Brief Introduction to music – Lesson 2

In English language we have alphabets A-Z

In music we have alphabets A-G too; please don’t ask me why, because that’s how I met it in this world

Also In English, these alphabets are called letters

In music they are called notes; I hope you are following me oo, I’m trying to make a point here

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  A

The letters above are the notes that we have in music, but all these notes have some notes they are hiding in their rooms, I would come back to that later. Let me continue to make you understand my previous point.

In English a combination of letters form words. In music a combination of notes form “Chords”.

When you are in church and you hear the more than two or three notes at the same time, that thing he played is called a chord; or maybe when you are listening to a guitarist singing and playing at the same time, the sound that comes for the when he strikes three or more or even all the strings at the same time is called a chord.

Now let us combine notes together to form a chord.

C E G

That is a chord, remember that in English language, you don’t just pick random letters and join them together and say you’ve formed a word, the word might not exist because there are rules guiding it.

That is exactly how it is when we are talking about chords, there are rules guiding the way we form our chords, we would come back to them later.

Now if we combine correct words in English language, we would have a sentence. But in music if we combine chords we would have a “Chord progression”.

Look at this illustration below:

The    guitar    is     mine   =    sentence

What we have above is a combination of words to give us a sentence.

A C E        F A D          C E G        G B D     =    chord progression (it can work for Asa’s jailer)

LAh           fah              doh          soh

Now the combination of the chords above gave us a chord progression, as it goes on and on like that.

That chord progression can work for Asa’s song “Jailer”.

s  l  l

l  f  f

f  d  d

d  s  s

Now for a little diversion, so you would understand the last section well, the letters

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  A

l   t    d   r  m  f  s   l

the “ l t d r m f s l “ are called solfa notations, they are used to sing the notes of music.

Tonic solfa is a technique for sightsinging, It is a system of naming notes of a musical scale by syllables which are the sounds the notes will produced if they are played on a musical instrument.

 They are normally arranged as

 “ d r m f s l t d”.

The notes and solfas are numbered 1-8 like this:

C             D             E              F              G             A             B             C

D             r              m             f                 s              l               t              d

1              2              3              4              5              6              7              8

 So the illustration is there for those that want to sing it or for those that prefer to learn with the use of solfas, especially Nigerians; we like the use of solfas too oo, I’m also guilty of that too. We would learn more about solfa notations in later lessons.

Rhythm: We can define rhythm as the beat of the songs that We dance to. The rhythm could be high-life, warror, hip-hop, juju music e.t.c

Melody: It is defined as the tune of a song that people hear and make them recognize the song, When you are in the church and the Hymn is about to be sang, the pianist will first play the hymn so the congregation will remember before everybody will sing along. What the pianist plays is the melody of the song.

Harmony: The Harmony is the combination of notes to form chords which will now accompany the rhythm and melody to form beautiful music.

So the left hand plays Harmony, the right hand plays the Melody, and the drummer gives us the rhythm.

Notes of Music are

C  D  E F G A  B  C

Chords are a combination of notes

Chord progression are a combination of chords in a sequential order

Solfa notations are meant to sing notes of music

Next: Lesson – Lesson 3: Keys of the Piano