Elements of Music

CHAPTER 1 PITCH 1
Lesson 1: Staff
The five-line staff, pitches and notes, noteheads, ascending and descending motion,
steps and leaps, ledger lines 1
Lesson 2: Keyboard
Piano keyboard, black and white keys, letter names for notes, steps and leaps,
octaves, piano fingering 7
Lesson 3: Treble clef
Treble clef, accidentals (sharp, flat, and natural), semitones, enharmonic equivalence 13
Lesson 4: Bass clef
Bass clef, accidentals (sharp, flat, natural), semitones 23
Lesson 5: Great staff
Great staff 31
Chapter 1: Supplementary Lesson
Alto clef, tenor clef, octave signs (8 va and 8 vb ), octave designations, double flats,
and double sharps 41
Chapter 1: Self-Test 45
CHAPTER 2 RHYTHM AND METER 49
Lesson 6: Quarter notes, half notes, and whole notes in meter
Quarter notes, half notes, whole notes, stems, beats, measures (bars) and barlines,
meter (“common time”), upbeat, downbeat, accent, conducting patterns, tempo 49
Lesson 7: Eighth notes and sixteenth notes
Eighth notes and sixteenth notes, flags, beams 59
Lesson 8: Dots and ties
Augmentation dot, dotted rhythms, ties, anacrusis 69
Lesson 9: Rests
Rests 79
Lesson 10: Duple meter ( and )
and meter, alla breve C , upbeat, downbeat, conducting patterns 89
Lesson 11: Triple meter ( )
meter and its conducting pattern 97
Lesson 12: Compound meter ( )
Compound meter, meter, and its conducting pattern 105
Lesson 13: Syncopation
Syncopation, accent marks, ties, and subdivision 111
Chapter 2: Supplementary Lesson
Rhythmic values smaller than a sixteenth note, triplets, other duple, triple, and quadruple meters 117
Chapter 2: Self-Test 119
CHAPTER 3 MAJOR AND MINOR SCALES 121
Lesson 14: Major scale (C major)
Major scale, arrangement of semitones and whole tones,
scale-degree numbers, scale-degree names, solfège syllables 121
Lesson 15: Major scales other than C major
Transposition, major scales with sharps, major scales with flats, circle of fifths 133