Music Theory Unplugged

By Dr. David Salisbury

Fundamentals
Introduction
The notion of transmitting music from musician to musician either orally or in
notated form is as old as music itself. Many systems have been devised in
musical cultures throughout the world. Music is a language and consequently
has the same concerns as any language including vocabulary, grammatical
structure and contextual relationships. It is therefore necessary to establish
the basic structures and terminology that will initially be the building blocks of
a more comprehensive theoretical knowledge.

1.1 Notational Basics

Notation is a formalized system used to transmit musical ideas from one
musician to another. A citation from the Wikipedia free online encyclopedia
states:
The ancestors of modern symbolic music notation originated in the
Catholic church, as monks developed methods to put plainchant
(sacred songs) to paper. The earliest of these ancestral systems, from
the 8th century, did not originally utilise a staff, and used neums (or
neuma or pneuma), a system of dots and strokes that were placed
above the text. Although capable of expressing considerable musical
complexity, they could not exactly express pitch or time and served
mainly as a reminder to one who already knew the tune, rather than a
means by which one who had never heard the tune could sing it
exactly at sight.
(Wikipedia-2004-http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_notation).
The point is the more defined the system of transmission or notation and the
more ability a musician has to translate that into live or real music the more
the listener can appreciate the art and skill that went in to produce it whether
on a concious or subconcious level.

1.1.1 Staves and the Grand Staff

Our first point of departure is a way of representing what is happening aurally,
visually starting with five (5) parallel lines laid out horizontally across the page
called a staff or stave (see Example 1.1). This give us the ability to show the
relationship of each pitch higher or lower depending on its position higher or
lower on, above or below the five lines and when and how long each pitch
occurs over time as you scan across the page from left to right much like
reading a sentence or paragraph in a book.

Music Theory Unplugged

By Dr. David Salisbury

(Example 1.1)
When two staves are connected with a bracket on the ends it becomes a
grand staff (see Example 1.2).

(Example 1.2)
A grand staff is used predominantly for piano music and usually contains a
treble clef sign on the upper staff and a bass clef sign on the bottom staff
(see Example 1.3).

(Example 1.3)
When a staff is divided vertically with straight lines this creates units of time
called bars or measures. A double vertical line shows the end of a musical
section, however when found at the end of a piece of music there is usually
one thin vertical line followed by one thicker vertical line (see Example 1.4).

(Example 1.4)
The treble clef on the top staff is so named because the sounds or pitches
placed on that staff are higher in sound. The treble clef is also called the G
clef because the curl in the bottom part of the staff curls around the G line.
The bass clef on the bottom staff is so named because the sound or pitches

Music Theory Unplugged

By Dr. David Salisbury
placed on that staff are lower in sound. The bass clef is also called the F clef
because the two dots are on either side of the F line. Therefore the function
of a clef sign then is to identify the pitch name of a particular line in order to
establish were all of the other pitches occur on the staff.
In music we use seven letters to identify all pitches across all ranges, high or
low, of the music we play. These letters are A, B, C, D, E, F and G. These
letters are then repeated over and over again at a subsequent higher or lower
sounding pitch and therefore establishes a founding principle of music we will
call the principle of cycles. The principle of cycles quite simply when applied
to the naming of pitches is that when one has used up all of the notes, pitches
or letters of a Key, Mode or Scale, you start over again and repeat them
once more, for example: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G etc. It is in
this way that we are able to use only (7) seven letters of the alphabet to
express all of the notes on an 88 key Grand Piano from the lowest A] to the
highest C.
There are many ways to remember the pitches in relation to the lines and
spaces on either the treble or bass clef staves. One of the most familiar and
accepted ways is to associate a word with each line or space, for example in
the treble clef starting on the first or bottom line and moving upwards through
the rest of the five lines we end up with the following phrase or one similar:
(E)very (G)ood (B)oy (D)eserves (F)ruit, notice that (G) occurs on the second
line already determined by the treble or (G) clef sign as described previously.
The spaces between these lines coincidently spell out a word already: (F) (A)
(C) (E) spells FACE and rhymes with SPACE (see Example 1.5).

(Example 1.5)
What is unclear in this type of method is the inter-relationship between the
lines and spaces and the overall continuity between the Treble and Bass
clefs. The other problem with this system is that it does not comply with the
principle of cycles. In order for any system to work effectively as a continuous
system in music it must follow the above stated principle of cycles by cycling
through all the elements of a series in this case all seven letters. Looking at
the two systems above one of lines and one of spaces it is clear that in the
system for lines there are only (5) five letters and that in the system for
spaces there are only (4) four letters meaning that in the system of lines

Music Theory Unplugged

By Dr. David Salisbury
there are two letters missing and in the system of spaces there are three
letters missing.
In addition by focusing on the lines and spaces as two different systems one
does not see the inter-relationship between the two, that is in the system for
lines we are simply skipping every other letter of the alphabet starting on (E)
and that the letters skipped are in fact the letters of the spaces in between
each pair of two lines, consequently when you put the two of them together
you would get (lines in bold, spaces in italics): E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F. Note
that we have already started another cycle by the time we get to the fourth
space (E) before the last line (F). Furthermore once you have come to the
end of the fifth line your dilemma would be the inability to effectively determine
notes above as well as notes that start before the first line below the staff or
apply this system to other clefs.
This dilemma became clear to me when teaching younger students (littlies)
how to play the piano. After introducing them to the Treble clef or right hand
system, they would then shown the Bass clef or left hand system and they
invariably express their frustration at learning a whole other system and
having to keep track of the both systems. After getting this reaction
consistently over a period of time it seemed logical to agree that they were
right!
Therefore after years of working with students and encountering the confusion
this brings about, we come to the conclusion that there is the need for only
one system and that this system should apply to notes above and below the
staves, called ledger lines because we draw in the subsequent lines as we go
higher or lower away from the staff and in either bass or treble clef. In order
to create a unified system that meets these needs it was necessary to only
add two more letters to the lines system in the Treble clef and therefore
complete the cycle of all seven letters. Now the phrase reads Every Good
Boy Deserves Fish And Chips (see Example 1.6)

(Example 1.6)
Notice that when we get to (C) Chips we need to show the previous ledger
lines accordingly so that (C) Chips has two ledgers lines one below it for the
(A) line and one through the middle of it for the (C) line (spacing between lines
is exaggerated). Example 1.7 below shows how the system works for both

Music Theory Unplugged

By Dr. David Salisbury
the Bass and Treble clefs. Note that in between the Bass and Treble clefs
there is only one line (Middle C) and that is because traditionally the practice
has been to put an exaggerated distance between the two staves in order to
show the separation between the two for ease of reading each hand in piano
or organ literature.
The intervallic or pitch distance between the top line of the Bass clef and the
bottom line of the Treble clef is the usually the same as it is between the first
and third, second and fourth or third and fifth lines in each clef. It seems
unusual to use the term usually because it would appear that we are trying to
establish founding principles and yet a second principle or possibly an
addendum to any principle discussed in this book would be that there is
always an exception to the rule. The Example 1.7 below starts with (E)very
on the ledger line below the bottom line in the Bass clef using only the
beginning letters and going through the cycle twice continued up through the
treble in order to show the continuity between the two clefs.

(Example 1.7)
You can see that Middle C is the dividing point between the Bass and Treble
clef systems as well as the middle of the piano and pitch range with slightly
more range above Middle C. In order to find any note that may occur on a
space simply count up from either the line below the staff in Bass clef or the
bottom line in Treble clef to the line just below the space you are trying to
determine and simply go to the next letter in the alphabet. So for example if
you were trying to figure out the next note on the space after C above the
Treble staff it would be D. Next there is the concept of units of measurement
or ungrouped versus grouped.