Lesson 18: "Simplified Notation" (簡譜)

Sometimes, the songs that we have to play are only available in what is called the "simplified notation", or 簡譜 in Chinese. Instead of using the staff and notes described in the first few lessons, it uses numbers to represent the melody and rhythm. 簡譜 is something that both musicians and singers in a worship team should learn to be able to read it instantly (except for those who can learn a song much faster by listening), so that the practising process can be streamlined.

Musical Notes & Accidentals

The numbers that you will see in 簡譜 are 1 to 7, each number represents a musical note in the major scale:

• 1 = do
• 2 = re
• 3 = mi
• 4 = fa
• 5 = so
• 6 = la
• 7 = ti

The use of accidentals (sharps, flats, and naturals) in 簡譜 is exactly the same as that in standard notation. If you want to raise a note by a semitone, you write the "#" in front of the note, e.g. #4 means the note "fa" is being raised a semitone.

If a note is in a higher octave, it will have a dot above it. On the other hand, if a note is in a lower octave, it will have a dot below it.

Note Duration & Rests

• Quarter notes (or 1 beat) in simplified notation are represented by an unmodified number.
• Longer notes in whole beats are represented by the addition of hyphens following the number. E.g.
  5 - 6 - means the notes so and la are both 2 beats, and
  7 - - 6 means ti is 3 beats and la is 1 beat.
• Longer notes of other durations can be written as two notes joined together by a tie, just like in standard notation.
• Eighth notes (half beats) are written with one line underneath. E.g.
  1 2 3 2 1 1 : the first two beats consist of eighth notes, and the 3rd and 4th beats are quarter notes.
• Sixteenth notes are written with two lines underneath. Basically, the lines underneath the notes are equivalent to the flags on the 8th and 16th notes in standard notation.
• The concept of dotted notes in standard notation applies in simplified notation as well, except for the half note, since a dotted half note = 3 beats, has to be represented by hyphens in simplified notation.
• Rests are written as "0" in simplified notation. Each unmodified "0" represents a quarter rest. E.g.
  1 0 0 0 means the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th beats have no sound.
  1 - 0 0 means the 3rd and 4th beats have no sound.
  Extended rests must be represented by writing multiple "0"s instead of writing hyphens after the first "0". So, the first example above cannot be written as 1 0 - -
• 8th rests and 16th rests are written as "0" with the corresponding number of lines underneath it.

Key Signature & Time Signature, etc.

• Since there is no staff in simplified notation, the key signature (調號) in standard notation cannot be written out. Therefore, the key of the song is usually declared at the beginning. E.g. "Key: C" means the song is in C major. "D#m" means the song is in D# minor. (The part "Key:" is sometimes omitted)
• The time signature (拍號) of the song typically comes immediately after the key at the beginning of the song, and is written in the form of a fraction. E.g. "4/4" or "3/4".
• Bar lines, double bar line (at the end of a song), and repeat sign are used in the same way as standard notation in simplified notation.

Simplified Notation: Real Life Example

It is the responsibility of the musicians and vocalists in a worship team to learn how to read the simplified notation, because the leaders and vocalists may not all know how to read music (although I still think that everybody in the team should learn how to read music, for their own sake). As a pianist, it is important to be able to play the melody smoothly from any kind of score you are provided, be it in standard notation or simplified notation. In fact, any pianist should slowly become able to play by ear, i.e. be able to play the melody on the piano after hearing it several times.

Lesson 16: Minors(小調) - Part 2: Minor Scales (小調音階)

Just like all major keys, each minor key has its own scales. The difference is that there are different modes of minor scales: natural, harmonic, and melodic minor scales. Each of these modes will be explained below using C major/A minor as illustration.

Natural Minor (自然小調)

The natural minor scale is exactly the same as its relative major scale, but with a different starting point. (Hint: you will need to know all the relative keys in Lesson 15 first!) It starts at the 6th note (submediant) of the relative major scale instead. Recall the C major scale: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. Since A minor natural scale is just C major scale but starting at A instead, the A minor natural scale would be: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A. Comparing it with the A major scale (A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A), the A minor natural scale has lowered 3rd, 6th, and 7th degrees.

Harmonic Minor (和聲小調)

The harmonic minor scale is a natural minor scale with a raised 7th degree. Thus, the A minor harmonic scale would be: A-B-C-D-E-F-G#-A. Another point to note about the harmonic minor is that this is the only scale in which there is an interval that is more than a whole step; the interval between the 6th degree (F) and 7th degree (G#) is an augmented 2nd.

Melodic Minor (旋律小調)

The melodic minor scale is probably the most complicated mode of minor scales, because its ascending pattern is different from its descending pattern (in both natural and harmonic minor scales, the ascending and descending patterns are the same). The descending pattern of the melodic minor is the same as the natural minor. However, the ascending pattern of the melodic minor contains raised 6th and 7th degrees. Thus, the A minor melodic scale would look like this: A-B-C-D-E-F#-G#-A-G-F-E-D-C-B-A.

Each of the above mode of minor scale has its own characteristic in sound. Ideally, a pianist should be able to distinguish between these three different modes by ear. Try playing each of the above minor scales on the keyboard to hear how differently they sound, and contrast it with the major scale.

Assignments

1. Determine the intervals between all the adjacent notes for all three modes of minor scales.


2. The derivation of A minor scales (natural, harmonic, and melodic) is illustrated above. Can you write out all 3 types of minor scales for the other 11 keys? (Note: it is much easier to determine the key signatures of each minor key first)

Lesson 4: 黑色琴鍵 (Black keys)

From the previous lessons, we see that all the lines and spaces on the staff are represented by a white key on the keyboard. So how are the black keys represented on the grand staff? Before we start to learn about the black keys, we must first learn the concept of whole step and half step.

When playing the C major scale, we learnt that some steps are whole steps and some are half steps. In particular, there is a half step between E and F, and another half step between B and C. Those are the same pairs of notes that do not have a black key between them, so there is only a half step between those pairs. All other pairs of notes that have a black key in between have a whole step between them. This pattern of whole and half steps will hold for ALL major scales.


Now, if we take a half step from C to the right, we will hit the black key that is immediately to its right. We call that black key "C sharp", and it is written as "C#". Similarly, the black key that is immediately to the right side of D is called D-sharp, and it is written as D#. From this, you can deduce that the rest of the black keys are F#, G#, and A# (from left to right). Simply speaking, a sharp will make a note a half-step higher.

There is also another way to write the notation of the black keys. In the last paragraph, we used a sharp to make a note a half-step higher. We can also make a note a half-step lower by adding a flat "b" to it. For example, the black key that is immediately to the left of B, we can call it B-flat, and it is written as Bb in music. Similarly, the rest of the black keys can be written as Ab, Gb, Eb, Db, respectively (from right to left).


Since there are two ways of writing and naming the black keys, naturally, that means each black key on the keyboard can be written in two ways. For example, the black key between C and D is half step higher than C, and is half step lower than D, so it can be written as either C# or Db. In other words, C# = Db. Similarly, D# = Eb, F# = Gb, G# = Ab, A# = Bb. Knowing how to write black keys in different ways is imporatant later on when we learn about keys other than C major. Perhaps this figure below will make memorizing the black keys easier:

Questions that you should be able to answer at the end of this lesson:

1. Why are some steps half steps in the C major scale, and why are the rest whole steps?
2. Where are the half steps in the C major scale?
3. What musical symbol should you use to make a note half step higher?
4. What musical symbol should you use to make a note half step lower?
5. Know how to name all the black keys in both ways.

Lesson 2: 五線譜(The Grand Staff)

The grand staff is the most widely used system of musical notation. Generally, knowing how to read music on the grand staff is regarded as "knowing how to read music" in the lay man's term. The "grand staff" consists of two staffs stacked together as follows:

There are two clefs in the grand staff. The one on the top is called the treble clef (高音譜號); the one at the bottom is called the bass clef (低音譜號). There are 5 lines in each staff. Notes can be written on the lines or between the lines (in the spaces). Notes written on the lines are called line notes; and the notes written in the spaces are called space notes.

The grand staff also provides a "visualization" of the music in a sense, because notes that are higher up in the staff will have a higher pitch (with a few exceptions). The figure below shows that the Middle C on the piano is also in the middle of the grand staff.

This image is obtained from this website.

It is extremely important to memorize what notes each line and space refers to, because that will allow you to read music scores more quickly. You should be familiar with the notes that you can look at the note and know which letter it refers to immediately. Similarly, you should know the notes well enough that you can write down every note on the grand staff immediately when you are asked to do so. It should not be very difficult if you have memorized the letters in Lesson 1, because it is just cycles of C, D, E, F, G, A, B. And remembering where the Middle C is located on the grand staff helps you to count your steps up or down the staff to see where the notes belong to.

Questions that you should be able to answer at the end of this lesson:

• What are the clefs mentioned above? What are the differences between them?
• What are line notes and space notes? (Try to write examples of them)
• Be able to name notes that are written on the grand staff without thinking (for too long).
• Be able to write any note on the grand staff without thinking (for too long).

Lesson 1: 白色琴鍵 (White keys)

A standard full piano keyboard contains 88 keys, which consist of 52 white keys and 36 black keys. Each key represents a unique note, or pitch. In general, the keys on the right are higher pitch than the keys on the left. In other words, the relative physical positions of the keys on a keyboard will tell you the relative pitches of those notes.

If you look at the keyboard carefully, you will notice that it has a repeating "pattern" as follows:

Starting from the left, the first white key is C, followed by D, E, F, G, A, B. The eighth white key is C again. Since the second C is on the right of the first C, it has a higher pitch than the first C, and we say it is an octave higher than the first C. Another way to understand it is that the "distance" between the first and second C's is an octave. The concept of "octave" is very important in music.

In the figure above, there are black keys between some of the white keys. As mentioned above, the relative position of keys tells you their relative pitches. Therefore, the pitch of each black key is between the pitches of the two white keys on its left and right. Note that not all adjacent white keys have a black key between them. In particular, there is no black key between E and F, and between B and C.

The figure above also has an arrow pointing at the first C with the label "Middle C". There are several C's on a piano keyboard, which one of them is the "Middle C"?

Ans: When you are facing the middle of the keyboard, the C in front of you is the "Middle C".

Questions that you should be able to answer at the end of this lesson:

1. How many keys are there in a standard piano keyboard?
2. What are the 7 letters for the white keys?
3. What is an "octave"?
4. Name the places where there is no black key.
5. Locate Middle C on the piano.