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The Staff as we know today originated in the 12th and 13th centuries.
It was a form of musical annotation to religious texts and these
annotations were called Gregorian Chants. Before that time, symbols
were used in conjunction with text to represent pitch. With Gregorian
Chant, lines began to be used to represent pitch and the relative
highness or lowness of those pitches. While the first Gregorian Chants
only had one line, eventually a system was expanded to include four
lines. However, more lines were used for different instruments (for
example the lute [ancestor of the guitar]often had seven lines). In
France a system having five lines began and soon this was standard
practice throughout the 16th century in Europe.
The Clef
There are three types of clefs (G clef, F clef, and C clef). Each of these
indicate the foundational pitch (G for Example, with the G clef) the the
clef assigns on the staff. The word clef is French and means, "key."
Essentially, the clef allows most of the notes with in different tessituras
(pitch range for an instrument or voice) to be located on the staff. For
example, the Soprano clef is attached to the bottom line as the
tessitura of the soprano instrument (soprano recorder, vocal range of
Source: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_(music))
The Major Scale employs this pattern of whole and half steps.
Whole/Whole/half/Whole/Whole/Whole/half
Half Step/Semitone
Defining Accidentals
The Tetrachord
Source: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachord)
The C Major scale is the only scale that does not have any sharps or
flats!
Each of the scale degrees is assigned a name:
1st--Tonic or key note
2nd--Supertonic (Super meaning above the tonic)
3rd--Mediant (in the middle between the tonic and the dominant and
the major third above the tonic)
4th--Subdominant (Sub meaning below the dominant)
5th--Dominant (the second most important scale degree to the tonic)
6th--Submediant (the minor third below the tonic)
7th--Leading Tone or Leading Note (the note that leads to the tonic
Enharmonic Keys
These keys are Enharmonic. They sound the same but are written
differently.
If two major keys are not enharmonic, then they are transpositions of
each other. Transpositions are the exact same formula built off of a
different pitch. To transpose means to write or play music in some key
other than the original.
The Circle of Fifths (or circle of fourths if you read it counter clockwise)
shows the relationships between the twelve tones of the chromatic
scale and their corresponding key signatures. Essentially, by starting
at any pitch, ascending by the interval of an equal tempered perfect
fifth, one goes through all twelved tones and returns to the starting
pitch.