Part 2

By David J. Williams...

In the last enthralling episode I mentioned two points that I promised to talk about this time. These two points were leger lines and the black keys on the keyboard. We'll start with leger lines first, as they are the easiest to understand.

In the last issue we looked at the bass and treble clef staves, and how the position of the notes on these staves gives you their pitch. Both staves, however, can be extended beyond the standard five lines and four spaces enabling notes of lower or higher pitch to be shown.

The treble clef stave is shown below: Notice how the sequence of line then space is maintained by using extra lines added to the stave. These are the leger lines.

The diagram above shows only some of the lower notes it is possible to display on the treble clef but you can also do the same thing with the higher notes - i.e. 'G' and beyond. I'm sure you get the idea.

So now the bass clef:

Here you can see that I have shown the higher note positions using leger lines and, again, these lines can be used to show notes below the bottom line of the stave - i.e. 'F' and lower.

Leger lines then are simple extensions to the stave, and can display notes that are higher or lower than the standard five line stave allows.

Now we come to the black keys on the keyboard diagram, and here is where it starts to get a bit more involved. The concept I am about to explain is a simple one once you grasp the logic behind it - if you can't see it at first please do persist and you'll find that eventually the penny will drop.

In the last issue I showed you that, despite there being only seven letters of the alphabet used, there are twelve different notes in western music theory (western as opposed to oriental or asian music which are based on different theory). I also pointed out how the octave (see last issue!) encompassed these twelve notes. Look again at the keyboard diagram below and notice how the keys are grouped between the octave 'C' - 'C'.

You can see that indeed there are twelve different keys in this octave (seven white and five black), and it will be the same story if you were to use any other octave on the diagram. I use 'C' - 'C' as an example because it is much clearer to explain the black keys. So here goes.

If you look at the diagram you will see that the black keys have symbols attatched to them. These symbols are known as SHARPS (#) and FLATS (b). Just to confuse the issue you will also notice that each black key can be either a sharp or a flat (there are occasions when this can also apply to the white keys but don't worry about that). The reason for the twin names is easily explained: If I start with a 'C' the next highest note is a 'C#' because to move up the keyboard to a higher note is to move in a 'sharp' direction. If, however, we were to start with the 'D' and play the next owest note it would become 'Db' even though it is the same note, technically, as C# - this is because we are then moving down the keyboard in a 'flat' direction.

This 'duality' that notes can have causes a lot of confusion with those who are new to music theory, but, as I mentioned before, once the logic of the system is understood it really does seem to make sense. To properly explain the reasons behind duality would take more time than I have at present, but as for the future only your interest and Colin's good patience as editor will enable me to reveal all in a future issue of AtariPhile.

So what have we got so far? You can now tell (at a glance, maybe?) which notes are which when they appear on a stave, both treble and bass, and you are now a little more familiar with the keys on a keyboard and what they are called and how they relate to the staves.

I have deliberately missed out on how the black keys are displayed on a stave because that will be my topic next time - it is all to do with key signatures, which are found at the beginning of the stave after the clef and before the time signature at the very beginning of a piece of music. I'll give you an example to look at until next time.

Your homework this time is to take any octave on the keyboard (perhaps a different one each time) and name all the keys in succession - black and white. Do this going up the octave (sharp direction) and then down the octave (flat direction). Example: C, C#, D, D# ...... C, B, Bb, A, Ab etc.

See you in the next issue.


Again, if you have trouble with all this theory please do get in touch with me. Even if you do understand it all any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Just telephone on 0161 872 7261 after 6pm. Please note that the above telephone number is different from the one I gave in the last issue. As from 27th January I shall have moved to a new address. Oh, and by the way, if you do ring me, just give me your number and I promise to ring you straight back - I get most of my telephone bill paid for me as a perk of my job!