Tuesday, January 18, 2011

C major exercise

When music is notated on a staff there is a clef at the beginning to indicate the names of the lines and spaces.  It is important to know the names of the notes on the staff; however, it is not necessary to know the note names in order to read a melody if you know solfege.   All you need to know is where "do" is.  See what I mean as you sing this exercise with the C major scale while following the music notation.   The first "do" is indicated with a box around it.  You will notice that the exercise is written twice.  The first one is in bass clef for lower voices (tenor and bass) and the second one is in treble clef for the higher voices (soprano and alto).  You could follow the exercise on either staff.  The relationships of the notes are the same regardless of which clef is indicated.