Synthesizer sheet music

Notation can rightly be called a kind of language that all musicians are fluent in. This language may be incomprehensible to a person in whose life music is not a profession or a serious hobby. Therefore, if you seriously decide to acquire the skills of playing any instrument, first of all you will have to familiarize yourself with the notes.

Notes must be learned even to master the synthesizer, since its functioning is similar to the work of a piano or piano, where without the appropriate knowledge it is simply impossible to create and write down a beautiful melody on paper.

Let's take a closer look at the features of mastering notes for a synthesizer, and also get acquainted with the rules for reading and playing them.

Learning notes for a synthesizer is a rather time-consuming process that requires a lot of time investment, as well as attentiveness and perseverance. To make it easier for a beginner to master the notes, as well as learn how to play, professionals recommend adhering to some tips based on the peculiarities of the process.

• Before you start studying music, you need to acquire individual instruments, since all theoretical studies must be practiced. It will also be easier to understand and memorize notes if you can hear and play them yourself.
• It is most convenient and productive to conduct classes in some quiet place, so that extraneous sounds that can disrupt the process do not interfere with you. It is necessary to start learning the notes with the basic settings of the synthesizer, and only after mastering the playing techniques and using the instrument, you can change the parameters and adjust them for yourself.
• Using your favorite songs when learning notes will greatly simplify the process, since a familiar melody can be recognized even at an intuitive level, making memorization much faster.
• Do not force yourself to study the sheet music, as this will only complicate the process. The desire to master the skills of playing the synthesizer must be sincere.
• For self-study, you can use various applications and gadgets. For example, a self-study program can help not only with a competent presentation of basic information, but also with additional tips.
• There are also many online resources where you can find certain melodies with notes. Some of them allow you to play music while reading notes at the same time.
• To make it easier to learn the notes, you need to work on recognizing them. For this, attention should be paid to ear training.
• There is a division of notes into western and ordinary. Professionals recommend that you learn both, since the knowledge gained can be useful in the process of playing the instrument.
• You should not push yourself into a framework and set unattainable goals - you can evaluate a decent result after only a certain amount of time and a certain number of regular classes.

Pitch, also called pitch, is determined using a special system of note arrangement, which is called a sound row (scale). This row is an alternation of sounds one after another in a certain order: from low to higher, and vice versa. Each scale consists of several parts - octaves, which, in turn, include a full set of notes: DO, RE, MI, FA, SOL, LA, SI.

Determining the location of the octaves is quite simple, you just have to visually divide the keyboard of the synthesizer into several parts. The central part of the keys is occupied by the first octave, immediately followed by the second, third and fourth - they are very easy to identify and distinguish from each other. On the left, next to the first, there is a small octave, followed immediately by a large and a counter octave. A the first two white keys, located on the left, represent a combination of LA and SI notes, which is called a subcontroctave.

When studying the notes, you will notice that some of them have filled heads, while others are empty. Also, some have finished calms - small winding "tails", which are also called flags.

For to write down and later easily read the notes, you must use a special notebook with a staff (staff). In some cases, you can use the digital option. The staff is a special ruler, consisting of five parallel lines and numbered from bottom to top. These lines are used to record notes, and if they are lacking, space above and below them can be used.

From the location of the notes on the lines, you can determine the pitch of the sound - the highest sound is indicated on the top ruler.

The musical key is a kind of starting point from which the position of notes with a particular pitch is counted. If you have a key and at least one root note, you can easily determine the location of all other sound symbols. Also, musical keys are used for compact design of staves, since even when creating one melody, they can be used several times.

Also, when considering the pitch, one cannot fail to mention the derivative steps that can be formed when the sound is raised and lowered in semitones - small black keys located between the main white ones. You can define 2 types of derived steps:

• sharp - designation of raising the sound by a semitone;
• flat - designation of lowering the sound by a semitone.

Based on some names, it can be determined that the rise and fall of the sound occurs by two semitones, as for the bekar - this is the cancellation of the step changes and the reproduction of a clean note.

When teaching, one cannot ignore such a concept as the duration of notes. This term belongs to the field of the study of rhythm and musical time.

As a rule, one fraction of the musical time is associated with the fourth note. It is also worth noting that the duration includes not only the sounding time of the music, but also the intermediate pauses that occur between the notes.

Musical durations are subdivided into several types.

• Even musical duration - formation is possible when the melody is divided into 2 parts or into any number of parts, the number of which is 2. The basis of division can be a note consisting of 4 parts, that is, its sound is decomposed into 4 counts. In this case, all notes with calms of 8 or 16 counts must be combined under one edge.
• Odd musical duration - formation occurs when the melody is divided into any number of beats, a multiple of 3. With this division, the formation of triplets and quintoles is possible - sounds consisting of three and five notes.

There are several ways to make notes and pauses in a melody longer, let's take a closer look at each of them.

• Creating a dotted rhythm (in the written version, a note is indicated with a dot) - the sound increases by half and becomes more extended. That is, such a note, for example, will sound not by 2 beats, but by 3. There are variants of the dotted rhythm, where the notes have 2 points - in this case, the duration of the sound will be increased by 3/4 part.

• Fermata - is a designation in the form of an arc with a dot inside. When using fermata, the note highlighted by the corresponding sign must be delayed for a moment, which is determined by the performer himself. Some musicians conventionally believe that fermata also lengthens the sound by half, but unlike rhythm, it is only a complement to the note, and not its main part.

• Uniting league - this is how related notes are denoted (there can be 2 or more of them), located at a certain height and going in order one after another. It is necessary to know that under one league notes cannot be repeated, they only form one duration, in which pauses cannot be included either.

Speaking about the duration of the notes, one cannot fail to note the tempo. The tempo denotes the speed of movement, in other words, the speed of the melody playing. There is a classification of tempos, where each of them has its own designation. Let's consider each separately

Slow pace:

• Grave - the melody sounds heavy, very slow, usually reflects the importance of the moment in the piece;
• Largo - the melody also sounds very slow, has a wider sound;
• Adagio - slow, measured and calm sounding;
• Lento - the melody sounds very quiet and slow.

Moderate pace:

• Andante - the melody sounds calm, reminiscent of the pace of a step;
• Moderato - moderate sounding of a calm melody.

Fast pace:

• Allegro - fast, funny melody;
• Vivo, Vivace - the melody also sounds pretty fast and lively;
• Presto - fast sounding, in some moments it is sharp.

When playing the synthesizer, the volume of notes is not given so much importance, since modern devices allow you to adjust the sound, which can lead to a certain distortion of perception. But to study notes, considering their loudness is a must.

When studying the staff, one can notice the volume designation in the intervals, thanks to which the performer can determine in which segment the melody should be amplified, and in which, on the contrary, it should be played more smoothly and quietly.

Let's take a closer look at loudness designations and their interpretation:

• f (forte) - the melody is played loudly;
• p (piano) - the melody is played quietly;
• mf (mezzo-forte) - the melody has a moderately loud sound;
• mp (mezzo-piano) - the melody has a moderately quiet sounding;
• ff (fortissimo) - melody playback is very loud;
• pp (pianissimo) - the melody is played very quietly, barely noticeable.

There are also separate designations for a gradual change in the volume level:

• crescendo - this is a gradual increase in volume;
• diminuendo - this term denotes a gradual decrease in volume.

An integral part of studying notes for a synthesizer is also the measure, which is a fairly large unit of sound. A measure is a certain interval of a melody, which starts from one strong beat and ends with another. When filling out the staff, measures are indicated by a vertical line.

The number of beats per measure, as well as the duration of the sound of each of them, are indicated by numbers, which are fixed at the beginning of the piece, one above the other, after other key symbols.

Let's consider in more detail the features of its definition.

• As mentioned earlier, the time signature is indicated using a fractional number. For example, a value of 3/4 will indicate that each measure consists of 3 beats, and the fourth part represents a measure consisting of one beat.
• The time signature also determines the score into which certain segments of the melody are laid out (1 - 2 - 3 or 1 - 2 - 3 - 4).
• The standard time signature is designated by the Latin letter C and consists of four beats.

Having studied all the main components of musical notation, having memorized all the designations and their interpretation, you can easily read any notes and subsequently reproduce them on a musical instrument. The main thing is to adhere to the sequence in which the staff is read.

• The main scale is in C major, so you need to start reading with it. There are other scales, but they all come from C major, therefore, without reading it, it is impossible to work with other variants of materials.
• The first step is to determine the starting note of the sound row, and also pay attention to its location. Depending on the location of the first note, we can determine if there is a need to add additional lines, as well as their size.
• The notes located on the white keys of the synthesizer form the same C major row. It should be borne in mind that this row consists of only 8 notes.
• At the next stage, it is very important to familiarize yourself with the sound of all the notes, so you should play them in order immediately after reading. You can also train your ear by playing notes randomly and guessing them.
• In order for the result of the lesson to be consolidated, it is recommended to sing the notes from sight, changing and adjusting the intonation to the peculiarities of the melody sound.

In some cases, for ease of study, you can read the notes by numbers, in particular, this applies to song melodies.

The numbers indicate the notes in ascending order, and the keyboard is numbered in accordance with the division of the keys into octaves. It should be noted that all other signs are also present in the designation, and they must be taken into account during the game.

In general, the process of learning notes for a synthesizer is not as difficult as it might seem, the main thing is to be patient and regularly repeat theoretical material, reinforcing knowledge with training.

You will learn how to read sheet music and understand musical notation for a synthesizer in the next video.