MUSIC

WORKSHOP
PROGRAMME
Date: Friday 7 December 2018

09:00 - 09:30: Arrival

Coffee/tea and refreshments

09:30 - 10:00 Welcome and introductions

Receive programme and work Þles

10:00 - 11:30 Introduction to playing music

Instrument demonstration and try-out

Basic understanding of the language of music and how to

communicate musically

11:30 - 11:45 Coffee break

11:45 - 12:30 Individual and small group practical instruction and

practice time

12:30 - 13:15 Lunch break

13:15 - 14:00 Practice Time

14:00 - 16:00 Playing together in a group/band

16:00 - 16:30 Conclusion

 Introduction to
Playing Music

A practical guide to musical instruments and playing in a group.

 Musical Instruments

The Piano and Keyboards

The white music notes are given letter names from A to G. (After G it goes back to A)
We will look at the black notes later.
The we start on the note C (to the left of the two black notes).
If you play every note from C to the next C,
it is called the C major scale. ( It is 8 notes and is called an octave).

C D E F G A B C D E F G A B

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti
 The Guitar

Acoustic Guitar Electric Jazz Guitar

The guitar has 6 strings.

They are tuned from the thickest (at the top) E A D G B E (at the bottom)
The neck has a fingerboard (where you press the left hand fingers), and is divided into blocks
called Frets.
They are numbered from fret 1 (near the tuning pegs).

The Notes on the guitar.

The Low E and A string have all the notes written in.

E
B
G
D
A A C D E F G A
E F G A B C D E
3 5 7 8 10 12
Frets

Thick string
 The Bass Guitar

Electric Bass Double Bass

The Bass Guitar has 4 thick strings.

The notes are (from fat at the top) E A D G (thin at the bottom)

The electric bass has frets like a guitar.

The Double Bass has no frets! You have to play in tune by ear!!

G
D

A B C D E F G A

E F G A B C D E
1 3 5 7 8 10 12

Thick string
 The Drum Kit

Crash Cymbal
Ride cymbal

Middle toms Hi Hat

Snare drum

Floor tom

Kick Drum
 The language of music

Music can be divided into 5 areas.

1) Rhythm or time - the different speeds and beat feels of the music.
2) Melody - the notes used to make up a tune that is sung or played on a solo instrument.
(Usually higher notes).
3) Bass - the low sounding notes that provide the fundamental sound to the chords...
4) Harmony or chords - the movement of changing chord progressions. (more about this later).
5) The Key - the starting note of the scale that makes a song easy to sing for a particular singer
or instrumentalist. (More about this later).

Rhythm

Music is played at diffent speeds and with various beat feels depending on the style.

BPM (beats per minute)

The speed or tempo of music is usually set at beats-per-minute (BPM)

Slower songs are usually under 90 BPM
Dance music is often set at 130 BPM

Time signature (counts per bar)

Beats are usually set at number of beats per cycle or “bar”.

4 beats to the bar is counted 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 etc...

3 beats to the bar (or measure) is a waltz, counted 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 etc...

6 beats to the bar is counted with an accent on the 1 and the 4

123 456 123 456 123 456

 Rhythm can be written down as follows

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

Bar or measure 1 Bar or measure 2 Bar or measure 3 Bar or measure 4

(Count and tap)

Beats can be long or short.

Here is a list of beats from long to short.

1) The Whole note.

1 2 3 4 The longest note lasts for 4 counts

(1 Bar)

hold for 4
counts

2) The Half note.

1 2 3 4 hold for 2 counts

(half a bar)

3) The Quarter note

1 2 3 4 hold for 1 counts

(quarter of a bar)
There are even smaller subdivisions...!

4) The Eighth note

Half of one beat or count. (Short)

5) The Sixteenth note

A quarter of one beat or count. (Shorter)

This is how the note or beat time length is written in

normal music notation.

2
Note values
4
Whole note

&
4w w w w
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 41 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

Half note

& ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
5
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

Quarter note

&
9
œœœœ œœœœ œœœœ œœœœ
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

Eighth note

& œœœœœœœœ œœœœœœœœ œœœœœœœœ œœœœœœœœ

13
1+2+3+4+ 1+2+3+4+ 1+2+3+4+ 1+2+3+4+

for “+” ... say “and”

 We also have to fill in the gaps or silences between beats.
These are called Rests.
Rests are counted from long to short in the same way as beats
or rhythms.

Rest chart

Here is a real reading

exercise...
Rhythm studies 1
sing clap or play the following rhythms in tempo/no matter how slow or fast

4
&4 w ˙ ˙ w ˙ ˙ œ œ œ œ
1234 1 2 3 4 1234 12 3 4 1 2 3 4

& w ˙ Ó ˙ œ œ Ó ˙ Ó œ œ
1234 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 12 3 4

11

& œ Œ œ Œ Ó ˙ œ œ œ œ Ó œ œ œ œ Ó
1 2 3 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

16

& Œ œ œ Œ Œ œ Œ œ Ó Œ œ œ Œ Œ œ œ Œ Ó
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

21

& Ó œ Œ Œ œ Ó œ Œ Œ œ Œ œ œ Œ
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

25

& Œ œ œ Œ Œ œ Œ œ œ œ Ó Ó œ œ
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
 Melody, Harmony and Bass

The chromatic scale is all the notes available on any instrument.

There are 12 notes (ie: all the white and black notes on the piano.)

C# D# F# G# A# C# D# F# G# A#

C D E F G A B C D E F G A B

Here is the chromatic scale on the bass guitar.

Notice that the chromatic (black) notes have two names. eg: “F# is the same note as Gb”

G
D
A# C# F# G#
A B C C# D E F G A
Bb Db Gb Ab
Db
E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D# E
Gb Ab Bb Db Eb
1 3 5 7 8 10 12

The chromatic scale is useful to be able to find different Keys. (Keys will be
discussed in a later course).
The major scale is more important when it comes to creating music.
 The C major scale
These three elements are part of the notes of a scale.

The most important scale is the major scale.

The scale starting on the C note is:

C D E F G AB C

This is the major scale in the key of C

We can visualise this scale on instruments and on a musical staff (notation).

Notation.

C D E F G A B C

Piano and keyboard

C D E F G A B C D E F G A B

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti

Guitar B
G
D
A A C D E F G A
E F G A B C D E
3 5 7 8 10 12
Frets

G
Bass Guitar D

A B C D E F G A

E F G A B C D E
1 3 5 7 8 10 12
 The intervals and learning to hear the notes.

It is very important to learn to sing the notes of the

major scale.
This will eventually give you the ability to play any
song by ear.

The first skill we need is to sing the notes of the major

scale in steps or leaps called “intervals”.

C D E F G A B C
Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Sing this interval exercise...

C C
Perfect Unison
Do Do

C D Major 2nd
Do Re (Whole tone)

C E Major 3rd
Do Mi
C F Perfect 4th
Do Fa

C G
Perfect 5th
Do So
C A Major 6th
Do La

C B Major 7th
Do Ti

C C Perfect octave
Do Do

You can sing these intervals in various ways...

eg: Do Re Do Do Mi Do etc....
or in reverse Do Ti Do La Di So etc...
 Tune (Melody)

Melody can be written or played with one note following another to create
a tune. Here is a fragment of Pata Pata written out

G
C CE E G F G CC E G G

Sa-gu-qu-ga sa-thi be-ga Sa-gu-qu-ga sa-thi be-ga

Bass
Here is the bass player’s part written out.
This is written on a different staff to the melody.
It is called the bass cleff.

Bass Clef
Chords (harmony)

This is the chord notation for the piano player.

Chords are made up of playing 3 notes together.

Chord symbols...
C C7 F C C G G C

C G F F E E D D C
G E C C C C B B
E Bb A A G G G G E

Here is the Melody, Harmony and Bass written together

Tune

Chords

Bass
 More about chords.

The easiest way to find chords is to take them from the scale.
If the scale is seen as numbers,
use the formula 1 -3 - 5 (Do Mi So)

This chord is a Cmajor chord.

We will call it chord 1 or
I (roman numeral)
C E G
1 3 5
2 4

We can then start on the next note along

(D) and repeat the formula 1 3 5

This chord is a D minor chord.

We will call it chord 2 or
II (roman numeral)
D F A
1 3 5
2 4

The next note along is E and the formula

1 3 5 gets the notes E G B

This chord is an E minor chord.

We will call it chord 3 or
III (roman numeral)
E G B
1 3 5
2 4

We can keep going until we get 7 different Number -

Chord
chords... Roman Numeral

Chord Number - F IV
Roman Numeral

C I G V

Dm II- Am VI-

Em III- B dim VII0

 We now have 7 chords we can use...

I IIm IIIm IV V VIm VII0

C Dm Em F G Am B dim

Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti

We can play them in different orders called chord pro-

gressions.
Popular chord progressions are reused by many songs.
Here are the most popular progressions

Twist and Shout - Beatles

I IV V La Bamba - Richie Valens
Pata Pata - Miriam Makeba
C F G Mbube - Solomon Linda

Donna - Richie Valen

I VIm IV V Oh Carol - Neil Sedaka
Dream Dream - Everley Brothers
C Am F G Stand By Me - Ben E King

I V VIm IV Don’t Stop Believing - Journey

I’m yours - Jason Mraz
F Can you feel the love - Elton John
C G Am

Diamonds and Rust - Joan Baez

VIm IV I V Zombie - Cranberries
Save Tonight - Eagle Eye Cherry
Am F C G

There are some chords that are major and some minor.
This is due to the fact that the major scale is not symmetrical. This will need further exploration
in another course. It is enough to remember that there are 3 “major” chords C F G, and 3 “minor”
chords Am Em and Dm.
 The 12 bar Blues progression
The 12 bar blues progression is the foundation of
many Blues, Jazz and Rock n Roll tunes.
It has many variations but this is the progression in
its most basic form.

IV I

F C

V IV I

G F C

Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley

Blue Suede Shoes _ Elvis Presley
johnny b Goode - Chuck Berry
Red House - Jimi Hendrix
Blue Monk - Thelonius Monk
All Blues - Miles Davis
Billie’s Bounce - Charlie Parker
Mr PC - John Coltrane