharps, and regular tones work. As you can see, sharps and flats are very related, it just all depends on preference and situation. How do you know? Your fingering chart for your instrument lists both sharp and flat.
Naturals
There’s one more symbol to learn regarding semitones, and that’s the natural, denoted by a ♮. If a note is sharp or flat, that sharp or flat extends throughout the measure, unless there’s a natural symbol. A natural cancels a sharp or flat within a measure or a song.
Key Signatures
Finally, in order to read music, you’ll need to understand key signatures. You actually already know one key signature, the key of C! The C major scale you learned above was in the key of C. Scales are named after their tonic, the preeminent note within the scale, and the tonic determines what key you play in. You can start a major scale on any note, so long as you follow a whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half pattern. Now, following that pattern in keys other than the key of C will require you to use sharps and flats. Since that’s the case, we place the sharps or flats for your song’s key signature right before the meter, after the clef, on your sheet music. That tells you to maintain those sharps or flats throughout the music, unless of course there’s a natural symbol to override it. You will begin to recognize the key signatures of pieces based on what sharps or flats are shown. Here’s a quick glimpse at some key signatures using sharps and flats:
Congratulations!
You finished! Feel free to explore the rest of Band for Beginners!