Waching daily Nov 2 2017

Hey everyone it's time for yet another great Learn Flute Podcast.

This is episode eighty one.

Let's get started today with an episode that will help answer a question for complete

newbies especially about understanding note placement on the staff.

I'm Rebecca Fuller, your host, and the expert at Learn Flute Online dot com, where I help

you through all things related to learning how to play the flute - and to do it really

well.

Are you curious?

I hope so - let's get started!

I recently had an email conversation with a nice guy who unfortunately had to send me

his question more than once.

Now, the reason he had to send it to me more than once is that it was hard for him to explain..

And even harder for me to understand what he was asking.

After a couple of back and forths, we got it, and now I see that it's possible that

someone out here in the cyber-learning land can use a copy of our conversation.

Let me explain.

Without talking about the first confusing emails, I'll get right to the gist of what

he was asking.

I found it quite interesting.

A little back information is that he is a complete brand new beginner to music and has

been following my online lesson series in the Gold Level.

We've been learning how to read the music as well in there, and something has him confused.

He was asking me .. now listen carefully so you can understand as well.

His question is: "why, for example does the note E repeat and have different locations

on the staff lines?

I notice this is happening for all notes.

Why?"

Now at first, his question wasn't worded quite as plainly as this, and it had me baffled.

Once I understood, then we had to get kind of scientific with the answer.

So, if you can imagine the five staff lines with me here, let's take one note name for

example.

Let's choose the letter E. Like in our letter.This alphabet letter represents a pitch that we

hear when we play our instrument.

And, in order to make the intended pitch happen, we use finger combinations on our flute.

We also have to blow the air-speed and a few other things to make the exact tone, or pitch,

we're looking for.

There are two different notes named E within the staff lines.

The first one is at the very bottom on the first line.

This is considered the lowest or the "first octave" E.

If the word octave is new to you, I'll take a little side note here to explain that the

flute has three full octaves of notes that it can play.

The basic idea is that we can play the same set of notes three different times.

One time low, one time medium, and another time way up high.

The next time we meet the note E is in between the top two lines of the staff.

This is the second octave E and we have another E even higher.

This is where the confusion was happening for my new friend in the email conversation.

He was wondering why they would reuse note letter names?

Why not have a different letter for them all?

And, why does the low one find itself with the line intersecting the note-head right

on the line, and the higher one sits perfectly between two lines?

Is there rhyme or reason to this?

Well, I had to think about this for a bit and get kind of scientificy about it.

But, here's the explanation we need to understand first:

Are you ready for this?

Put your thinking cap on and listen carefully.

Each pitch is characterized by the frequency of vibrations in its sound waves.

These vibrations are counted as cycles per second.

Sounds technical?

It is.

But, if you think of a nicely drawn wavy line.

The sound waves are evenly spaced.

In science of sound, these waves are counted, and can even be seen with our eyes in a slow-motion

video on instruments with strings that are plucked like a guitar or a piano.

How many waves there are in each second of time-distance is what is being measured and

named.

So if the number of waves in a set is for example two hundred and twenty and assigned

the alphabet letter representation of A, then every time the wave frequency doubles, it

is also assigned the same name, the name of A. Only the octave has changed.

So, I'd like to let those of you who love math problems to google definitions of hertz

in music H-E-R-T-Z in relation to pitch and see what fun you come up with.

Because hertz is what these waves are measured in.

Well, anyway let's leave that aside.

When two notes are one octave apart, one has a frequency exactly two times higher than

the other.

It has twice as many sound waves.

Now, obviously we can't think fast enough to hear and discern how many waves are floating

in the air as we hear something, so we have interpret in a more human way.

Have you ever heard a man and a woman singing at the same time and it appears they are singing

the exact same melody notes but the man is low and the woman is high?

This is what's happening.

The women are singing with double the frequency.

Any note that is twice the frequency of another note is considered exactly one octave higher

- that's eight notes difference.

When placed on top of each other, they sound very much the same - just one is high and

the other is low.

If you're new to music, don't worry if this seems confusing today, it becomes very

apparent as you practice and listen enough.

I actually don't see this that way, it's hard to even think of it that way all mathematical

and scientific.

I actually see this in color in my mind.

The low E and the higher Es are still the same color of blue, we can pretend the G's

are green, B's might be red.

The octaves are different shades.

Haha that's how I see it anyway, but you can take that or leave it and we can talk

more about it another day.

Well, for those of you who are still with me.

If you're still awake and listening.

Let's talk about how this is written on modern western sheet music.

There have been many different methods invented all throughout the world over many generations

of time trying to represent music in a written format.

If you've ever visited an old ancient cathedral for example, you may see the music of the

monks in the glass cases.

It looks very different from what we see nowadays.

But, some countries may still hold on to historic methods of writing for their traditional instruments

especially.

In what's considered modern staff notation - that's a fancy way to say how we write

music on paper, has spread throughout the world, and is considered the universal norm.

.. this is nice because it means musicians from around the globe can all speak and read

the same written language.

Pretty cool, huh?

There are a few rules to know, and once you get these memorized, you're golden and can

continue on even more successfully:

Rule number 1: Read from left to right.

Ya, that's important.

Rule number 2: We'll use the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G and then we'll start

over again.

But this time, on the second octave the notes will sound an octave higher because just like

the word 'octave', 'oct' O-C-T means eight and - well, count with me here on your

fingers: A is 1, B is 2, C is 3, D is 4, E is 5, F is 6, and G is 7.

Now we continue upward in pitch and have to start over again with the letter A which would

be the eighth note in our sequence.

Did I explain that okay?

Hang with me for a few more seconds.

Let's visually place these seven notes on the staff lines.

The bottom line is considered line number one.

And, without having to get into a whole mess of explanation as to why it's the E line,

let's just memorize that this is the E line.

Any note that touches ON this line is given the name of E.

Moving upwards into the space ABOVE the first line but below the second line is considered

the F space.

Any note that sits inside this space is given the name of F. Moving up onto the next line

is G, then into the second space is A. Are you seeing it now?

Perhaps you've drawn five lines on a paper and are following along..

The middle line is the B line.

The space above it is C. The line above that is D, and now we've run out of letters and

have to start over again with E… but this time, this E is in the top space and NOT on

a line like it was down at the bottom of the staff.

Sadly, this is the demise of many new flute students who are also music reading rookies.

The low E and the low F are opposite looking from their second octave equals.

Low F is in the space, but second octave (or higher) F is on the top line… along with

every other note.

 The lower notes are oppositely placed in relation to the lines from the next octave

above it.

The mathematical reason is that there are an odd number of notes for an even number

of places to put them.

The notes oscillate from line to space as you move from octave to octave.

Food for thought today!

Did you stay with me??

I'd love to know if this helped at all.

For those of you who are math minded and really wanted to know, there it is for you.

Well, I appreciate you and your journey.

I also hope that you will come to the comment sections of these audios and let me know what

you think.

I'm releasing these all week by week, but will be pointing students at different discussions

at different times by either linking in a module lesson or sending it out via email

or on social media.

So, if you haven't had time to get signed up for the membership here at Learn Flute

Online where all of the actual video visual learning lessons are, and even more information

that will help you learn how to play the flute really well- it's definitely time to do

so!

We want you to join us.

See you soon!